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.

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.

Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky

This audiobook was obtained as a free download from Overdrive Audio through the Alachua County Public Library. It was 13 hours and 13 minutes long, and came in two parts, the first read by Daniel Oreskes, and the other by Barbara Rosenblat.

This book is actually two novellas that were part of a planned set of five. They were written contemporaneously during and about the German occupation of France. The author, Irene Nemirovsky, died in Auschwitz after being deported as a stateless person of Jewish origin.

The first novella, "Storm in June", is about the fear and dread of the German invasion. The men of fighting age are all gone. Businesses are relocating on the fly. Carloads of possessions pass desperate refugees as they head for safer ground. Whole towns are stripped of their food as the hordes pass through. For these people, the war is a huge disappointment after defeating Germany in 1918. The veterans of that war feel as if their sacrifice was for nothing. The surrender of France is a relief, just to stop the bombs and the fear of death.

The second, "Dolce", deals with the effects on the citizens of the occupation. Wealthy families host German officers, some with more grace than others. Young women, coming of age when all the young men are Germans, weigh their natural feelings against the possibility that these young men may have killed or imprisoned their fathers and brothers.

As much as it's a tragedy that the rest of this work was never finished, it is also the height of irony that such a beautifully written account was halted by the author's date with the Holocaust. And it's also a revealing look at a part of history that does not get much coverage: the lives of invaders and collaborators, when all the French had was the Passive Resistance.

I wanted it to go on. It is sad that it could not. 4 stars.

The Lords of Discipline, by Pat Conroy

This audiobook was a free download from NetLibrary.com, was 22 hours and 10 minutes long, and was narrated by Tom Stechschulte.

This was one of Pat Conroy's first novels, published in 1980. It is loosely based on his experiences as a cadet at The Citadel, where Conroy played Division 1 basketball in the mid 60s. Years later, Conroy wrote a non-fiction book about his senior year at The Citadel called "My Losing Season".

This one is about a young cadet, Will MacLean, who survives his plebe year and all the attendant hazing, and continues his college years as an iconoclast. He is a studious English major, a student athlete, and an uninspiring military specimen. Fortunately, he is part of a band of brothers. He and his 3 roommates would take a bullet for each other, and it is all that makes their time at South Carolina Military Academy possible.

During his senior year he is tasked with keeping watch over the school's first black cadet. This mission is not for the faint-hearted. Not only is this boy going to get the hazing of his life; but there is a secret organization on campus dedicated to keeping the school "pure", and they don't observe any limits.

This is a long book, but it flies by because there is so much going on. There is also much that will touch you, anger you, and even inspire you. This is Pat Conroy's most emotional book, in my opinion, because it strikes so close to his own heart. Even "The Great Santini", a book based on his relationship with his father, does not bring up Conroy's bile like this one. He hates bullies, and he hates the system that creates them; even turning former victims into bullies.

It was easy to give this one 4 stars.