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Summary: Read this instead of Clarke's book
Review: This book tells who is really responsible for the terrorist attacks in Washington and New York: Clinton.
Richard Clarke, financed by democratic hate-groups, is trying to pin the attacks on Bush in order to get Bush out of the White House. This book is fascinating in how it details Clinton's failures in the war on terror.
Rating:
Summary: The Bottom Line
Review: To Mr. Miniter's comment that "most authors write because they want to inform or influence the debate on an issue" I would add that most authors also write because they want to sell books, many of them. The recent Clarke circus sideshow is a perfect illustration of that second goal.
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Summary: I'm readi this book right now. It is a.....................
Review: wonderul testimony to Richard Clarke's lies, distortions, and half-truths. I got quite a laugh when Rumsfield told the press on TV last Sunday that he wasn't even at one of the meetings where Clarke quoted him as saying something........ I don't know what it was because Clarke's book is not worth quoting.
It just shows how biased one can be toward the truth. I lived through those times that Richard Miniter writes about. I saw them happen, and generally saw Clinton do NOTHING! How can the leftists who disclaim this book deny what we know happened.
Remember the 18 dead Army Rangers that Klinton left to their doom because of lack of planning and support? The press barely covered that. Talk about lack of planning in Iraq. At least Bush didn't leave the soldiers to die without at least sending in support, when possible.
It is interesting to note that the leftist rate the book low, and others rate it high. Not much objectivity here. I hope the day never comes when the conservatives act like the leftists. The leftists are going to split this country apart with their nastiness and negativism and lies. No wonder the socialist countries and the intimidated, like Spain, want Kerry to win. They are absolutely terrified of Bush. Doesn't that say something about the leftist, Kerry, when those countries want him to win?
You know it does.
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Summary: Objective writing, subjective reviewing
Review: It is easy to know when a reviewer has not read a book--he claims that something is in it that isn't or says a fact was overlooked when it was,ahem, highlighted. The "proof" is the review itself. Most of the critical reviews of "Losing bin Laden" (and some of the positive reviews) on Amazon.com are by people who have not read the book.
As for the Washington Post review, the reviewer should have disclosed that his work is mentioned repeatedly in "Losing bin Laden." Since such disclosure is a standard practice, I presume he did read as far as the first mention of his name--which appears in the Acknowledgements, i.e. in the first few pages of the book.
The Wall Street Journal review was written by bitter foe, who has been angry at me ever since a 1999 Atlantic Monthly article that I wrote which criticized the practice of buying people out of slavery in Sudan. I committed the crime of actually spending a week or so in the war zone in Southern Sudan and interviewing people firsthand; soon I learned that buying out of slavery increased slavery and also led to scams. My Atlantic article cost his organization money. And, in his three- paragraph-long review in the Wall Street Journal(which focuses solely on Sudan), he writes that I did not include information about Sudan being a terror sponsor, its terrible human rights record et cetera. Yet, all of that is the first pages of Chapter 5, the first chapter that deals with Sudan.
To reviewers out there, remember that most authors write because they want to inform or influence the debate on an issue. They want feedback. This last time an editor actually had a real feedback for them was on "Lou Grant"--I mean, never.
Writers are actually interested in what readers think, pro or con. And sometimes readers teach you things.
At the Wall Street Journal, I saw writers perk up when they heard there was a letter written about their work. They would perk up even when they knew the letter was negative. Book reviews are the same. Writers want to know what people think about something that took them two years of the lives to produce. Would it kill you to spend a few hours to read it?
Rating: 
Summary: Objective Writing
Review: It is interesting how the author conveniently claims with no proof (interesting pattern on his part) how negative reviewers are critical of this book without having read it. But if you refer to the only two reviews to appear in the objective press, the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, you will find they are at least as critical as anything that appears here. You don't need to trust me on this point. Go see for yourself at their sites. Regarding Clarke, the issue boils down to this. Do you believe the direct testimony, both written and oral in both the present and the soon-to-be-released past, of the man himself with a distinguished career spanning 4 Presidents? Or do you believe what the man said as interpreted by a biased, unknown author with a history of drifting from one right-wing think tank and publication to the next and hoping to raise his profile?
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Summary: Clarke told me one thing, his readers another
Review: Most of the critical reviews of my book are people who have not read it. Fine. Its a free country. My advice: read the first chapter at least before you make up your mind. But the idea that CLARKE's testimony rebuts my book is laughable--he was a MAJOR SOURCE FOR MY BOOK. I flew to Washington DC just to interview him. He is repeatedly quoted by name in chapters 9,10,and 11. Indeed, I even gave him advance copies of the chapters to correct for any inaccuracies and he sent me detailled e-mail responses. And I followed many of his suggestions. Other interviews with Albright, Woolsey, Berger et al were based on reactions to Clarke's on-the-record comments. Clarke has simply changed his story in the past year. If you want to know what Clarke said before he wrote his book, read "Losing bin Laden."
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Summary: Very good book
Review: THis is a very good book, that despite the recent attacks has never been refuted, in fact the facts are nearly the same has books from 'Why America Slept' and 'Breakdown'. Shows that a war on terror wasn't taken serious by the US government for years. And that the Clinton Administration was against taking strong action against Bin Laden for political reasons and a "don't rock the boat" attitude.
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Summary: not Richard Clarke
Review: Well well well, look what we have here, The one person who had a bird's eye view of what the US Government (in both administrations) actually did (as opposed to the made up 'facts' in Miniter's book) has testified under oath and written a book and he has something different to say. While Clarke is critical of Clinton, he notes "the new administration really thought Clinton's recommendation that eliminating al-Qaida be one of their highest priorities, well, rather odd, like so many of the Clinton administration's actions, from their perspective". As for the conservatives, 'facts' in their definition are not the same thing as in the dictionary definition where it means something that is true.
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Summary: IF IT LOOKS LIKE A DUCK, Walks like a Duck, Talks like a....
Review: A recently released poll suggests that a large number of Middle Easterners believe that suicide bombing against Americans is an acceptable act. While antiwar activists argue that the US and coalition war against Iraq has had the "inevitable result" of increasing attacks, this book describes numerous terrorist attacks against American interests and personnel preceding the attacks on 9-11. If those prior attacks occurred during a period when some people supposed that US foreign policy was believed more peaceful and restrained, then America's future will be bleak indeed considering the vigorous response the Bush administration has made to the terror threat.
Title notwithstanding, this book is not unkind to Mr. Clinton, who departed office with a lot of unfinished business, according to author Richard Miniter. There are some chapters which skewer Clinton's inaction in the face of terror, but these do not seem particularly vitriolic, nor ad hominem. Instead, the writer weighs in with measured attacks on the Clinton lack of foreign policy expertise, and his constrained advisory councils. For that matter, Miniter takes great pains to document his assertions. The appendix is considerable. Most of his sources are mainstream or derived from direct interviews with persons like Richard Clarke, and with the occasional reference to a web site.
Committed antiwar and modern Democrats will find this book painful reading. It begins in the years of Clinton's presidency, in 1992. The Gulf War has ended, Saddam Hussein remains in power, and the U.N sanctions are contentedly disregarded. One cannot imagine a happy Saddam Hussein, his army defeated, his country fallen down around his ears. One can imagine an unhappy Bin Laden, angry and rebuffed by the Saudis and trying to test the new president.
A failed Al Quaeda bombing in Yemen is followed by a second successful one. The targets are luxury hotels frequented by foreigners. In the successful hotel bombing, both bombers are 'expendables'--they're supposed to be killed in the explosion. One of them gets cold feet, decides he does not wish to be a martyr, and runs. The police catch him, and follow the links to Al Quaeda. Not long afterward, Bin Laden ( with backing from Iraqi intelligence) strikes again. This time it's 'Rashid the Iraqi" who plans the attack and the attack is on a more sensational, attention getting target: The World Trade Center. Rashid is really Ramsi Yousef, nephew of Shaykh Khalid Mohammed, currently jailed on a variety of terrorist charges. The new president has his hands full. What will he do?
In Somalia, Clinton directed that a humanitarian operation be launched against the warlord Aidid who was robbing U.N food shipments to the suffering refugees. It was a good idea. Clinton and his people felt that Delta and special forces types would be better at handling the crisis. Meanwhile, the intelligence services have been hampered by budget cutbacks. They are short of personnel and local covert operators and short of translators, as well. Several unsuccessful operations are launched which did not snare the warlord. Bin Laden is watching for an opportunity.. When a helicopter goes down (think of the book 'Blackhawk Down') , our soldiers find themselves cut off, besieged by hostile forces. Sustaining heavy losses, our troops are eventually brought to safety by U.N troops in armored personnel carriers.
Hey, wait a minute! Why not use US APCs? Couldn't do that, though the generals had put in a request for them. The white house refused. To ship in large armored vehicles would have created the appearance that the US was 'escalating'. So the US troops sustain heavy casualties, but the US policy in Somalia still looks like the humanitarian gesture it was meant to be. To Bin Laden's joy, Clinton orders the troops out.
Other Bin Laden attacks during the Clinton presidency include the successful one against the U.S S. Cole in which 17 sailors died, and a failed attack on another ship, the USS Sullivans.
We hear arguments today that the US cannot act against terror without legalistic proof of guilt. Much of this legalistic residue derives from the Clinton years. Certainly, Clinton's people did not feel free to declare a 'war against terror'. While DCI George Tenet and counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke tried various strategies to "roll up the network of terror", they had no luck in convincing Clinton to pull the trigger. Clinton was content to bathe in a general approval of his domestic policies, buoyed up by a booming economy and stock market. Eventually, Clinton signed two 'findings', presidential decrees which allowed that Bin Laden could be killed through military or covert action.
Yet these Clinton attempts at getting Bin Laden were halfhearted measures, relying upon unreliable intelligence. In one case, the administration launched a cruise missile strike upon an aspirin factory and suffered a great deal of ridicule in the press. Another missile strike targeted one of Bin Laden's training camps-- a good idea except that Clinton's defense strategists tipped off Pakistan's ISI, known to be passing information to Bin Laden's Al Quaeda. The reason for this, of course, is that Clinton mistrusted military power and wanted to avoid collateral damage. Meanwhile, the Republicans weren't helping with their impeachment talk. If Clinton had any kind of foreign policy enthusiasm, it couldn't be advanced in the great foggy cloud of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. So Clinton stalled, held off. Advisors like Madeleine Albright were busy having tea with state department Arabists who did not want to be embarrassed by attacks on Middle Eastern soil while she mediated talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The culminating event, of course, is the 9-11 attacks. Again, Bin Laden had every reason to believe he was safe in Afghanistan, and committed himself to the most vicious terrorist attack America has ever sustained. Except perhaps the next one. But that might happen on the current president's watch and is another story. This one's a good read, appropriately documented, and contains remarkably little puffery and proselytization. Moeursalen
Rating:
Summary: What if ....
Review: Though criticisms of the writer's style may be valid, the content is air tight. An incredible peak inside the operations of the White House and the Intelligence community. Really makes you wonder, "What if...."
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