Rating: 
Summary: The Saudis: Our friends and our worst nightmares
Review: Ex-CIA operative Robert Baer obviously doesn't have a very high opinion of the Saudis judging from his title, and he clearly explains why no one really should. If what Baer says is true, we should be ashamed of our strong support of the ridiculously corrupt and autocratic regime that is the Saudi royal family. Saudi Arabia is currently in a very precarious state. A king incapacitated by a stroke sits on top of a heap of money and power hungry princes, corrupt advisors and associates, and what other detritus makes up the royal family. To compound the problems generated by the profligacy and corruption of the royal family is the Islamist movement that would like nothing more than to see the royal family disappear from their holy land. Ironically enough, in order to maintain a facade of religious devotion to take attention away from the royal family's favorite pasttimes (prostitutes, alcohol, big business, etc.), the Saudis have built thousands of religious schools (madrasahs) that teach their extremely conservative version of Islam called Wahhabism. Unfortunately, the very students trained at these schools now view the Saudi royal family's existence as contrary to what they have been taught. Just keep in mind that quite a number of al-Qaeda's operatives have been trained in Saudi-sponsored madrasahs.Baer spent a great deal of time in the Middle East and the Central Asian republics getting to know about the budding Islamist movements in those regions. Unfortunately, the more he became concerned about the threats presented by terrorists, many who are funded surrepitiously by the Saudis, the more he realized that his own government was reluctant to antagonize them. The root of the problem is, of course, oil. With a significant percentage of the world's oil reserves sitting underneath Saudi soil, the US has found itself repeatedly overlooking egregious errors and questionable moves made by the Saudis so as not to endanger the oil supply that we are dependent upon. Why have the Khobar attacks not been investigated thoroughly? Why has the US still not been able to conduct a full investigation into the terrorist underworld in Saudi Arabia that produced 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers? Why does the US continue to defend the Saudis despite their continued funding of terrorist organizations. Oil, oil, oil! Baer describes in detail the crimes perpetrated by the Saudis, but thankfully, he does not forget the other major player responsible for the present situation - the US. Baer is rightfully dienchanted with US policy toward the Middle East and especially Saudi Arabia. The tragedy of 9/11 is often viewed myopically as a terrible crime committed against innocent people. It is indeed so if we are only considering the act itself. However, it should not be overlooked as Baer reminds us throughout his book that the US's soft policy toward Saudi Arabia secondary to it's addiction to oil has allowed terrorist organizations to fluorish for the last several decades. 9/11 is only the largest expression of the terrorists' hatred for us, but it is certainly not the last. If we continue our present policies of overlooking Saudi complicity in nurturing these organizations for the sake of the oil business then we should only expect further attacks on our soil and abroad. Baer does a fantastic job of taking us to places we've never been and that few are priveleged to see. He helps us understand the role of CIA agents such as himself in gathering intelligence, and he vividly describes the frustration he faced when his own government chose to ignore the information that he gathered. Most importantly, he exposes our government's attitudes toward Saudi Arabia which are partially responsible for the situation we find ourselves in today. I highly recommend this book for those who want to understand that the problem is not so much "us vs. them" as it is "us and them."
Rating:
Summary: OK--the sky really IS falling
Review: After reading this book and Baer's earlier book, SEE NO EVIL, a number of things became depressingly clear to me: *In a country who runs its foreign policy based on "interests, not friends" (or principles, for that matter) we are doomed to make stupid, arrogant and avoidable mistakes--over and over again. *Money will be the death of us. *Ignorance is not an excuse -- not for me and not for my country. *It might not be a BAD thing to get the oil bidness out of the White House--and Congress and.....oh, pretty much anywhere people have control over armies or taxes. I won't go into the specifics (see wizardofuz's review), but given Baer's years of experience on the inside, it's hard not to treat this stuff as credible, ergo apalling. (Baer's periodic table thumping and cynicism can be excused (like Richard Clarke's alleged Bush-bashing) as the result of years of banging his head against the wall of bureaucratic inertia.) The book is highly readable, full of recognizeable incidents, names and places. Instead of basing the problems in Islam, Baer puts the focus squarely on the politcs-as-usual/business-as-usual environment of the rich, powerful and incestuously interconnected. It won't leave you feeling particularly pleased with your elected government, but at least you'll have something concrete to write them about. I recommend this book as a good, first-person primer on the Byzantine relationship(s) between the US and the Saudis. AND WHAT IF......since the Bushes have been in the bidness with the Saudis for a long while, and Wolfowitz and Perle, et al, had that nice big axe to grind, and things were going from bad to worse anyway over there, just WHAT IF all those boys in the west wing decided to secure another, contollable source of black gold while the gettin' was good, before the House of Saud just falls over and the whole area just goes to hell in a handbasket?.......I mean, I'm just sayin' -- what if......
Rating:
Summary: Interesting read...sometimes off on tangeants.
Review: This was recommended to me about six months ago. I found it a very interesting topic given the situation with terrorism. The author is a former CIA Field Officer specializing in the Middle East. His description of corruption and political repression in Saudi Arabia sheds light on part of what fuels terrorism in the world today. I was left with the feeling that the House of Saud was a house of cards ready to tumble in the next few years. The author also recommends a closer relationship with Syria, and cites successful practices by the Syrian govt. in fighting terrorism. One drawback to the book, however, is what I perceived to be the author's tendency toward going off on tangeants. All in all, though, an interesting read. After reading this you won't want to hear the Saudis referred to as 'Our friends in the region....".
Rating:
Summary: Aiding and abetting terrorism
Review: Aiding and abetting terrorism. How many times have we heard this phrase attributed to such rogue countries as Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, & The Sudan? Well, as an irrefutable addendum, one would be remissed so as not to add Saudi Arabia - and, sans doute, to the top of this list, a most dubious distinction to be sure. Robert Baer, due to his 21 years in undercover ops for the CIA primarily in The Middle East, possesses the savoir faire of how to obtain seemingly impossible information that is revealed in this book. Although none of it seems to knock your socks off, it does, however, shock and awe at times. The increasingly alarming volatility in the already imminently combustible region, coupled with the chaotic rule(or lack thereof) of Saudi Arabia, makes for a veritable catastophic calamity just waiting to ingnite. Saudi Arabia, as well-documented by Baer, is nothing short of a schizophrenic little child trying to keep both the U.S. and thug terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda happy - presenting a diametrically opposite persona(with money & oil being the common denominators, of course)to each, and equally scared of each's potential reproach and the ensuing repercussions. What will happen in Saudi Arabia? Only time will tell. However, one man can serve two masters for only so long before one becomes jealous.
Rating:
Summary: Sobering View of the Politics of Middle East Oil
Review: Baer provides a coherent and sobering picture of our dependence on Saudi oil, the political powderkeg in the Gulf region and the twisted maneuvers by which the U.S. tries to deal with it all. It is shocking, but he connects the dots well to make it all (unfortunately) quite believable. Along the way he paints a picture of a bureaucratic and politically paralyzed CIA that had no clue before Sept. 11th, as it was too risk averse to delve into the real world deeply. I strongly recommend also reading The Prize, by Daniel Yergin, which is a long but enthralling history of Oil and its role in shaping the modern economic and political realities. This book made it clear to me that Oil is a hidden subtext to many of the most inexplicable aspects of our foreign policy.
Rating:
Summary: Look for new resources
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it is definitely a page turner. The first couple of chapters of this book I got pretty angry at the Saudi Royal family. Not only where they greedy and useless they paid for creating fanatics who hated the West and the Saudi Royal family. The Royal family stole land and doesn't even follow the rules of its own religion when they are out of the country. The next couple of chapters go me mad at Washington Politicians and how they all had their hands out. No one wanted to speak of all the atrocities that were happening in Saudi Arabia as long as they got a piece of the action. I was surprised how both parties made their money on speaking engagements and getting jobs from companies when they were the heads of the FBI and CIA after they left. I had not even heard of the Muslim Brotherhood before this book and what they were doing. I agreed with the author when he said that since the country was in 30% unemployment and the people had nothing to do but go to the mosques and hear all the radical ideas it's no wonder they hate everyone who is not a Muslim. The next part was even more scary when they told you that the fanatical groups were trying to move north and take the oil reserves by the Caspian Sea and control more of the world oil supplies. I was also surprise at how much of the military industrial complex depends on them to supply so many jobs her in America. I don't agree with the author's solution. I think it would be better to have our President ask for more alternate forms of fuel to be mass produced like hydrogen and have our cars run on that. To produce it we could use nuclear power and electrolysis and become independent of them. Then try to get the people to realize the King should abdicate because he is dead since 1995 and maybe that reformer crown prince can do better. The book had many interesting and unknown activities about Saudi Arabia. I think everyone should read it to get a better understanding of the politics of the Middle East.
Rating: 
Summary: A "Mea Culpa" of the times
Review: Robert Baer's book is indeed an important "mea culpa", typical of the kind we see in the post 9/11 period of world history, which has highlighted the US-West axis' victory in the cold war as it actually was -- brought about largely by the ruthless use of immoral tactics and deception -- and has thus taken whatever "fizz" out of it that it may have initially had, in the process demolishing whatever moral pretensions the Western axis may have used to justify its pre-1991 cold war policy with; and indeed its conflict with the old USSR was almost exclusively clothed in such "morality", which 9/11 denuded to reveal the aggressive truth we now see in the open.
Be all that as it may, this book by a Western "insider" operative presents the disgusting truth directly to the lay reader with a neat description of how the US-West axis' post WW 2 neocolonial strategy functioned in their key "bases" such as Saudi Arabia and the reality of such unreal, ridiculously founded states -- the foundation and justification of which would have been illogical if not for neocolonialism. (In fact, this is a direct extension of the West's cultivation of militant Islamist extremism as its cold war weapon against the USSR while it was engaged in reforming Afghanistan). But not only Saudi Arabia, this description can also be extended to apply to similar other key Western "allies" in the region such as Pakistan, which together with Afghanistan and even "liberated" Central Asia now club together to form one huge perilous festering "national" cesspool of irreversible and terminal social collapse and dysfunctionality in the region -- a horrendous Pandora's Box waiting for the future to unravel it, in the face of Westward victims who may deserve such an onslaught after all, given that they had nurtured it in the beginning for use on others...
Books such as this one by Robert Baer are a worthy testimony to the consequences of the rise 55 years ago of the USA to superpower status, and the inevitable destructive legacy it has left the future with...
No doubt, history will highlight the fact that it was the US-West axis which deliberately supported and cultivated the mess of corruption and backwardness in this region's societies at a critical time, for their dirty tactical purposes till it backfired on them in 2001. This has now made these societies irredeemably dysfunctional. Now, the US-West axis can't, and shouldn't expect to avoid the effects of this horror -- which will be truly millenial in scope, and well deserved by them. For this neocolonial conduct, the US-West axis will be brought to account one day soon, however drunk on its confidence and superior ability it may presently be. There is always an Achilles' Heel, and this is going to be theirs, if the rest of the civilised world's leaders know how to harness this coming debacle to maximum punitive effect against the world bully through a Third World War. (No pun intended: Rather the "Third World's" War).
But at present, this area of the planet seems to be the sole one in which modern civilisation will soon have to take unbelievably drastic steps to protect its future from the most extreme form of social and religious backwardness and terrorism the world has ever known, courtesy America's past cleverness and wish to dominate the world. None of its old neocolonial tricks will now apply in containing this global time bomb...
As with most Western authors, Robert Baer diagnoses the ailment effectively, but shies away from making the needed pronouncements. In that sense, such accounts are not morally confessive as genuine mea culpas should be, but even so they can be seen as mea culpas by a child, together with the hypocritical wrap arounds that authors like Baer think will protect them morally nonetheless...
Rating: 
Summary: Immensely readable, but do not bother me about the facts
Review: If you are mostly uninformed about, but biased against, Saudi Arabia, the State Department, the CIA, and the past six U.S Presidents, and want to remain that way, then this is the right book to read. It is light on facts, but full of innuendo, conjecture, political gossip, and hearsay. But do not let that deter you from reading it. It is intriguing, interesting, and entertaining. The writer's enthusiasm and creativity carries you effortlessly through out the book, right through its hilarious conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Sa
Review: Again an outstanding work of art! Mr. Baer has done it again shining the light to the real deal with the Washington elites. I wish the journalists who will interview the candidates at the next election would use Mr. Baer books to question the presidential candidates. I'd love to see their responses. Strongly suggest the reading of his books. Wonderful insites. RG
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling but not insightful
Review: As a serviceman and member of the intelligence community deployed to the Middle East, I was not impressed by Mr Baer's second book. He has seemed to make a few clear points.
1. The politicians and royalty that run the US and Saudia Arabia are prone to coruption.
2. Saudi Arabia is a corupt, kleptocracy, with no democratic heritage tettering on the edge of an insurgency.
3. Saudi Arabia and the US could and should have done more to prevent 9/11. None of these points are particularly profound. Point 2 could also describe just about every country in Africa and the Middle East, many countries in Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe and the US and western Europe one hundred and fifty years ago. He does not support his arguement with objective, verifiable facts. He instead depends on personal anecdotes to support his assertions. While his experiences are interesting, they are one man's experiences and cannot be the basis of any serious study of US/Saudi relations or national security policy. I would expect better analysis from a former member of one of the world's premier intelligence agencies. If you want to read a good book about the middle east, read the Arabists by Robert Kaplan. If you want to read a good book about spying, read Baer's first book.
| 
