Against All Enemies, by Richard A. Clarke

This audio book was 11 hours and 54 minutes long, and was narrated by Alan Nebelthau.

I had heard all the detractors, my fellow conservatives, pick this book apart and speak of Richard Clarke as if he were the worst traitor. But I wanted to read this book for myself and draw my own conclusions. Now that I have done that, I will share with you my assessment of this book.

It is pretty fast moving and engrossing reading. Clarke begins with the horror of September 11, 2001, and then retraces his steps as he worked for 3 US Presidents before George W. Bush. He had a ringside seat to many decisions made about US policy on terrorism, and was a major player in some of the counter-terrorism efforts made under Bill Clinton's administration.

If I didn't pay any attention to the news at all since the early 1990s, I would have to believe that George W. Bush and his administration made every conceivable error leading up to 9-11, and that the justification of the Iraq War was a total fabrication by Bush, Cheney, and Condi Rice, who just wanted an excuse to go back and in and finish what George H.W. Bush did not. This book is a pretty tight argument for scorning both Bush Administrations for all time as a collection of bunglers unequaled in American history.

I truly did enjoy this book because I do believe that it will be instructive for generations to come, and because it shows us enough of the workings of counter-terrorism to actually give us hope that there is rhyme and reason to how terrorism is fought. However, there is just enough missing, and just enough that smells wrong to cost Clarke some credibility points. For instance, he makes a great deal of his information that demonstrates there was absolutely no reason for invading Iraq. Yet, it is completely ignored that Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, was in violation of the UN's orders to comply with the dismantling of his nuclear and biological weapons program for 12 years. This was worth mentioning, even if he just wanted to discount it for some reason.

Read with a healthy dose of skepticism, but with the sobering realization that mistakes were made that led to 9-11, and that mistakes were certainly made afterward, this is a four star book.

The Fall of Che Guevara, by Henry Butterfield Ryan

This audiobook was 7 hours and 19 minutes long, and was narrated by George McGonagle.

Before I got this audiobook, I knew almost nothing about Che Guevara, although I could pick his image out of a lineup thanks to the iconic image that has appeared on a million or so T-shirts. So, this book was a voyage of discovery for me.

The author tells Che's story as a reporter would gie you the background on the subject, but then just get straight to the facts. He uses a lot of documents from the CIA and other government sources, going as far as to get them declassified himself. What emerges is the recounting of a frustrated revolutionary who was pushing the envelope on revolutionary theory to a point that it got him killed.

Che blundered when he thought he could get a revolution started in Bolivia by inserting a little over 50 commandos out in the jungles to stir up the peasants. The peasants were not particularly unhappy with their government, being far removed from it, and did not like the armed iealists who came to stir them up. They ended up ratting him out to the government forces who were looking for him.

To Che's admirers, this is a controversial subject. Some think Castro had him killed. Some think the CIA did him in. The evidence in this book has enough holes to leave your prejudices intact, but it all seems like a bad judgment call to me. I give it four stars for being informative, clear, and not taking unnecessary time.

Charlie Wilson's War, by George Crile

This audiobook was 20 hours and 27 minutes long, and was narrated by Christopher Lane.

I never saw the movie, so I have no idea how the book and the movie are different. I always trust the book.

This is the story of how a Democrat Congressman from Texas took up the cause of the Afghan people after discovering how the army of the Soviet Union was wiping out all resistance to their invasion. As a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, he was able to move millions, and eventually, billions of dollars to aid the Afghan insurgents who were still fighting with WW1 Enfield Rifles against helicopter gunships and tanks.

Charlie Wilson was a liberal who voted for civil rights, abortion rights, and all manner of liberal causes, but who was also a rabid anti-communist who wanted America avenged for the Viet Nam War. The Soviets had helped the Vietnamese insurgents bleed America dry, and he wanted to give it right back to them through proxies in Afghanistan.

This is a very instructive tale about how politics actually works at the Federal level, showing how unholy alliances really work. Relationships really do seem to trump ideologies, as Charlie Wilson becomes friends with Fundamentalist Muslim leaders who look the other way at his womanizing, boozing lifestyle while he bankroles their Jihads. In Congress, those who want to fight communists in Central America with Iranian money are prosecuted while American taxpayer dollars are matched by Saudi contibutions to fight communists on the other side of the world with the blessing of the same Congress. It seems that if a liberal want so run a secret war, it's OK. But if conservatives want to do it, it's unconscienable.

Political skill transcends morality even as American politicians convince themselves that they are doing the right thing to fund a primiative militia that has no limits on the atrocities they are willing to perform on captured Soviet soldiers. Eventually, these same Afghan militias will come back to haunt us in ways the Latin American Contras never did.

This is a must read for anyone who cannot understand the holes in the news. 4 stars!

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, by David Halberstam

This audiobook was 33 hours and 42 minutes long, and was narrated by Scott Brick.

This was David Halberstam's last completed work before he died in 2007. It is the usual top notch piece of 20th century history for which he was famous.

America and its military leaders thought that the atomic bomb was the end of conventional warfare. President Truman was looking to trim the defense budget to under $10 Billion, the American people just wanted their boys to come home, and the rest of the world was still at the brink of war. The US had gone from victory in Europe and the Pacific to total military unpreparedness in only 5 years. It set the stage for a deadly learning curve in Korea.

Much of this book concerns the mishandling of military intelligence by General Douglas MacArthur and his staff. MacArthur's best days were behind him and he didn't know it. He also had a lot of help from President Truman's domestic adversaries, mostly Republicans who made up the China Lobby. They were as hot for a confrontation with China as MacArthur was, and this desire for turning back the Communists in China nearly brought us into World War 3.

There are lots of stories from the actual conflict as well as the inside dirt on American politics during the McCarthy era. A fascinating book, even if it ran a bit long. I give it 3 stars.

Adams Vs. Jefferson: (The Tumultuous Election of 1800), by John E. Ferling

This audiobook was obtained for free from NetLibrary.com, was 11 hours and 33 minutes long, and narrated by Jack Garrett.

You don't know how little you have really been taught about American History until you start reading books on the Founding Fathers. I got the same names and dates drilled into my head year after year with precious little light ever entering that would have helped me understand my country and its system of government.

The Election of 1800 was the first contested election in American history. The Election of 2000 has nothing on this. And the opposing forces come right out of the same molds that popped out our current leaders. The Federalists were the party of law and order and a strong military. They fought to enact the "Alien and Sedition Acts". These were the Patriot Act on steroids. The Republicans (not the same party we know today) was anti-military and in love with the French Revolution, although a bit queasy about the acts of terror. It's funny how little really changes; only the names and places.

This was a gripping and vivid story of the men who guided our nation in its formative years, their feet of clay, and a lot of surprises for people who thought they knew their American History. Well written and well ready by the narrator, Jack Garret; this book is a 4 star champ.

Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy, by Pietra Rivoli

This audio book came free from NetLibrary.com, was 9 hours and 35 minutes long, and was narrated by Eliza Foss.

An economist is both annoyed and inspired by a protest against globalization by impassioned college students. After hearing one of the open-air speakers demand to know if we know were our t-shirts come from, economist and professor Pietra Rivoli goes to a souvenir shop, buys a t-shirt, and begins tracing its origins...and its destiny.

This is one of the most readable and interesting stories of the economic food chain you are likely to come across. It was a real page-turner with a stunning conclusion, that we all should be able to come to on our own: both the sweat shops and the protesters are important ingredients in the global ecosystem.

If you are a rabid free-trader, you must read this! It will alter your view of those naiive kids and their signs. If you are one of those capitalist-hating anti-globalists, you also should read this. If you have an open mind, it will temper your outrage and help you focus your efforts.

From the heavily protected and subsidized cotton fields of West Texas to the wide open, unregulated global recycling market in Africa, your t-shirt and been places and one things. And then it may come back again as it is broken down and respun into new thread!

Warning: there is lots of history in this book about the folly of working too hard to prevent trade. The English woolens industry kept cotton out of its markets for centuries. But regulations got weaker and weaker in the face of the eager public adoption of cooler cotton clothes. The last regulation to die was the one that required that the dead had to be buried in a wool suit!

Great stuff. Four stars. Oughta be a text book in our schools...

Cod: A biography of the Fish that Changed the World, by Mark Kurlansky

This book was 7 hours and 37 minutes long and was read by Richard M. Davidson.

If you know me well, you know that I eat stuff like this up. Odd slants on history are a favorite of mine, although after reading this, our political histories will seem like a footnote to the desperate search for sustainable food supplies.

For many years the humble cod fish was a staple of life for coastal people. The first explorers, in fact, went looking for better fishing instead of land and titles. When John Cabot came upon the coast of Newfoundland and claimed it for England, it was already frequented by the Basques in large numbers. They had simply kept their mouths shut about it, preferring to keep the fish for themselves.

That is the kind of odd history that lies beneath the more famous stories. Cod were able to be dried and carried for a long time, making not only the long voyages of the explorers possible, but the West Indian slave trade as well. And cod have continued to be a bone of contention between cod-rich Iceland and its European neighbors, as late as the 1970s.

This was fascinating, and a wonderful read. I'd give it 4 stars if it didn't get bogged down in so darned many recipes for cod. It got to be a drag after awhile. It slips to 3 stars just for that alone.

Changing China..., by David M. Lampton

I saw that one new addition to the local library's CD collection is a series of lectures from the Chautauqua Institute. This first one comes on one CD, is about 1:15 long, and is very much like one of those NPR public affairs broadcasts.

In this lecture, Mr. Lampton is optimistic about our relationship with China, so long as we are all optimistic about it. He makes the case that our Western attitude is one of, "If China will cooperate, we can be friends; whereas, the Chinese approach is, "If we are friends, we can cooperate." He was one of the first Americans allowed into China after Mao's death, which had brought on a brief period of seclusion, and he tells us that change in China is much more positive and rapid than we think. Furthermore, he has some positive words on why we could, and should, be positive on the relationship between the People's Republic of China (Mainland) and Taiwan.

This is a 4 star must-listen for anyone who weighs our foreign policy options when going to the polls.