Customer Reviews

Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(32)

 

 

"Courting Disaster" begins with a note from the author: "You should not be reading this book. I should not have been able to write it." Thiessen examines all the classified info leaked "drip by drip" over the years by government officials and the info the Obama Administration put out in the public domain last year. Really good read. Great insight into the other side of this debate-- namely that, there are many committed public servants in the CIA and other government agencies that are doing all they can to protect us from another 9/11. I wondered when someone would speak up for those that don't generally speak up in their own defense. This book is the answer: well-written; well-researched; riveting read.

This is a very powerful book. It left me with a profound gratitude for all the President Bush and our government did to combat terrorism and protect this country in the aftermath of September 11th. It also left me deeply saddened that we had gotten to a point in this country where this book could even be written. So much of what has been declassified and discontinued should never have been taken off the table in our fight against terrorism - but it was; and Thiessen does his best to set the record straight on what has happened and where we are headed.

Thiessen has compiled a meticulously researched defense of the interrogation policies of the Bush administration, and the subsequent changes that the Obama administration has put into place. As a speech writer for Bush, Thieseen has first hand knowledge and a unique view on many of the events he describes in the book. I understand that the subject of this book is highly political, highly emotional, and very personal to many people. I'm not going to take a large amount of space to try and lay out all of the arguments in the book. I'll simply say this for myself - I do not believe that what the U.S. has done over the past 8 years is torture. I do not believe that the U.S. has lost its moral standing in the world. I do believe that what did was necessary, appropriate, and that it saved American lives. Lastly, I do believe that some of what the Obama administration is doing today is making this country less safe.

I give this book five stars. Regardless of your political leanings, you owe it to yourself to read this book, and read it with an open mind. Look at the facts and make up your own decisions. But whatever you decide, take a moment to be thankful that we have not suffered another major terrorist attack on US soil since September 11th - and ask yourself - why not?

President Bush himself summed it up best during a 2007 speech:

In this new war, the enemy conspires in secret - and often the only source of information on what the terrorists are planning is the terrorists themselves. So we established a program at the Central Intelligence Agency to question key terrorist leaders and the operatives captured in the war on terror. This program has produced critical intelligence that has helped us stop a number of attacks - including a plot to strike the U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, a plot to hijack a passenger plane and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, California, [and] a plot to fly passenger planes into Heathrow Airport and buildings into downtown London. Despite the record of success, and despite the fact that our professionals use lawful techniques, the CIA program has come under renewed criticism in recent weeks. Those who oppose this vital tool in the war on terror need to answer a simple question: Which of the attacks I have just described would they prefer we had not stopped?

If you hate the Bush administration you will hate the book and if you support the Bush administration then you will probably enjoy it. Based on the fact that all the reviews seem to be 5 stars or 1 star it seems that you can at least say that you will have an opinion after you read it. If you feel that water boarding is torture in any situation don't read the book, it will just make you crazy. If you want to water board, beat, and humiliate all the terrorists in revenge then you will be disappointed as well. If what is in the book is true then I think that most people raised in the 1970's as I was will believe that they were treated worse by parents and teachers than most of the terrorists were. I was shocked at just how easy we were on these guys and still got them to talk. Can water boarding be used to torture someone? Of course. Do we water board our troops when they undergo SERE training? Yes. And if all water boarding is torture and torture is illegal then shouldn't somebody be prosecuted for torturing our troops? None of this is black and white. If it were then there wouldn't be any discussion. It does make you think and also points out how other interrogations were conducted in WWII and other conflicts. The details of real torture were hard to read but put what the CIA did in perspective for me.

It's too bad that my friends who bought into the left-wing narrative on this topic will probably never read this book. If they read it with an open mind, they would learn that President Bush's CIA interrogation program was carefully designed and executed with the advice of legal counsel to stay within the law, that no captives were physically harmed by the program, and that the information gained by the program saved literally thousands of innocent lives. None of this is speculation -- it is documented. The open-minded reader would also learn that the program was not only legal and expedient, but morally right. Yes, morally right. The author gives an excellent analysis of the "just war" tradition and its application to this situation. Of course, we shouldn't be reading this book. In order for interrogation to work, the enemy must not know the limits and parameters of the program. When Obama shut down the program and declassified hundreds of documents intending to harm the former administration, he inadvertently gave the enemy information needed to defeat us. He also gave us the opportunity to learn the truth. Those who could not defend the program could now speak openly and a book this detailed could be written. The open-minded reader will also learn that the United States is dramatically less safe as a nation the longer Obama is in office, thanks to his ideology and naivety. Left-wing lawyers are also the target of well-deserved criticism in this book for foolishly fighting to extend full legal rights to enemy combatants committed to killing innocent Americans. Thanks to the dismantling of our defenses by those subscribing to this leftist ideology, the question is not "if" we will be attacked again, but "when." I was shocked to learn that Obama actually admitted to the CIA that his actions have made his job and the job of the CIA to protect us from further attacks more difficult! This admission may well haunt him someday. He probably thinks this is okay because he mistakenly believes that the terrorists want to harm us in response to something we did wrong (like the CIA interrogation program, for example). The open-minded reader would learn that this view is utterly and demonstrably wrong. There is so much confusion about this topic in the leftist-dominated media, it is deeply refreshing to read a clear, detailed, and well-reasoned explanation of the importance of a robust interrogation program.

It's time to stop listening to the pundits talk about interrogation and "torture" and listen to those who actually have saved lives by extracting information from terrorist detainees. We should have gratitude for what these people have done. They have saved thousands of American lives. Thiessen shows how silly and totally off the mark claims are about torture and what really goes on in the interrogation program. Highly recommended.

I think a great indicator of how powerful this book is are the ratings it has received on Amazon. If you look, they are all 5 stars or 1 star. People absolutely love it or downright despise it. No humdrum book could be so polarizing, and the comments make it painfully evident which side, left or right, of the political spectrum the reader is. I think it is an outstanding book, but it is sad what it reveals about what the priorities of the people in charge are.

It is no accident that we haven't been attacked since 9/11...and after reading Thiessen's book, you'll want to write a thank you note to the dedicated members of the CIA - and others - who have helped keep us safe. And you might want to write Thiessen a thank-you as well for a story well told and a job well done.

In the first 20 pages of this book, Marc Thiessen lays out how President Obama, just 48 hours after being in office, significantly damaged the ability of the United States to gather and evaluate actionable intelligence. In the coming months, Attorney General Holder took a series of significant actions that further weakened the CIA and seriously undermined the capabilities of the agency. The information presented by Mr. Thiessen is based on first-hand interviews with numerous members of the Bush administration, and explains in detail how information was gathered and how specific attacks here and abroad were averted in the years follwing 9/11.

Many of the half-truths put forth by Mr. Holder and the main stream media during the middle of 2009 are refuted, in detail. After reading this book, it is easy to see how the Christmas Day bombing attempt caught the United States completely by surprise. The relevations by the members of the Obama administration before Congressional committees during the week of January 21, 2010 effectively support the premise that the current administration is totally unprepared to deal with captured terrorists. In less than a year President Obama and AG Holder effectively eliminated the CIA's ability to deal with captured terrorists, and replaced it with a program under the control of the FBI that was, and is, totally unprepared to deal with events similar to those of Christmas Day.

This book is a "must-read" for anyone who cares about the security of our nation, and wants to know why the policies of the previous administration were effective in keeping us safe.

Interesting synopsis of the radical changes made in the CIA operating procedures. The people who made the changes, their ramifications, and the possible future of American security.

The current administration (Obama) has everyone running scared. The military is being told to act as police and peacemakers between Islamic factions. That isn't their job. One of our Special Forces guys was interrogated by our people for three days because he shot an insurgent in Iraq. There's something wrong with this picture.