Rumsfeld's War: The Untold Story of America's Anti-Terrorist Commander

Rating:
Summary: Rumsfeld vs. the Terrorists
Review: Thank you President Bush for the intuitive wisdom of bringing Don Rumsfeld back to run the Pentagon. After September 11, the War on Terrorism began when Secretary Rumsfeld advised President Bush that that "this was war, not a criminal act". How refreshing to know that serving legal papers on the terrorists was no longer going to suffice, as was the case in the Clinton regime. Rowan Scarborough's book puts the War on Terrorism in the proper historical perspective. It is a "hard,long slog" and we're fortunate enough to have people in charge that understand that. We are also fortunate enough to have journalists such as Rowan Scarborough to write about this. This book also contains quite a bit of previously classified material that will advance one's appreciation for what our military is doing for us. It's not on the front page of the newspapers. This book deserves a wide readership. It's an important contribution to the literature explaining the prosecution of the War on Terrorism.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but....
Review: The book is a great read for those in the choir to which it is preaching and for others it does provide interesting personal insights. What is ironic, though true, is referring to him as the "commander" of the "war on terrorism". The public has yet to receive a complete and objective accounting of Rumsfeld's role in the Afghanistan War. A recently published study of the first year of that campaign:
"Al-Queda's Great Escape" by Phillip Stucker - the only foreign correspondant to have been there for the whole period - holds Rumsfeld accountable for our lack of succes
in that campaign. Sure, we overthrew the Taliban but failed in our principal objective, since not only did Osama escape but so did most of his "high command". This was possible because Rumsfeld wanted a war won "on the cheap" using his tactics of special ops operations, coupled with the bribing of Afghan warlords to do the dirty work (apparently ignorant of the fact that if we could bribe them, then so could Al-Queda, which is what happened and how they were able to escape). And given what is now going on in Iraq, a much closer look at what were Rumsfeld's contributions than what the book gives us remains to be done.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but....
Review: The book is a great read for those in the choir to which it is preaching and for others it does provide interesting personal insights. What is ironic, though true, is referring to him as the "commander" of the "war on terrorism". The public has yet to receive a complete and objective accounting of Rumsfeld's role in the Afghanistan War. A recently published study of the first year of that campaign:
"Al-Queda's Great Escape" by Phillip Stucker - the only foreign correspondant to have been there for the whole period - holds Rumsfeld accountable for our lack of succes
in that campaign. Sure, we overthrew the Taliban but failed in our principal objective, since not only did Osama escape but so did most of his "high command". This was possible because Rumsfeld wanted a war won "on the cheap" using his tactics of special ops operations, coupled with the bribing of Afghan warlords to do the dirty work (apparently ignorant of the fact that if we could bribe them, then so could Al-Queda, which is what happened and how they were able to escape). And given what is now going on in Iraq, a much closer look at what were Rumsfeld's contributions than what the book gives us remains to be done.

Rating:
Summary: wow!
Review: This really clears things up. I had no idea about the whole M15/drug thing. The secret tapes mentioned in the second volume should shed much more on the subject.