Rating: 
Summary: very interesting!!!
Review: I found the reviews on this book more interesting than the than the book. Many of the 5 star readers were obviously biased but at least most of them apeared to have actually read the book. The 1 star reviewers seem to be non readers like our president.This confirms something my father told me many years ago. " There is nothing on this earth more pitiful than a poor Replublican".
Rating: 
Summary: Life Imitates Art
Review: Richard Clarke has shown us in "Against All Enemies" that Donald Rumsfeld is the avatar of Milo Minderbinder. Remember him from "Catch-22", the American officer who thought WWII was launched solely for him to make money? Remember how he cornered the market on Egyptian cotton, caused a glut, then tried to market it as candy by coating it with chocolate and selling it to American troops? When Rumsfeld said, immediately after 9/11 when all signs pointed to the Afghanistan-based Osama bin Laden as the architect of the plot, that he'd rather bomb Iraq because there were "...no good targets in Afghanistan", what he was saying was that there was nothing of value there; there wasn't a huge pool of oil in Afghanistan like there was in Iraq. Bombing Iraq in retaliation for what bin Laden did is like the old joke about the man who loses his wallet in a dark movie theater but goes outside to look for it on the street because "...the light is better there". Mr. Clarke was a national security pro with no political ax to grind. He is a registered Republican and served in more Republican than Democratic administrations. When a man like this documents that the Bush people ignored the threat of real terrorists to go off on a fanciful war of acquisition he must be taken seriously. "Against All Enemies" is another log on an already blazing bonfire.
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Summary: Rise above the rancor for the message
Review: In his gripping "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," Richard A. Clarke gives us the "human intel from boots on the ground" on what occurred in the White House before, during, and after the al Qaeda-driven devastation on September 11, 2001. Read the text, not the hype, and make up your own mind. The book's intro section recounting the day and night of the horrific attack ought to be a model for narrative technique in establishing a complex matrix of dedicated people, places, concepts, and events. Mr. Clarke has done his nation yet another service , after his thirty years in the trenches, by showing us the inner workings of a nation under attack.
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Summary: This book supports the truth about 9-11, Iraq and Bush
Review: This book reveals how President Bush and his followers have ignored and manipulated intelligence to acquire the reality they needed in order to justify their secret agenda.
While they may not have specific responsibility for terrorist acts,
they show complicity by their intentional ignorance.
The Bush people know how to play terrorism to their own political advantage; this book shows how it is done.
Rating: 
Summary: Frightening if true, and it probably is.
Review: It is hard impossible to tell with 100% certainty what Richard Clarke's motive for writing this book is. It is obvious that he is being partisan at this point, against Bush at least, the only question is why. I don't doubt for a moment that part of his motive has to do with the way his own staff was cut back, and his own role diminished, yet this does not invalidate anything he says. He points out both the pros and cons of all previous administrations, republican and democrat alike; while painting a picture of the Bush administration as vastly incompetent compared to all predecessors that he has dealt with. This picture is terrifying to say the least. I for one have never been much of a political conservative, but I try to be fair and look at everyone with both skepticism and openmindedness. The truly terrifying thought that is now occurring to me as I watch the news and now that I've listened to this book is that both the Republican party itself and especially the current administration are vastly worse than I previously suspected. If this book is true, this means that the Bush administration playing right into Al-Qaeda's hands and putting the USA on the brink of destruction.
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Summary: A Compelling History Of 4 Presidents & The War On Terror
Review: There is a veritable plethora of political books on the market these days. Richard A. Clarke's "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," stands out amongst them all as an absolutely riveting, intelligently written discussion of the most harrowing issue of the new century - terrorism. Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar for both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush is an authority on the subject. He began his federal service in 1973, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, served under seven presidents and has been involved with national security until he resigned his position in 2003. After devoting two decades of his professional life to fighting terrorism, Mr. Clarke probably knows more about al Qaeda, Osama bin Ladin and why our government failed to prevent September 11 than anyone else in this country. Clarke's account of the action in the White House on 9/11, as Crisis Manager in the Situation Room, reads like a novel. I have read many firsthand accounts of that day - as a Manhattanite I was deeply and personally affected - but this insider's description of how government leaders operate in crisis mode is the most fascinating. There is much that is disturbing in this book about the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and their administrations' approach to terrorism: misplaced priorities; credible warnings ignored; a lack of vertical communication; lack of intelligence and analysis; little cooperation and information sharing between the CIA and FBI; a Cold War mindset; inability to see the "big picture;" and an obsessive focus on Iraq when there was no proof of a connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11. There is more than enough blame to go around. I don't think this is a book about blame, however. Whatever your politics, no one wants the United States, or any country in the world, to be vulnerable to terrorist acts. I believe that Clarke treats both Bush administrations and the Clinton presidency fairly. This political memoir also chronicles the rise of al Queada. Clarke's writing style is crystal clear and concise. His knowledgeable account of the goings-on in the Beltway's corridors of power is compelling and highly readable. This is an extraordinary history of The War on Terror that began two decades ago. Highly recommended - for people from all over the political spectrum.
JANA
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Summary: Love Him or Hate Him, He's Got It Largely Right
Review:
You cannot discuss 9-11 or Iraq, and be credible, without having read this book carefully and thoroughly (many of the other reviews strike me as glib, superficial, and not representative of having actually read the book).
Clarke begins by pointing out that four US Presidents, not one, are responsible for the over-all failure. Clarke strikes out at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, throughout the book. Clarke confirms both all the reports of CIA failing to tell FBI, FBI leaders ignoring their own field reports and consequently failing to tell the White House clearing house on terrorism, of any and all the indicators and warnings received from June 2001 to September 10 2001. Clarke confirms that as of January 2001, despite a decade or more of Al Qaeda activism, "most senior officials in the administration did not know the term." The historical review, going back to the Iranian revolution of 1979 (which overturned a CIA coup much earlier) and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (which mobilized global jihad), is quite helpful. The failure of the White House to kill the Republican Guard in the first Gulf War, and the post-Gulf War decision to put thousands and thousands of US contractors into Saudi Arabia, thus further inflaming Saudi dissidents, and the related misadventures in Lebanon as well as over-tolerance for Israeli aggression on the Palestinians, are all put into useful context. The book begins with a solid meticulous review unlike any other I have found. CIA and FBI both take substantive and deserved beatings. The CIA Directorate of Operations--with the full backing of the DCI-- cannot be considered to be anything other than "chickenshit" in the manner in which it blocked just about every proposed initiative including the arming of the Predators and the insertion of language-qualified personnel into Afghanistan. Clarke lists four strategic mistakes: 1) CIA becoming overly dependent on the Pakistani intelligence service; 2) CIA importation to the Afghanistan jihad of Arab extremists it did not understand; 3) USG's quick pull-out from Afghanistan without flooding them with water, food, medicine, and security first; and 4) US ignorance of and failure to help Pakistan stabilize itself and survive the deadly mix of millions of Afghan refugees and thousands of radicalized Arab Muslims. The Saudi government's sponsorship of Bin Laden as a religious revolutionary with a global mission beginning in 1989 cannot be denied. The book documents what we knew and when we knew it, and how we chose to ignore it. 1993-1994 were clearly turning point years--both the 1993 World Trade Center car bombing, and the discovery of a network of suicidal terrorists based in the US and tied to the blind Muslim preacher in Brooklyn, should have but did not lead to a nation-wide cleansing and appropriate border controls and foreign intelligence measures. Al Qaeda was formed in 1990. It would be five years before CIA and the FBI would realize this. On page 84, Clarke makes my day by providing the ultimate OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) story. After ordering a strike on Iraqi intelligence headquarters, Clinton refused to go on TV until it was confirmed. The $35 billion a year intelligence community could not confirm it--no spies or agents on the ground, satellites out of position, etcetera. Bill Clinton, without telling anyone, called CNN, CNN called its Jordan bureau, whose cameraman had a cousin who lived near the intelligence headquarters, who confirmed the strike." Got to love it--all money, no eyes. When will Congress get it!? Clarke confirms the many ugly stories about CIA's operational incompetence in Somalia (professionals will recall we sent old dogs without language skills, two of whom went nuts, literally, afterwards). The following quote should be hung in CIA's entryway until we get a serious clandestine service: "They had nobody in the country when the Marines landed. Then they sent in a few guys who had never been there before. They swapped people out every few weeks and they stayed holed up in the U.S. compound on the beach, in comfy trailer homes that they had flown in by the Air Force." Sure, there have been some improvements, but as CIA operations super-star Reuel Gerecht says, until diarrhea is accepted as part of the job description, the DO will never be real. Clarke sums up the Clinton era by saying that policy was good, and intelligence bad. The bureaucracy was not willing to take terrorism seriously nor to work as a team. He sums up the Bush the Second era by saying that both were bad. Clarke slams George Tenet repeatedly, identifying 1994 as the year in which he blew the chance to nail Bin Laden and the Saudis early on. Clarke fails Congress for failing America in 1995, when its oversight should have identified the failures of the past two years, and moved to correct them. The Atlanta Olympics stand out as a major success story, and I emphasize this to note that there were successes, and there were extraordinary new means developed of planning, of inter-agency coordination, of rapid response. The Secret Service emerges from Clarke's book with its reputation much enhanced. Saudi mendacity and Canadian complacency (the latter fixed since 9-11, the former not) get special mention. Prince Bandar is labeled a liar on more than one occasion. There are many other important points raised by this book, including specific recommendations for addressing our global vulnerability to terrorism, and they will not be listed here. Buy the book. One final comment: this is a very intelligent man who has actually read books and done some cross-cultural historical thinking. He laments the fact that politicians with power tend to view visionaries with knowledge as nuts (page 131). This is a brilliant book that should be read in detail, not--as Rich Armitage confessed to the 9-11 Commission on C-SPAN--the way Washington reads: checking the index for one's name. Washington has become stupid. Richard Clarke is not.
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Summary: If you read just one political book this year, this is it
Review: Clarke is an insider who has first-hand knowledge of Bush and his advisors. He breaks the biggest rule there is (never tell tales out of school)to inform the American public about the war on terror. His thesis is that Bush et. al. either used intelligence or ignored it to further an agenda that may increase our threat from terrorism, not diminish it. This is a startling criticism. Not much has come out of Rice's testimony. Not much will probably be revealed before the next election. If you are looking for sources of information, at least read this and decide for yourself--either Clarke is sounding a klaxon of alarm, or he is furthering a cynical agenda of his own. It's up to you to decide which is true.
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Summary: One man's view from the inside
Review: One of the first things one might note when starting this book is that, at least in the beginning, it is very readable. Hearing of events from someone who was there is very mesmerizing, especially when those events are ones that have affected everyone in this country. However, as one gets further into it, there are more than enough redundancies to be slightly frustrating. Still, Clarke's style is largely readable and straight forward and makes for a quick read. The essence of the book, the story it tells is disturbing, even maddening at times. We like to think that America has the best of everything including its intelligence gathering abilities, and the strength to take of itself and its own. We found out on 9-11, of course, that isn't always true. Clarke's book doesn't make us feel any better about our government's handling of issues leading up to that horrific day. He immediately faults the second Bush administration for putting too much emphasis on Iraq. He admits to being a bit short sighted at times, along with his peers. He defends the Clinton administration while faulting the FBI, CIA, military, etc., for hindering the efforts of the President and Clarke's committees to deal with al Qaeda. In his view, when Bush two comes into office, every advance is destroyed or limited such that 9-11 is nearly inevitable. There is no doubt that Clarke has his own axe to grind and his words are to be read with a certain amount of suspicion. Even so, his story alerts us all to the failings of our government to be as fully informed as they should have been to the threat from al Qaeda. This work should help everyone decide where we go from here, what is necessary to fight the terrorists, and, hopefully, to avoid the same mistakes in the future. Read this book, then read others on the same subject, to form a balanced opinion on the mistakes that were made.
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Summary: ¿Terrorism is the enemy of our generation, we must prevail"
Review: This book is packed with insightful and thoughtful accounts on the history of terrorism and Clarke is quite critical of our efforts to combat terrorism domestically and internationally, particularly after September 11th. Much has been made in the media over the past few months about Clarke's assessment of the current administration's attitudes towards Al Qaeda; but what I liked about this book is the way in which Clarke gives an incredibly informative and detailed historical chronology of the Middle East, the events leading up to 9/11 and also the current war in Iraq. The two fundamental themes of the book are that by going after Saddam and invading Iraq immediately and unnecessarily after 9/11 - usurping resources from the fight against Al Qaeda - that George Bush and this Administration has haphazardly allowed Al Qaeda to "morph into a many headed" monster that has now become infinitely more difficult to defeat. And also those members of this administration deliberately tried to take advantage of the national tragedy of 9/11 to promote their own agenda about Iraq and calculatingly fostered a "go it alone, hell bent for war policy." The second fundamental theme is that this Administration were incurious, and almost complacent about the threat of Al Qaeda, and did little or nothing about the threat before 9/11, preferring to concentrate on missile defense and China. After 9/11 they consistently tried to connect that tragic day to Iraq, relentlessly spinning stories about weapons of mass destruction and manipulating the truth about the "imminent" threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Clarke is probably right that most Americans had never heard of Al Qaeda, and most senior officials in the current Administration did not know the term when they were briefed in January 2001. The central part of the book is probably the most interesting, yet while the substance is good, Clarke does have a tendency to go off on tangents and pack the narrative with unnecessary detail. He does a good job, however, of showing the general distrust and animosity that existed between the Democratic White House and the Republicans in Congress, which, in turn, prevented Clinton from obtaining much of the money, he wanted for a comprehensive counter-terrorism policy. Clinton was able, however, to sign the Presidential Decision Directive and heed the warnings about the possibility of terrorists getting their hands on chemical, biological, or nuclear materials. At the heart of this book though, is the question of whether the government could have done anything to stop the September 11th attack, and Clarke makes it perfectly clear that there were fundamental failures to get information to the right place at the right time. There were also failures in organizations such as the FBI, along with earlier failures to act boldly, and to reduce or eliminate the threat. Whether readers agree with the current Administration's policies or not, they are still going to find much to appreciate in this riveting, educational, and engaging treatise on the war on terror. Mike Leonard May 04.
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