Superb Book, Shows what OPEN Sources Provided, Great Speaker,
January 25, 2004
Zachary Abuza
I have the advantage, in reviewing this book, of having heard the author present his views in a superb illustrated briefing that held 150 government intelligence professionals glued into their seats and fixated on the author's rapid-fire compelling presentation.This man is a brilliant scholar who has returned to the almost lost art of combining persistent field work with foreign language open sources (both printed and oral), and thoughtful analysis.
Across the board, from his narrative to his footnotes to his bibliography to his index, this book is as good as it gets. This is a world-class contribution to our understanding in three areas: 1) what can be known about terrorism and militant Islam from open sources of information (but is being largely ignored by the so-called professional intelligence agencies that are obsessing on secret sources and methods; 2) what governments in Southeast Asia are and are not doing about it (in many cases, abusing American naiveté or being put off by American arrogance; and 3) where militant Islam is going in this area–be afraid, be very afraid.
If all academics were this good, we would not need spies. This book and this author represent the very best scholarship that one could ask for. The author is the Program Director for East Asian Studies and associate professor of international politics at Simmons College. Goggling him yields a fine selection of interviews and Congressional testimony.
Uses Fiction to Illuminate Non-Fictional Scenario,
December 7, 2003
Dan Brown
Although I rarely read or review fiction, this book leaped into my consciousness, in part because I just reviewed a book on the Vatican and its use of spies as well as its vulnerability to spies from Italy and Germany, among others, and because I am very interested in the concepts of both institutional corruption vis a vis historical myths, and the alleged infallibility of the pope. More recently, I have taken an interest in religious subversion of national governments and policies, and strongly recommend Stephen Mumford's “The Life & Death of NSSM 200: How the Destruction of Political Will Doomed a U. S. Population Policy”, which is still available from Amazon via the used book channels.The Da Vinci Code is most interesting, not because of its bashing of Opus Dei, but because it addresses what may be the core injustice in Catholicism (I was raised a Jesuit Catholic in Colombia, with roots in Spain): the concealment of the normal sexuality of Jesus, his marriage, and the fact that until the mid-1800's, the Church did not dare to claim that the Pope was infallible, and that all that preceded that claim was based merely on a man's prophecies. Jesus, in other words, can not lay any greater claim to our faith than Mohammed.Most relevant to me, as I consider the need for elevating women to positions of power because they are more intuitive, more integrative, and less confrontational than men, was the book's discussion of the origins of paganism (not satanic at all, but rather worshiping Mother Earth and specifically the human female mothers from whom life obviously emerged) and the manner in which the Catholic Church deliberately set out to slander Mary Magdalene, making her out to be a whore rather than the spouse of Jesus (from whom issue came), and murdering five million women in a witch-hunt and global psychological operations against women that has been mirrored by Islam in many ways, and that must, if we are to survive, be reversed by thoughtful people willing to think for themselves.
This book, riveting in every way, suggested to me that we the people need to doubt the integrity and intentions of all our institutions, but especially the Catholic Church; and that we need to reverse the centuries of discrimination against women, restore the matriarchal roots of society, and again begin to respect the natural relationship between ourselves and the Earth that we have defiled precisely because we have allowed men to abuse women, and corporations to assume legal manly personalities abusive of governments and the tax-payer.
This is a revolutionary book. If it causes you to question authority and re-think your relationships, you cannot have made a better purchase.
Although I agree with some reviewer's who feel that this book is mostly about Howard Cutler's efforts to draw out the Dalai Lama, I also feel that the Dalai Lama is a full party to this effort, is no fool, and understands that lending his name to this book could be helpful in reaching many many more people than would every give a hoot about anything Howard Cutler, MD, might have to say. On that basis, I give the book a solid four stars.
Although Peter Drucker and I have both written about “work as a calling” and the importance of finding joy in what you do, and that could serve as a one-sentence summary of the book, there is more to this book than that. Taken with patience, and used as a mind-calming exercise to slowly read a chapter or two and then apply it to one's own (presumably uncalm) work environment, the book could serve as a touchstone for “backing off” and reflecting.
There are a number of books on Zen Buddhism, and my very own all time favorite, not by a Zen Buddhist, on Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, and they all seem to boil down to fulfillment within the circumstances, making the most of what you have, treating everyone as an equal, and being glad you are not in a Turkish jail on drug charges–life could be worse.
I bought the book, the Dalai Lama lent his name to it, it can't be any worse for you that a diet drink loaded with Nutra-Sweet.
Unique Blend of Lessons Learned and Tutorial on Intelligence,
September 24, 2003
Cees Wiebes
This is a superb publication. An American, who would never have received the kind of direct official support provided to the author by the government of The Netherlands, could not have written it.This is the only book that I know of that fully integrates deliberate studies of UN intelligence; Western and NATO intelligence (which the author correctly notes does not exist); Dutch intelligence; and belligerent party intelligence.
Several recurring themes of lasting value emerged from my reading of this book:
1) The UN is dangerously devoid of intelligence qua decision-support. The culture of the UN leadership, the UN bureaucracy, and the UN delegates is one that places a higher priority on the semblance–the mockery–of lip service to open sources and legal methods, while sacrificing the lives of UN forces in the field. One cannot read this book, and its superb documentation of how UN Force Commander after UN Force Commander pleaded for intelligence support, only to be told no by the staff in New York, without becoming very angry. This book makes it perfectly clear that the UN leadership failed the Croats, the Serbs, and the international peacekeepers, in every possible way. Toward the end of the book the author also focuses on the UN as a source for the belligerents, i.e. UN incapacity for operational security and secure communications in fact makes it a primary source for belligerents seeking to kill one another.
2) The West failed in Bosnia in part because it became over-reliant on technical intelligence (which it could not process or analyze with sufficient speed and reliability), and did not have adequate numbers of competent clandestine Human Intelligence (HUMINT) or even ground-truth observers in the region. A contributing source of failure was the evidently deliberate decision on the part of the Clinton White House to downplay the conflict and to withhold such intelligence warning as they did have from the UN, in the misplaced belief that sharing such information would interfere with the peace process. Tens of thousands died because of Clinton White House irresponsibility.
3) Intelligence “liaison” or structured sharing across national boundaries, was an ungodly mess made worse by the inherent biases and rose-colored glasses worn by the Americans and the British on one side, and the French and the Germans on the other. “Wishful thinking” by policy makers interfered with proper assessments of the relative condition and intentions of the various belligerents.
4) The CIA clandestine endeavor was split, with one Station operating out of Sarajevo and another out of Zagreb, and no overall coordination or integration of sources and reports.
5) Civil Affairs (CA) as a military occupational specialty is blown forever by CIA Directorate of Operations (DO) abuses, most without the permission of the U.S. European theater commander. CIA/DO managers should be disciplined for this breach of internal US government protocols.
6) The Dutch were not ready to field a major operational or tactical intelligence support architecture, and in-fighting among various elements prevented the various analysts from making the most of what little they could glean from varied sources. The same was actually true of all Western intelligence communities–all had other priorities and too few resources [although language deficiencies are not emphasized by the author, one presumed a grotesque lack of required competencies across the Croat and Serb dialects as well as Yugoslavian, Turkish, and Arabic]. In the view of a senior officer whose quotations close Chapter 3, heads should be rolling for dereliction of duty–although the subject refers only to the Dutch, the reviewer would add US and British heads as well.
7) The book excels–is remarkable and perhaps unique–for its discussion of the secret arms supplies–not only the routes, the providers, the landing zone delivery means–but the active violation by the US of the embargo, and the active role of US Special Forces in violating the embargo without a covert action “finding”, and hence also in violation of US law. Other nations were equally at fault. It is clear from the book that the UN needs not only operational and tactical intelligence for the specific area of operations, but an extended intelligence and operational capability sufficient to *interdict* incoming arms to the belligerents. This book may well be the single best reference on this topic.
8) The sections of the book on signals and imagery intelligence are a work of art, combining historical scholarship with original research and a very fine tutorial aspect. The listing of the 11 disadvantages of SIGINT (pages 224-228) is the finest I have ever seen. The bottom line in both instances is: too much collection, too little processing and analysis. The author uses a remarkable quote from a former Director of the National Security Agency to make this point: good news is that we can exploit a million messages a day; bad news is that we don't know which million out of the billions we capture to do… Also interesting is the detailed accounting of belligerent party competencies in SIGINT and IMINT, to include the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and advanced methods.
9) The book ends with two notes that I choose to emphasize, although the author makes many valuable observations in his conclusions that I will not repeat here: first, support to UN operations was the *fifth* priority for Western intelligence, coming after force protection, after ground truth observation, after support for air targeting, and after support for NATO ground troop planning; and second, Doctors Without Borders, a non-governmental organization, was the *only* entity to get true validated warning of the Srebrenica genocide.
The index is terrible-names only. Properly indexing the book for references to all intelligence sources and methods as well as events and practices, would make it 2X to 3X more valuable as a basic reference.
This book is highly recommended and a “must have” for every national security and international affairs library, and for every professional interested in peacekeeping intelligence.
Breaks with Conventional Wisdom; Provocative; Incomplete,
July 26, 2003
David Alvarez
This is quite an extraordinary work. It seeks to correct the impression, held by Allen Dulles, many world leaders, and myself, that the Vatican, as with other select religious organizations like B'Nai Brith, is a world-class intelligence network.Although the book spends as much time discussing efforts by the Italians, Germans, and others to penetrate the Vatican, as it does discussing the Vatican's mixed and often non-existent intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities, on balance this is an extremely good personal effort, based on some unique documents and research, and it can be regarded as a cornerstone for any future research into Vatican intelligence.
The book suggested to me three “big” ideas that need to be considered by every national intelligence service:
1) Structure and capabilties are needed to study religious intelligence and counterintelligence. Renegade mid-level drop-outs from the specified religious order should be identified and leveraged as required. Taking the Muslim brotherhood as an example (see Robert Baer's new book, SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL), it is absolutely unforgivable and unprofessional of both the US Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency to have been prevented from studying the fundementalist and extremist religious movements in Arabia from the 1970's forward. Bottom line: we need to have relgious “orders of battle” and a clear understanding of what this important international player has in the way of capabilities and perceptions.
2) Secure communications make a very important contribution to candor and accuracy. Perhaps the most interesting part of the author's story can be found in his many annecdotes about how lack of a secure communications system led to self-deception, fantasy, conspiracy, and inaccuracy. The author is also quite credible in discussing the mediocrity of most Papal cryptographic systems, the lack of manpower and resources for improving this, and the negative results that came about because of a lack of a reliable and truly trusted communications system.
3)Finally, while the author does not cover Vatican betrayals of its own people through the Inquisition, of Muslims through the Crusades, and of Jews during the Holocaust, it is clear from this book that for all its limitations, the Catholic Church is an important global player whose local nuncios and bishops and priests and lay personnel can and should be legally and ethically leveraged for sounder understandings across many cultural divides. I would go so far as to resurface Richard Falk's 1970's idea about a world council of peoples and religions, with a twist: each Foreign Ministry must establish a separate Bureau of Religious Understanding, and devote considerable resources to studying and interacting with religious organizations (and cults, although these can be dealt with on a confrontational law enforcement basis).
Religons are one of the seven tribes of intelligence (the others are national, military, law enforcement, business, academic, and NGO-media). The author has made a very important contribution here (albeit with no help from the publisher–the index *stinks*). This book is highly recommended for adult students of intelligence, for policy makers, for religous leaders, and for citizens interested in how their religious affiliation could be legally employed (or illegally abused) in the pursuit of a global information society.
US Terrorism, Open Sources, and Federal Ineptitude,
May 24, 2003
Anonymous
WARNING NOTICE: Reliable sources in the counter-terrorism world inform me that this book is partly fiction in that the author is systematically integrating the accomplishments of others into her story as if they were her own. I have, however, decided to leave my review intact because she tells a very good story and its key points are right on target. I recommend the book for purchase by all–on balance it is a fine contribution.—-
Although there are no endorsements or other means of validating the truth of this book, and “woman with four-children” may be a cover for a hyper-active Israeli man in his mid-20's who is of Arab descent, it reads with enormous credibility, it is loaded with correct references, and its many anecdotes about both the value of public records (open sources) and U.S. federal government ineptitude (especially the FBI but also including State, AID, INS, and the CIA) are in my opinion spot on.
This book is an excellent companion to Steven Emerson's book, AMERICAN JIHAD: The Terrorists Living Among Us. Indeed, it has occurred to me that the anonymous author of this book is, if not working directly for Emerson, then possibly in one of the Jewish-funded research elements that he relies upon for research assistance.
Among the many compelling points that I found to recommend the purchase and reading of this book are:
1) Israeli McCarthyism against any Jew willing to express need for a Palestinian state as part of regional stabilization
2) The Rabin assassination as the Israeli equivalent of the US Kennedy assassination–everyone remembers where they were
3) The vital importance of reading all Islamic charity information in Arabic, where the messages are violent and subversive–English for the fund-raising, Arabic for the incitement to terrorism
4) The catastrophic cost of American naivete pre-9-11 in putting all religious and charitable organizations off limits to US counterintelligence, however inept it might have been
5) The extraordinary utility of public records, not just within the US but from Israel and the Arab states, in nailing down relationships among charitable organizations, Saudi financiers, and specific individual terrorists
6) The extraordinary utility of historical (back ten years) Arabic newsletters and newspapers in nailing threatening statements and jihad intentions of people applying for US citizenship or already US citizens, because the federal government has no clue how to do proper open source research
7) The accuracy of the 1990 predictions of American proponents of jihad who claimed that the US's ultimate intent was to “occupy the Arab and Islamic oil sources”
8) The degree to which African Americans have been pulled into the jihad-aspects of Muslim extremism as practiced and preached in the US
9) The ineptitude of the FBI's “knock knock” neighborhood canvassing approach to basic information, completelely eschewing proper open source research and proper undercover collection
10) The ineptitude of the FBI in particular, but the US government in general, in sharing information about terrorists and their organizations (we are amused to note that Aqil Collins, in My Jihad, is virulent on this topic–evidently one thing both mujahids and Israeli counter-terrorism researchers can agree upon is that the FBI was and remains inept)
11) The suspect loyalties and competence of the FBI liaison to Saudi Arabia, who is of Muslim faith and refused to do proper undercover work against other Muslims while posted in the US
12) The pervasive and deep Saudi financial links to all aspects of US Muslim extremism, to include funding for mosques intended to be centers for radicalization over the long term
13) The early open source literature on how Bin Laden decided to apply his construction expertise to solving both smuggling and storage and protection issues in Afghanistan (we have in other reviews noted the importance of the book on Vietnamese tunnels, titled “The Tunnels of Cu Chi”)
As I finished the book, I agreed completely with the author's basic premise, to the effect that open source information about US terrorist and charity ties, properly validated, should be posted to the Internet for all to see. This appears to be the only proper response to continuing federal ineptitude. The author is compelling in stating that in the years since 9-11, very little has improved. The FBI continues to refuse to share, the State Department continues to be incompetent at screening terrorists out (and in one instance, allowed the Agency for International Development to offer funding to a known terrorist organization), the list goes on.
This is a very impressive personal account. The author's proven accomplishments, well-documented in the book, lend credence to the value of open sources and methods in the war on terrorism–and lend credence to the legitimate concerns of citizens who are overly trusting in their federal government, which appears to still be, 2 years after 9-11, massively inept.
5.0 out of 5 stars You Get the Government You Deserve…., May 28, 2002
This book should be read in conjunction with Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy Vidal's book should be subtitled “you get the government you deserve.”
I cannot think of a book that has depressed me more. There are three underlying issues that make this book vitally important to anyone who cares to claim the title of “citizen:”
1) Citizens need to understand what their government is doing in the name of America, to the rest of the world. “Ignorance is not an excuse.” All of the other books I have reviewed (“see more about me” should really say “see my other reviews”) are designed to help citizens evaluate and then vote wisely in relation to how our elected representatives are handling national security affairs–really, really badly.
