Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror by Richard A. Clarke

This book is a description of the events leading up to Sept. 11, by the former White House Counterterrorism Director.

It's quite interesting, and brought up a lot of things that I didn't know. For example, I didn't know that al-Quaeda was so new. I didn't know that the US dropped so many bombs in the 1990s (I knew about some, but not all), and I didn't know that they had very specific intelligence that led them to drop bombs where they did, as well as very specific intelligence about the 9/11 attacks, and other previous terrorist threats that were averted. I did hear some talk in the 1990s about terrorists who wanted to attack the US, but it just sounded all paranoid to me.

I don't know what's to blame for this ignorance on my part. It could be the fact that I don't read every article in the newspaper - I just skim headlines and read only what's interesting to me. It could be the particular newspapers to which my parents chose to subscribe. It could be the media's distraction with Clinton's sex life. It could be the fact that I didn't consume any American media at all during that time, except for the occasional newscast teaser while watching sitcoms on a US channel. It could be that the fact they were able to get such specific intelligence was classified at the time. I could play the "But I was just a teenager!" card, but frankly my ability to follow current events was just the same then as it is now, except that now I get to choose the newspapers to read and the newscasts to watch, and now the internet is bigger. But really, I was operating without all the facts in the 1990s, which is kind of embarrassing.

Another thing that I found kind of disturbing was the fact that apparently the US had/has a "snatch" program, where they'd send agents in to grab suspected terrorists and put them into custody (or possibly kill them, if necesssary). I feel conflicted about this. On one hand, the thought has occurred to me that sending in a special agent to kill key enemies of the state is preferable to starting a war. On the other hand, the fact that they didn't even seem to care that this is inviolation of international law disturbs me. It makes me think that if someone randomly one day decides I'm a suspect for something, agents might come in the night and abduct me and take me away, and if they aren't respecting international law they might not care for keeping me under Geneva conditions or giving me a fair trial or remanding me to Canadian custody. Yet another example of where US foreign policy operates under the assumption that they are The Good Guys and everyone sees them as such.

There were a few annoyances, such as Mr. Clarke's (and his editor's) apparent inability to differentiate between the words "insure" and "ensure", and the fact that it never seems to cross anyone's mind that dropping bombs is an act of war. But it's still worth reading just for the sake of hearing the story from an insider's perspective. Just do keep in mind that the author is likely to have certain biases because of the field which he has been working for so long.