Book Reviews

Right now I've got a stack of books for summer reading. I am half way through Tom Rick's "Fiasco" and have Kilcullen's "The Accidental Guerilla" on standby. I don't think I will formally review them, if only because they have already been reviewed by so many others. I will say, if you haven't read "Fiasco" and you have any doubt as to how badly the post-conflict operations were handled, you need to read this. I am still in shock.

I have this book - Gretchen Peters' "Seeds of Terror" - on my immediate reading list, since I got it from the library. I saw the author on The Daily Show a while ago, and thought this could be a good book. It's very, very good. Ends up that our intel community, the State Dept and the DEA have known about the Taliban and their drug connections in Afghanistan and Pakistan's role supporting the drug industry for about two decades. 

"There wasn't an intelligence failure," said a former senior CIA official who resigned in disgust. "It was a failure to analyze the evidence we had."

Wow, that sounds familiar. You hear a lot of bullshit about the "nexus of terrorism and WMDs." Well, let me tell you, the "nexus between terrorism and drugs" is much more well-documented and apparent. And of course, our government acted on the bullshit and ignored the real threat.

Comments

[Ray]

It's widespread; collective actions from intelligence, as these books show, that is ready for acting upon but going with the bullshit instead. There should be a basic, no nonsense written principle, compulsory, in training; there isn't one. Just a plethora of words surrounding a kernel (which can shift, admittedly) that everyone seems to ignore.
Possession of important information is often regarded as a sufficient end in itself. Unbelievable, when you see that some people are so talented in the business.
Information without constant cyclic- review for action is utterly useless. Increases the work load, but that's too bad. Piles of words need sifting and discarding.

I'm sorry guys if this all seems cloudy, and pontificating, but there is that intelligence without action and it kills people. e.g. 9/11

[Kilo]

Ker-ching. Cheers.
I was suspicious it might be some research paper i could get off the net reformatted into paperback.

BTW isn't it great to finally get through the chapter "How to create an insurgency" in Fiasco and then be met with "How to create an insurgency Part 2".

[J.]

Ray - yes, agree with your philosophy exactly. I think the Japanese have a saying that there are three powers - money, weapons, and intelligence. Seems like we utilize only two out of three (and even then, not really that well). I like to think that I make my living out of "sifting and discarding" the right words to make analyses. Challenge is finding any leaders who are willing to act upon them.

[Sock Puppet of the Great Satan]

I'd just like to lower the standard of discussion by noting that Gretchen Peters looked teh hoyt on the Daily Show.