Tag: intelligence

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Latest read: The Cell

I finished reading The Cell: Inside The 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It and was a bit disappointed. Not due to the writing, but rather I also read Triple Cross: How bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI–and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him just a couple of months ago and felt it was much more in depth.

the cell

Triple Cross critiques issues addressed as errors in the reporting by the authors John Miller and Michael Stone.  Miller is a noted former investigative journalist with ABC News.
There was much attention drawn to The Cell for two reasons: The ABC movie The Path to 9/11 which was America’s first network movie behind the attack on 9/11 was based upon the book.  Second, it was Miller’s famous 1998 interview with Osama bin Laden.

At that interview Miller learned bin Laden was well on his way to leading al-Qaeda‘s war on America.  The only problem was it was too early for most law enforcement agencies to act upon.

The interview was interesting enough to see how Al was protecting bin Laden and Miller’s recollection of how 15 years old boys were shooting AK-47s next to his ears (as a way to intimidate him) repeatedly as bin Laden arrived for his interview.

Miller shared how he even initially met with bin Laden’s right hand man Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.  It was quite an interview for Miller and helped establish him as a strong source on terrorism for ABC even before the 9/11 attack.

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Latest read: One Day in September

After watching Steven Spielberg‘s Munich I wanted to learn more about the tragic events of the ’72 German Olympic Games.  Simon Reeve’s book One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation “Wrath of God” is a sad and detailed overview of the events surrounding the massacre of 11 Israeli Olympic coaches and athletes.

One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation “Wrath of God”The book includes a new epilogue by Reeve that mixes the ’72 Games with America’s 9/11 regarding the confrontation with terrorists.  Speilberg focused his film upon a controversial book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team. A web search and reading a few blogs regarding the event pointed to Reeve’s work as a well written overview of that tragic summer.

Reeve includes a chapter of a tragic and sad event left out of Speilberg’s movie, The Lillehammer Affair when Israel’s Mossad agents killed an innocent man who they mistook for a Black September leader.  To this day Mossad has never apologized for the killing even though they reached a settlement with the family after more than 20 years.

Reeve’s focus surrounds Black September, Andre Spitzer and his wife Ankie who had just given birth to their daughter Anouk before the games.  Reeve brings Ankie’s life before, during and after into the book.  He writes about the impact of family members whose children, husbands and fathers were killed at Fürstenfeldbruck when German authorities attempted a poorly planned rescue of the athletes.

Reeve also reveals the battle between German police and the terrorists at the airport lasted over two hours while the movie suggests the confrontation lasted only minutes.  Learning the gunfire during the rescue lasted that long only made their deaths all the more tragic and horrifying.

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Education

My latest read – American Spy

As most of the President’s men who served Nixon have released their own accounts of their roles in Wategate, Howard Hunt’s book American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond is no different.  Hunt spent his career in the CIA from the end of WWII to Watergate. I must admit Hunt lived quite a life.  He was also a respected writer having published over 45 books.

He will always be known for his role in the Bay of Pigs and his reported involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy however his book’s focus is Watergate.

I cannot honestly believe how stupid the Republicans were in dealing with Hunt’s team from Miami.  G. Gordon Liddy was the mastermind of Operation Gemstone and directed the overall planning with the White House while Hunt ran the team.   Its amusing to see the amount of detail Hunt provided regarding the planning to break into DNC offices in the Watergate building.

Many believe the break-in was a one time event.  In the last twenty years it has become accepted that Liddy directed four break-ins at the Watergate.

Why?  A member of Hunt’s Miami team, Virgilio Gonzàlez the lock picker actually forgot to bring the correct tools to break into the DNC office.  Hunt’s team had to cancel the operation while Gonzàlez actually fly back to Miami over a weekend to located a correct set of tools to successfully pick the lock.

This just proves how stupid Hunt and Liddy were regarding this group of clowns….the guy who is in charge of picking the lock to get you inside the DNC forgets to bring his lock picking tools?

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Latest read: Triple Cross

My understanding of the events leading up to 9/11 have been shaped by great authors and believe Triple Cross: How bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI–and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him by Peter Lance makes significant contributions to understanding the full breakdown of the US intelligence community.  Many elements of his research and interviews will should shock Americans.

Triple Cross: How bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI–and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop HimLance reveals Al Qaeda had a mole in the NYFD who was able to steal blue prints of the World Trade Center before the 1993 bombing and that US authorities had been tracking Al Qaeda for more than 10 years.

The book’s primary focus is the role of Al Qaeda master spy Ali Mohamed and his work as a mole within US Army intelligence, the CIA and the FBI.  Lance brings a number of key points that were overlooked or more appropriately ignored by the 9/11 Commission.

Patrick Fitzgerald, National Security Coordinator for the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York met multiple times with Ali Mohamed years before 9/11.  During this timeframe Ali Mohamed declared his loyalty to Osama bin Ladin and told Fitzgerald that he did not need a fatwà to attack America.  And yet Fitzgerald did nothing.

Ali Mohamed was identified by the US State Department as Osama bin Ladin‘s first security trainer and helped smuggle Al Qaeda’s co-leader Ayman al-Sawahiri into mosques located in California and North Carolina for recruiting and fund raising.  Lance reveals that even Bin Ladin recruited at mosques in Chicago in the late 1980s.

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Education Globalization Reading

Latest read: The Assault on Reason

Must admit the timing at first seemed strange. I was reading Al Gore’s book The Assault on Reason when Michael Jackson died. Gore has written a book about what has gone wrong in our country. Yet I was able to watch it simply unfold right in front of me. The non-stop media coverage of Jackson’s death will not be forgotten.
Ultimately Gore’s book addresses the change in American values and repeated failures of the Bush Administration yet outlines an opportunity for our country to correct the ship.  The impact of the environment to no surprise is also a strong part of his book.  Gore sets the “mood” right from page one – where he addresses loss of conversation regarding our government’s role to launch the war in Iraq:

Not long before our nation launched the invasion of Iraq, our longest-serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor and said: “This Chamber is, for the most part, silent – ominously, dreadfully silent.  There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war.  There is nothing.  We stand passively mute in the United States Senate.

Gore is right on the mark when he wrote “Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?”  In some ways this book is a case study in the loss of reason, the foundation of our political democracy.  He has modeled this from Thomas Paine‘s The Age of Reason written in 1793. Ultimately Gore wants to bring back core values of our democracy to our fellow countrymen.

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