Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA Review

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Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA ReviewThis is an astonishingly well balanced book that while deeply critical of CIA and its senior management also credits its strengths and successes. The author, Melvin Goodman, spent some 34 years as an analyst within the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) of CIA. His principal criticism is that CIA directors in collusion with the executive branch have routinely politicized not merely intelligence products, but the very processes of research and analysis basic to intelligence production. He further argues that most intelligence `failures' can be traced to the practice of far too many at CIA to distort the intelligence process to support policy decisions and even to suppress sound, contrary intelligence. He also sees the growing `militarization' of the U.S. Intelligence System as further evidence that the Intelligence Community (IC) is moving from producing objective and accurate intelligence to producing intelligence that supports the ideologies and prejudices of its masters.
Goodman supports his argument with a remarkably detailed chronicle of CIA intelligence production over the last 35 years. This chronology emphasizes those instances where political pressure and the need to support a particular point of view took precedence over the need to produce accurate intelligence. Also, although he doesn't say so directly, he demonstrates the truth that intelligence is only as good as the system it serves. Unlike so many books on intelligence, this book actually identifies both the good guys and the bad .guys of CIA over the years. In particular he has a fascinating analysis of CIA Directors from Bill Casey (1980-1986) onward that is quite devastating. Although his principal target is the deleterious effect of the politicization and militarization of intelligence, he also effectively criticizes CIA's analytic and clandestine tradecraft.
This is an absolutely important critique of the course of CIA and by extension the entire U.S. Intelligence Community. However, given the controversial claims made by Goodman and the fact he actually names his heroes and villains, the reader might ask does he really know what he is talking about? In this reviewer's opinion, the answer is yes he does. Having been personally involved in a number of specific intelligence events that he chronicles, this reviewer would argue that Goodman has accurately described them. This is a book that ought to guide any effort to reform the U.S. Intelligence System.
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Power Grab: How Obama's Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America Review

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Power Grab: How Obama's Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America ReviewCharlton Heston starred in the 1973 movie "Soylent Green". The year is 2022, and we are all poor and without power, both electrical and political. Christopher Horner's book begins by looking ahead to the year 2015 and painting an eerily similar picture of an impoverished existence. The real irony here is that the sad future is created, not by man's mismanagement of earth's resources, but by one man's presidential withholding of those sources of power from society.
As stated in the book, environmentalism seeks to use the state to create scarcity as a means to exert their will. Indeed, the author contends the policies and people being instituted into our nation's government are about establishing and holding power over our lives, our very future, and that of our children. Mr. Hornor argues that "the Power Grab is to grab your power, your wealth, economic liberties and personal freedoms." A technique to attempt to do this is akin to "yelling eco-crisis in a crowded recession."
The author adds, perhaps a bit hopefully, that "...only the left are panicking as the voters head for the exit."
This book is rather heavy and yes, a bit apocalyptic but worth burning the midnight oil to read. Yet, contrary to Charlton Heston's character trapped in a drab future he cannot alter, "Power Grab" encourages the reader to grab the constitutional power reins and steer your future and that of your children's back on the course of freedom.
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The Secret History of PWE: The Political Warfare Executive 1939-1945 Review

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The Secret History of PWE: The Political Warfare Executive 1939-1945 ReviewFour stars only for the following reason.
Andrew Roberts, who penned the Introduction to this book, concluded it with the following phrase: "Sir Winston Churchill once said that in war the truth needed to be protected by 'a bodyguard of lies'. This is the story of the men and women who constituted that bodyguard." Paraphrasing him, I would say that "The Secret History of PWE" is the truth about the Political Warfare Executive, protected by a bodyguard of silences. A couple of examples from the book, to substantiate this claim. Andrew Roberts says in his opening para: "We can for the first time now know the whole truth about the British (and later Allied) propaganda effort in the Second World War...". Seven pages down the road, in his closing para Andrew Roberts says: "We know from Sefton Delmer's autobiography, "Black Boomerang", that a large number of PWE's files were destroyed after the war..." Sefton Delmer, PWE's No 1 man for black propaganda, is said to be, in a caption accompanying his picture, "Britain's most fertile 'Black' propagandist, the hero of this book". Indeed, with pictures of only 11 men (including the author himself) in the illustrations, Delmer becomes one of very selected few. And yet, when you have finished reading the last page, you can't stop wondering why on earth did they tag him "the hero of this book"? Not because the man does not deserve it - he does - but because there is so precious little real information about his particular department, even less about its work, and almost nothing about its achievements. These (and many others) are the disappointing and disturbing silences I am talking about when I say that the truth in this book is protected by a bodyguard of them. This disappointment is particularly big in my case since I came across the book, found it of particular interest and went on purchasing it with my own money - while doing research on Sefton Delmer's record in black propaganda.
But I give four full stars to the book nevertheless. It portrays with perfect sobriety and meticulous detail the true orwellian Ministry of Truth at work, but without the anti-utopian angle and the democratic prejudice: it's war time, and Britain has got nothing to lose. And if you miss one of the author's main conclusions, you will definitely enjoy and appreciate the mastery of David Garnett's writing; but if you don't, you won't. Because his strong conviction is: "Political Warfare will play a larger part in future both in peace and war". If one rethinks the whole book all over again with this final conclusion in mind, the four stars will most probably remain a fair rating. Its rationale, though, will undergo a drastic change: it will become a thank you for the warning from an insider.The Secret History of PWE: The Political Warfare Executive 1939-1945 Overview

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