Customer Reviews

They Just Don't Get It: How Washington Is Still Compromising Your Safety--and What You Can Do About It

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Col. David Hunt has written a superb plan for fighting the war on terror. It is bold, decisive, and politically incorrect. It is also far better than what we are doing or anyone else is talking about.

The author traces the history of terrorism from the 1972 Munich Olympics through 9/11 and beyond. He shows how our leaders have been ineffective in responding. He is not partisan. He reviews botches by Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush.

He also critiques many problems with our current approach to dealing with terrorists. Some of those include the following: Failing to use the best troops (special ops.) effectively and fully, allowing Pakistan to harbor bin Laden, failing to secure the Iraqi borders allowing the Syrians and Iranians to continue to supply terrorists, continuing to be cozy with the Saudis in spite of their financing of terror, having too much bureaucracy interfering with decision making, and many more.

Along with the problems, the author also presents numerous solutions. Some of those are politically incorrect; Some may seem outrageous. Most are worthwhile and should be pondered and discussed. Some of his ideas (including some highly controversial ones) are as follows: a total reorganization of intelligence with unity of command, de-bureaucratizing the defense and intelligence arenas, creation of a 'Terrorist Killing Agency', mandatory national service (not necessarily military) as a way to overcome personnel shortages, and the elimination of the ill conceived and nonsensical color coding system that the Homeland Security Dept. created. There are many more as well.

While I certainly don't agree with all of his ideas, I do think that every American elected official and voter should read this book. Its ideas should be debated and considered. If several of these were implemented, we would all be much safer.

In his mundane, conversational style, Colonel Hunt cites many of the terrorist attacks which have killed innocent citizens, profiles the killers responsible for these atrocities and offers political as well as logistical solutions to combat terrorists in this insurgent style of war.

Detractors will hurl insults at the messenger and his message to complicate his clearly stated, basic premise: This is not a traditional war. We must retaliate against these killers using our special forces, trained to defeat terrorist aggression without bureaucratic interference from politicians and the military hierarchy.

This book is must read for all who understandably feel confused by the doublespeak of our politicians, military leaders and journalists.

I'm reviewing the 2006 paperback edition of this book, and it has an extra dozen pages of material. If you want to get this book, I recommend the paperback edition.

I think all of us ought to read this book. It has some practical advice for how to deal with those who are at war with us. I don't agree with everything David Hunt says here, but it is all sincere and straightforward.

The author, a retired U.S. army colonel, shows us how badly the war on terrorism has been going. And he starts with the bungled efforts to save the hostages during the Munich Olympic Games in 1972, followed by the absurd release of the three captured terrorists. This failure to deal with murderers has become part of a pattern that we all need to do something about.

After reading this book, it dawned on me that the first hint I had that terrorists were simply going to start getting away with murder systematically was in 1974, when Arafat, a horrible thug, was allowed to address the United Nations. Arafat was not arrested, put on trial, and executed. Instead, he was applauded at the UN! And after some thought, I realized that this was more than a blunder. It was a blow to human civilization. Yes, it was a minor blow. But the precedent was scary. And given what happened, I had to hold all of human society at least partially responsible for this outrage.

Hunt explains part of the reason why nobody killed Arafat decades ago. It turns out that in a very serious sense, "the United States does not want Israel to defeat its enemies." There really is a "small but powerful" lobby inside the United States State Department that wrongly regards Israel as the major problem in the region. And it "managed to convince five American administrations that it was not in our best interests to kill Yasser `the Rat Man' Arafat." Hunt asks how ending the daily slaughter of innocents could not be in our best interests.

There is more sound advice on our response to terrorism. Clearly, some responses put some of our rights at risk, and they could lead to trouble for, say, loyal American Muslims. Hunt warns us that "stripping away the rights of our citizens doesn't make us safer; it puts us in a different kind of danger." And he warns us not to turn against our own (Muslim) citizens in this fight. Such acts of bigotry would simply create unnecessary divisiveness and lose us assets in our fight.

In addition, we see some advice to counter the enormous amount of anti-American propaganda. Not silence it. Just counter it, so that it does not stand unchallenged.

Throughout the book, we see advice to do something useful as opposed to creating more bureaucracy. One example is the rather dubious looking "color codes" which supposedly alert us to the severity of a terrorist threat. Hunt wisely calls this idea "amazingly stupid." And the author tells us how, in 2004, Senator Edward Kennedy was kept off a plane flight that he had taken regularly for forty-two years because a suspected terrorist used "Edward Kennedy" as an alias. That may sound funny, but Hunt points out that it isn't. If even Kennedy can't avoid such problems at the airport, we're making a serious error somewhere.

I highly recommend this book.

Col. David Hunt's book is a good read. He is not the most polished writer around -- the book is written more like an extended conversation -- but he gets his points across. The book tends to get redundant at times, but it remains an interesting book to read which one can easily complete in one evening or two. If even a small fraction of what Hunt alledges is true, Americans should be very concerned about our safety and the glaring lack of leadership in our country.

David Hunt is a no nonsense military man who I personally wish were in charge of our war on terror.

Of the 30 books I've read over the last year, this is the worst. If I were to equate this with anything written in the last 5 years it would be the last book by Ann Colter. I'm glad I forgot the title of that book. An uneducated person may like books like this, but can come away from the experience with a pedestrian view of history.

Much of what Col Hunt has to say is quite interesting and I agree with his views and arguments, however, the book is more like a +200 page rant and rave than a well written book. I felt like he was just complaining most of the time about what's wrong with politicians and he offers "simple" solutions to all of our problems which are entirely unrealistic. It's a good example of why are our government is not run by the military and why we need civilians ultimately in control. A great man, who has served his country with great honor, but in my view is not a very good author. Ultimately, I did not enjoy this book, and struggled to force myself to finish it.

"Find the bad guys and kill them", "unleash the SEAL and DELTA forces everywhere in the world to solve America's problems by assassinating the bad guys" is the Colonel's ultimate solution for securing America and Israel. It is a bad reputation for the military to produce such dull minded people. Those oversimplify matters with no restrain of rationality.

TKA: Terror Killing Agency is one of the Colonel's gadgets in dealing with the bad guys. The author considers himself an expert in managing violence and assassination and never doubts his irrational approach by asking questions such as: Who are the bad guys? How many are there? Where are they hiding? What keeps them growing? Or what drives them to such desperate outcome?

The author throws the blame on every figure of authority for the sake of gaining public sympathy, yet without offering compelling alternatives. He worries about the safety of Israeli children, yet never hints to the Palestinian children. Assassinating Yasser Arafat is a noble goal and aiding Israel in its racist discrimination against non Jew is perfectly congruent with his American ideals. Israel is run with generals and military experts since its inception which got it in such dismal state of affairs with no friends but the US, no solution but wars.

Ideas such as democracy, justice, fairness, liberty, and pursuit of happiness could secure America more than irrationally driven anger and vengeance. Seeking the root cause of problems could render lasting solution that is hard to find by other short sighted means. The tunnel vision of militarily-minded folks demonstrates the underdeveloped intellectual reasoning in solving problems that involves intricate historic, cultural, and geographical variables. Aggression and fear are the only tools in the repertoire of militarily educated folks.

The irony of contemporary history is vividly evident in such outrageous military doctrines that emphasize technical wizardry as an ultimate safeguard to protect Nazism, Imperialism, and apartheid, the former had been defeated disgracefully by virtue of its impulsive madness and expansionism. The second has been transformed from the French and British colonialism to the American imperialism. Similarly, apartheid had been defeated in America and South Africa, yet still kicking and thriving in Israel with the support of its paternal Imperialistic America.


Mohamed F. El-Hewie
Author of
Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training