*****************************Excerpt Review**********************************
You should read this book.,
This review is from: Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack (Hardcover) 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?
Thanks E.. I might purchase the book.