its so sudden and i wan to post a blog so badly but i got no time so i decided to post the book review i did for the book i read.
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism
Robert Baer may seem like a normal man. He has an average desk job, drives around in a Nissan Sunny, dresses in casual jeans and shirt and lives in an apartment in downtown Washington. But in reality, Baer is a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer. His real job is to traverse the world to steal secrets and harvest classified information from other nations and foreign groups for his native land, the United States of America. In other words, Baer is a spy.
In “See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism”, Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides startling evidence of how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA’s efforts to root out the world’s deadliest terrorists, allowing for the rise of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. A veteran case officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations in the Middle East, Baer witnessed the rise of terrorism first hand and the CIA’s inadequate response to it, leading to the attacks of September 11, 2001. In this review, I shall discuss how America has failed in its dealings with modern terrorism.
With all the veiled women and men walking around in flowing robes, Edgeware Road resembles any other street in the Middle East. But Edgeware Road is not in the Middle East, it is located in central London, an area that has been taken over by Arabs and other Middle Easterners. Despite the similarities, there is a subtle difference between Edgeware Road and the Middle East; the Arabic bookstores. In most parts of the Middle East, bookstores are forbidden from selling radical Islamic tracts that openly advocate violence but in London’s Arabic bookstores there were racks of them. One glance at the bold print and you knew what they were about: a deep, uncompromising hatred for the United States. Thus, it would make perfect sense for the United States to pay more attention to that area since the Muslim communities living in Edgeware Road would have a higher risk of being recruited for Jihad, or holy war, between Islam and America. But the United States did no such thing. As a matter of fact, the CIA office in London does not even have a single Arabic speaker and as such, it was unlikely for any CIA officer to wonder down Edgeware Road. Even if someone had, he would not have been able to read the venomous headlines on those books. Furthermore, the CIA was prohibited by British authorities from recruiting sources, even Islamic fundamentalists, in their country.
The CIA should not be impeded by the British in carrying out its clandestine activities. After all, the CIA specializes in spying. Otherwise, the presence of a CIA office in Britain is ironic because it is prohibited by the British from recruiting any sources there but yet they are still there and not doing anything. Since the office in Britain does not even have a single Arabic speaker, I would think that America is not keen in tackling the Muslim populations there.
The United Kingdom aside, CIA offices in Europe has been dwindling in general. The offices in Paris, Bonn and Rome were shadows of what they had been during the Cold War era. They lacked adequate officers to go after the vast Middle Eastern communities and those that did have the manpower too often lacked the inclination, training and in some cases, the incentives to do so. This, in my opinion, is a perfect combination for trouble. Europe, today, has opened up its borders and many migrants are entering the continent. A small percentage of these migrants might be radical sectarians that are planning to carry out acts of terrorism from or in Europe since it is a close ally of the United States. The recent Madrid bombings, London bombings and the thwarted massive flight bombing in Britain are examples of what terrorists want to do; instill fear in the population and disrupt the peace in Europe.
The situation in the Middle East is not any better. Often, there was only one or two CIA officers assigned to a country. Rather than recruit and run sources – foreign agents – CIA stations in the tinderbox of the world spent most of their time catering to whatever was in the fashion in Washington at that time: human rights, economic globalization, the Arab-Israeli conflict. The CIA deemed running its own foreign human sources as being too messy and stopped doing it. Instead, CIA depended largely on their European and Middle Eastern allies to provide information on any Islamic fundamentalists that threatens American soil. But, like what Singapore has learnt in the past, depending on others to protect yourself is akin to digging your own grave. Nobody warned America that Muhammad Atta, the presumed leader of the hijacking teams on September 11, was recruiting suicide bombers in a Hamburg mosque. As a result, the World Trade Centre buildings collapsed and thousands of Americans lost their lives.
On December 21, 1988, PanAm flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all the 259 passengers on board. This act of terrorism was carried out by the terrorist organization known as Population Front for the Liberation of Palestine/General Command (PFLP/GC). That is what it looks like on the surface. In reality, Iran ordered PFLP/GC to destroy the aircraft. The rationale for Iran’s orders? Revenge. On July 3, 1988, the US Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus in the Gulf accidentally. The hardliners in the Iranian government refused to believe that the act was purely accidental. Since it could not take direct actions against the United States, Iran resorted to employing terrorists to do the dirty work. The United States are facing great difficulties in securing Iraq today due to insurgents and terrorists which are believed to have, in one way or the other, received assistance from Iran. This goes to show that terrorist organizations can be employed by rogue nations for the right price and a combination of both, the terrorists and the rouge nations, is a lethal mix. With aid from the rouge nation, terrorist group will receive funding and even professional trainings from its host. This would enable them to carry out much more catastrophic acts and they will also be able to strike in more places.
Due to Washington politics, the CIA revealed the identities of several of its agents, rendering them useless and exposing them to danger. Not only that, the CIA also dismissed many of its seasoned officers who had spent their careers overseas in the many no-man’s-land of the world. In 1995, the agency handed the title of director of operations - the man officially in charge of spying – to an analyst who had never served overseas. He was followed by a retiree and the retiree by an officer who had risen through the ranks largely thanks to his political skills. In addition, inexperienced officers were assigned to direct field officers abroad on how to run their cases. Like what Baer said, “It was like assigning a hospital administrator to head the surgical team.”
The CIA was systematically destroyed by political correctness, by petty Beltway wars, by careerism and much more. At a time when terrorist threats were compounding globally, the agency that should have been monitoring them was being scrubbed clean instead. Yes, it is true that the Europeans and Middle Easterners failed America for allowing the September 11 bombings to occur. But most of all, America failed itself. It did not have the intelligence they needed or the means of gathering it. Correcting these mistakes is not going to be easy but it can be done. The way to start would be by putting CIA officers back on the street, by letting them recruit and run sources in the mosques, the casbahs or anywhere else we can learn what the bad guys’ intentions are before they break into horrible deadlines and unbearable film footage.
I always thought that terrorism is something new and that it made it debut for the first time in 2001. I also believed that the terrorists carried out their acts in an impromptu manner. All that misconceptions changed after I read this book. Terrorism has been around since the early 1970s. The bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983, the PanAm Flight 103 bombing in 1988, the Saudi National Guard facility bombing in Riyadh in 1995 and the Khobar barracks bombing in 1996 are just some of the many examples of terrorism that has taken place way before my time. Not only has terrorism been prevalent since the past but the terrorists also planned their operations meticulously before executing them in order to guarantee success.
The CIA took well over a decade to find out who was the culprit behind the 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut. The perpetrators left no trails behind; they used excessive explosives to ensure that everything, including themselves and the vehicles they were riding in would be blasted to non-existent so that there will be no trace for investigators to follow. It was only by chance the CIA came across an important agent later on which helped them solved the case. Iran was the mastermind and the Iranian government ordered Fatah, Yasir Arafat’s terrorist organization then, to carry out the task. CIA’s investigation showed that Osama bin Laden had been suggested to the Iran that they drop their efforts to undermine Central Asian governments and instead, join him in a campaign against the United States. That was in late 1997. Osama has planned for 4 years before finally dealing the blow to America in 2001. As of now, America is still in the midst of apprehending Osama and his accomplices.
It is quite disheartening to know that Ziyad Samir Jarrah, a Lebanese and one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed into the Pentagon during 911, came from a wealthy secular family and he attended Christian schools in his youth. He took aeronautical engineering in university and even went to take flight training in Florida. He even had a Turkish-German girlfriend.
All 4 culprits responsible for the London tube bombings are British citizens. Having sworn allegiance to Britain, they still fell to the lure of terrorism and committed an act of treason against their country. Worst of all, one of them is a teacher, someone that should have the mental capacity to know that killing himself and others for the sake of a religion is something absolutely absurd! All 4 of them have received education up till the secondary level.
All this shows that everybody and anybody, not just the poor and the uneducated, are susceptible to jihad. Yes, even woman are being employed by terrorists to carry out their sacred task. This makes it even harder for us to combat terrorism and it also made terrorism much scarier and dangerous. That pregnant woman that we just saw passing by might be concealing a bomb underneath her clothes on the pretext of being pregnant. The child that just walked past us might have a bomb in his school bag. The line has become blurred that we can no longer be sure who is a terrorist and who is not. It might sound unpleasant but truth is, the world is no longer as safe as before.
The book also highlights several illegal channels whereby the terrorists get their weapons. Several rogue nations, most notably Iran, are supplying terrorists with weapons. Corrupt officials in countries like North Korea and Russia are also willing to sell contrabands to terrorists for the right price. To make matters worst, Iran and North Korea has been conducting nuclear weapons testing for quite some time. It would be unthinkable what horrors can arise should a terrorist organization get their hands on a nuclear weapon. Small countries like Singapore would get annihilated in the blink of an eye. The radiation fallback following the nuclear explosion would affect many people for generations to come. World peace will be broken and war will ensue. The world will descend into chaos.
Interestingly, the famous French seer, Nostradamus, prophesized that by the year 2012, a rouge nation will acquire an incredibly powerful weapon, presumed to be a nuclear bomb, and will unleash it upon a city along the Mediterranean Sea, which is presumed to be Rome. Whether this prophecy is true or not, we will never know. Some of Nostradamus’s prophesies has been correct, most notably the rise of Adolf Hitler and the dissolution of the Soviet Union but some of it did not take place as well. There are two things we can do though. Wait to see if his prediction will occur or take actions now to try to change his predictions.
Singapore is in a tough neighborhood. We are surrounded by nations that are many times bigger than us and these nations are populated predominantly by Muslims. We also have our own share of Muslim population.
So if we want to keep safe, we must cut all ties with United States and her allies.
OK. No.. I am just kidding haha!
Thus, it is imperative for us to preserve the racial harmony in our country as well as the region. I have read enough articles to know the human toll which such racial hatred can take. Singapore has done well in maintaining cordial and peaceful relations with our neighbors. That way, we can always have the options of resolving conflicts and problems through diplomacy. We cannot afford to slacken in this area and so, we have to continue preserving our friendly relations with our neighbors. Singapore has seen its fair share of racial riots to know that racial harmony is crucial to our survival as a nation. Our government has succeeded in getting the different races to co-exist harmoniously. We only need to continue preserving this precious racial harmony that we enjoy today.
I believe Singapore should establish an organization similar to the CIA to help collect information to ensure our security. We are now living in a troubled times where conventional wars are no longer prevalent and unconventional war such as terrorism are. No amount of weapons can help us in our fight against terrorism because terrorists are like waterfalls; no matter how many of them you managed to catch or kill, there will always be replacements to take over the fallen martyrs instantly. Terrorists have no territories for us to invade, no infrastructure for us to capture and no citizens to protect. All they have is the unmoving determination to carry out their tasks, to die for their god. Since they are not afraid to die, it is pointless for us to have powerful weapons. Information, in my opinion, would be our best bullet against them. With information regarding their activities, we would be able to thwart their plans and prevent them from succeeding. Most importantly, we would be able to protect our citizens and our sovereignty.
We might have ruined their plans in the Yishun MRT bombings but that does not mean they would not try again. Like most people, terrorists learn from their mistakes. They will regroup again and devise another plan to hit us harder the next time round. The 911 incident has shown that terrorists will bide their time and strike when the time is right. They might make a move after 1 year, 2 years or 10 years? We will never know. Even while you are reading this passage, a terrorist might be lurking in the dark, waiting for the chance to catch us off guard and deal us a critical blow.
Even the world’s superpower is having a hard time eradicating the terrorists that have infested Iraq. What makes us think that we can do better than them militarily? Therefore, we should have an intelligence organization that is responsible for collecting information for us.
In conclusion, “See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism” has opened up my horizons. It showed me the dark side of the world and enlightened me of the dangerous situation that all of us are in. It has triggered my interest in the spying business. Most importantly, it provided us lessons which we can learn from the failures of the CIA.
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