The Indispensable Bookshelf: The Books You absolutely, Positively, Must Read

A few years ago I wrote a book for young Christians graduating from high school or college on the theme of how best to prepare to influence the world, "In But Not Of." It has sold steadily, and occasionally I hear from a reader who especially appreciated the reading list I provided for those who had been ill-served by their history teachers and professors. It is difficult to make sense of the world if you don't know the stories of the Greeks, the Romans, and the English, and so I suggested titles that could give any persistent reader a spine of history on which to hang their more contemporary reading.

Now in the second half of the first decade of a long war with Islamism fascism, a second reading list is necessary. There are many good books out there, but for anyone who has constraints on their time but a desire to know how we arrived here and what is ahead, there are four indispensable books, and an order in which to read them. Any serious and patriotic high school history teacher or freshman survey course professor would do well to throw out the syllabus and assign these books. At the end of this course of reading, the students would at least be prepared for the years ahead.

The first task the booklist will complete is to educate the reader to know the enemy --where did the Salafist al Qaeda come from, and why do they act with such savage barbarity. The New Yorker's Lawrence Wright has recently come out with The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Path to 9/11. This is an amazing work of history and literature, a single volume history not just of al Qaeda, but of the Saudi Arabia and Egypt that nursed this menace, and of the incompetence of the West in recognizing much less combating it. Wright's achievement deserves every award in publishing, but mostly it deserves wide readership if the country is to be prepared for the long struggle ahead.

The second book will educate civilians on the U.S. military and how it has responded --heroically and with astonishing competence-- to the new war. Robert Kaplan's Imperial Grunts, just out in a new paperback edition, is written by another extraordinary magazine reporter (Kaplan is a correspondent for The Atlantic) who has spent years traveling to remote and often dangerous places --Yemen, the border of Columbia and Venezuela, Mongolia and of course Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere-- in order to observe the U.S. military respond to the threat and refit its tactics to the new war. Even as Wright is careful to lay out the extent of the threat, Kaplan is diligent in presenting the reasons why America can have great confidence in its arms and the men and women who bear them.

The political situation at home and in the countries of our allies is the next subject on which candor backed by analysis is needed, and Mark Steyn's America Alone is exactly the sort of unsparing dose of realism that Americans need to absorb, and soon. The book can be ordered now, but won't be delivered for a couple of weeks. I had the great privilege of reading the proofs, and know that Steyn's assessment of the society-wide Stockholm syndrome we find our nation imprisoned in is a cause for deep concern. The war cannot be won without political will expressed by elected officials and media. Our enemies have a ferocious resolve, as does our military. Our politicians, other than George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and some members of their Administration, have not evidenced such resolve or even realism. Other than Tony Blair, John Howard, Pervez Musharraf and Manmohan Singh our "allies" are not presently led by men or women of extraordinary purpose. This is a critical deficit, and it needs to be remedied soon as Bush and Blair will soon be off the world stage.

The last book is William Manchester's second volume of his Churchill biography: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932-1940. Here is a study in individual honor, candor, purpose and courage. Send one to your Congressman or Senator.

Anyone who actually reads these four volumes will certainly be serious, informed, and resolute. They will know the score, long before the next awful thing happens.

"Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror"

By Richard Miniter
Regnery Publishing

Steve Forbes, Forbes, September 15, 2003
The author tapped an extraordinary array of sources.... This book delivers a devastating blow to the former President's reputation.

Robert D. Novak, The Washington Post, September 1, 2003
...based on direct, on-the-record quotes from participants.... Miniter has written a bitter indictment of the American president.

Caspar Weinberger, Washington Times, September 2, 2003
...a valuable history that should serve as a training manual in how not to run a foreign policy.

Rush Limbaugh, September 2, 2003
I am so happy to finally see this book by Richard Miniter titled, "Losing Bin Laden."

Lieutenant Colonel Robert
...Losing bin Laden is an insightful and invaluable read. This is the Clinton administration I knew and lived.

Robert D. Novak, The Washington Post, September 1, 2003
based on direct, on-the-record quotes from participants.... Miniter has written a bitter indictment of the American president.

Caspar Weinberger, Washington Times, September 2, 2003
remarkably well-researched.... "Losing bin Laden" is a valuable history that should serve as a training manual in how not

Rush Limbaugh, September 2, 2003
I am so happy to finally see this book by Richard Miniter titled, "Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures

Lieutenant Colonel Robert
Losing bin Laden is an insightful and invaluable read. This is the Clinton administration I knew and lived.

Book Description
Journalist Richard Miniter brings us the shocking story of how Bill Clinton repeatedly let Osama bin Laden slip through his fingers.

From the Inside Flap
Years before the public knew about bin Laden, Bill Clinton did. Bin Laden first attacked Americans during Clinton's presidential transition in December 1992. He struck again at the World Trade Center in February 1993. Over the next eight years the arch-terrorist's attacks would escalate, killing hundreds and wounding thousands--while Clinton did his best to stymie the FBI and CIA, and refused to wage a real war on terror.
Why?

The answer is here in investigative reporter Richard Miniter's stunning exposé that includes exclusive interviews with both of Clinton's National Security Advisors, Clinton's counterterrorism czar, his first Director of Central Intelligence, his Secretary of State, top CIA and FBI agents, lawmakers from both parties and foreign intelligence officials from France, Sudan, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as on-the-scene coverage from Sudan, Egypt, and elsewhere.

In Losing bin Laden you'll learn:

1)The never-before-told story of the Saudi government attempt to assasinate bin Laden 2)Why Bill Clinton refused to meet with his first Director of Central Intelligence 3)Drawn from secret Sudanese intelligence files, the never-before-told story of bin Laden's role in shooting down America's Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu, Somalia--and how Clinton manipulated the news media to keep the worst off America's TV screens 4)How Clinton ignored intelligence and offers of cooperation against bin Laden from several Muslim countries 5)The 1993 World Trade Center attack--why Clinton refused to believe it had been bombed; why the CIA was kept out of the investigation; and how one of the FBI's most trusted informants was actually a double agent working for bin Laden 6)Why the CIA never funded bin Laden--despite the liberal myths 7)The untold story of a respected congressman who repeatedly warned Clinton officials about bin Laden in 1993--and why he was ignored 8)Revealed for the first time: how Clinton and a democratic senator stopped the CIA from hiring Arabic translators--while phone intercepts from bin Laden remained untranslated 9)How the Predator spy plane--which spotted bin Laden three times--was grounded by bureaucratic infighting 10)Plus much more, including appendices of secret documents and photos, as well as the established links between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein's Iraq

Losing bin Laden is a dramatic, page-turning read, a riveting account of a terror war that bin Laden openly declared, but that Clinton left largely unfought. With a pounding narrative, upclose characters, and detailed scenes, it takes you inside the Oval Office, the White House Situation Room, and some of the deadliest terrorist cells that America has ever faced. If Clinton had fought back, the attacks on September 11, 2001 might never have happened.

Losing bin Laden is a story--and one hell of a lesson--that the reader will never forget.

About the Author
Richard Miniter is an investigative journalist and author. He was a member of the award-winning Sunday Times (of London) investigative team whose four-part series traced the secret war between Clinton and bin Laden. He appears regularly on Fox News to discuss al Qaeda and global terrorism. Miniter was an editorial page writer at the Wall Street Journal Europe, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com, and has written for The Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, National Review, Reader's Digest, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and many other publications. His work has been recognized by the National Press Club and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Currently, he is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the New Europe, a Brussels-based think tank, and divides his time between Washington, D.C. and Brussels, Belgium.

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