5 comments about Catastrophe: Clinton's Role in America's Worst Disaster.

1. This book does not even deserve one star since it was published merely as a means to continue the right wing hate campaign against our last elected President, William Jefferson Clinton. The Clinton legacy has already been written and it was eight years of peace, prosperity and progress. No President in American history made terrorism such a focus of his attention and as a result President Clinton established the nation's first anti-terrorism policy and prevented numerous attacks. No man in the White House ever focused as much attention on his national security duties as did President William Jefferson Clinton.

   Don't waste a cent on this trash that is not based on any factual information. Newsmax has a well earned reputation for total disregard for truth and they have now extended it to self-published books. The beauty of self-published books is that there is no editorial review or fact-checking process prior to publication so outrageous claims can be published.

   Only the ill-informed and uneducated would believe the ridiculous assertions made in this work of fiction.




2. The fact that Christopher Ruddy is a featured columnist for NewsMax should tell you something about the objectivity of his investigative journalism. This book hardly warrants a star for its sensational allegations which have no merit. Richard Clarke has shown in great detail in his book Against All Enemies that Clinton did most everything he could to curb terrorism while he was in office. It was George W. Bush who let the guard down when he assumed office in January 2001, unwilling to accept that al Qaeda represented a threat on American soil. It is too bad there isn't a truth in investigative journalism commission to challenge books such as these, keeping them from sullying the shelves of well-respected bookstores.



3. As this book conclusively prooves, the War on Terror is a big waste of money and effort, as the real culprit is not Bin Laden, or the shadowy networks of Al Qaeda. It's actually Bill Clinton, who lives right here in the USA and can be easily captured and tried for perpetrating the crimes of 9/11.
   
   The various authors detail Clinton's efforts to learn how to fly a 747 with Atta back in the old days. They also detail how he recruited an army of Clintonistas to carry out the 9/11 atrocities, all the while fooling people into believing he was relaxing in his home in upstate New York.
   
   There is a side mention of Al Gore's efforts to poison the nation with anthrax, and how he was nearly busted when trying to sneak some of the white powder out of a secret government lab beneath the Pentagon. Also, the book discusses Hillary's secret training camps in upstate New York, where liberals learned how to make bombs and write propaganda.
   
   But mostly, it's Clinton, who finally came through on his promise to blow up the World Trade Center, after his failed attempts in 1993. Granted, he was already on vacation at the time in 2001, but his plan had been delayed by a cigar obsession that lasted several months and derailed some of the operation's steps.
   
   Unfortunately, the book doesn't cover Clinton's autobiography, where he gleefully boasts about how he pulled off the crimes and still remained popular. Perhaps a revised edition in the future?



4. This book is an absolute joke. Bill Clinton did more to combat terrorism than Reagan and Bush 41 combined and there was plenty of terrorism going on worldwide during their watch. In fact, in 1996 the Republican dominated Senate was stalling and not cooperating while Clinton was proposing groundbreaking new anti-terrorism laws. And now, 4 years after 9/11 Bush and the Republicans are finding out just how hard it is to find UBL even when he is the most want man in the world. And what did Bush have to say about UBL, the man who he claimed would be found dead or alive from ground zero days after 9/11? Now he says hes not that concerned about him anymore. You piece of garbage. Tell that to the face of my cousin's children who lost their father on 9/11.
   
   And is it any surprise to anyone that everyone involved in this present adminastration who was at fault for failing to prevent or wrong about Iraq was not fired but actually promoted. This adminastration is proving to be a disaster and will go down in the annals of history as the worst in our great history. And the Republicans had the nerve to impeach Clinton for getting a BJ and lying about it. What guy doesn't deny hooking up with a fat chick. But who died when Clinton lied? Maybe Bill could have stopped Al Queada if the evil republicans didnt create an unnecessay distraction. Books like this by Christoper Ruddy are bad for America.



5. I find it very interesting all the bad reviews and not one person has the time or ability to point out with some detail where the book is wrong. The truth is, they can't. The only argument liberals have figured out is how to scream louder and hate the right wing. Perhaps its time the liberals came up with their own ideas on what Clinton did that was so wonderful and amazing. I would especially like to hear all the things Big Billy did to fight terrorism when he himself admitted in more then one interview he wished he did more to fight terrorism during his campaign.
   
   The truly sick thing in all this is that liberals reading this will merely wright off all arguments as worthless without even a meager attempt to see if there is any truth to them. Whoever bangs their fists on the table harder wins!
   
   Grow up!

No comments about Big Dance: The Untold Story of Weather-Man Kathy Boudin and the Terrorist Family That Committed the Brinks Robbery Murders.

No comments about Countering the Threat of Improvised Explosive Devices: Basic Research Opportunities, Abbreviated Version.

5 comments about The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century.

1. Not as good a read as "Best Truth," but it's okay if you want to learn some background on Information Warfare. A more informative book on IW and one that is read by all working in this field is "Information Operations" by Leigh Armistead. It's more expensive, but worth it.



2. At the risk of being repetitive, I too will comment on the fact that the title of the book and the dust jacket description seem to be two to three steps removed from the actual writings of the author. Now it could be that I had an unfair expectation, but I expected the book to focus more on how the military uses the new technology available to it to fight wars. I was looking for detailed explanations about how a military unit goes into to battle and fights. With this said the book offered more of a last 50 years review of how technology has changed the way we plan for war, build and buy weapons systems, and overall espionage. An interested topic, but not one that was advertised.
   
   I do not read a vast number of these types of books so the rather high level review of many of the topics was enough for me. I can see how if you are well read on the topic and / or work in the fields discussed, this book could come across as light weight, but for a novice it was an interesting review of the topic. The author has a nice light and easy writing style that keeps the reader interested during some entertainingly dangerous technical discussions. I also really liked the side stories the author peppered through the book about topics as diverse as how this computer was designed or how this bit of espionage trick was created. I also picked up on a sense of humor that could be described as being influenced by Star Trek conventions and Dilbert books. Overall I enjoyed the book. I was disappointed at the misrepresentation of the title and could have done with some more detail, but overall it was an interesting easy book to read.



3. After reading many books on future warfare, Fourth Generation Warfare, Information Warfare and so on (all of them were disappointing to say the least) and after trying my luck with Berkowitz's "The New Face of War" (which is half examples from the past and half simplistic theories about the future) I think it's time to cease looking for credible predictions of the war of the future, since every theory I have read is hopefully outdated the next year! Operations in Iraq proved some things about the value of achieving information dominance but the insurgency that followed proved also that the nature of war has not changed and that high tech information networks are scrap against a determined and cunning enemy. Even a conventional war against a first rate power (like China) is not clear how will be decided nor is the role of information warfare clear. Experience has shown that predictions in these fields are bound to be proved wrong in almost every case because there is the human factor, political considerations and pure luck which overturn everything along the way. Thus, I would not recommend this book to any serious student of war. It's far better to spend time studying military history which contains a wealth of informative examples and simply guess about the future.



4. This book is an attempt to look at the modern military, and how wars will, and should, be fought in the future. The idea is to show how wars can be won cheaply, both in lives and in money, and what we need to do in advance to make these things happen.
   
   Warfare is changing, as everyone knows. Technology has moved with what seems to be ever-increasing speed, but it's driven weaponry in somewhat unexpected directions. For instance, while nations who participated in the Second World War introduced new tanks at a prodigious rate during the war, and the various Cold War competitors redesigned these vehicles pretty regularly during that period, the United States hasn't had a new tank in about 25 years now: and ours is typically pointed out as the superior tank, in spite of this.
   
   What is changing, however, is the technology of information. Nowadays, instead of trying to hit a tank with many bombs or artillery shells, the United States has the capability to use various "smart" munitions which can hit the target from hundreds, even thousands of miles away. This means that the technology level of the target is less important: if it gets killed by a smart bomb, who cares how advanced it *was*?
   
   Warfare, then, has transformed from a contest of things like rates of fire, blast radius, and fatigue, to one regarding things like satellite uplinks, reaction times, and global positioning systems. This is the central point of Berkowitz's book: as things change, we need to be paying attention to what warfare has become, not what it was.
   
   The author seems to think that some of this has been covered by the Pentagon, but some of it hasn't. Especially in the area of internet security, he believes the military needs to coordinate much better with the private sector to make sure that our systems aren't disrupted at exactly the wrong moment by our enemies. This is the one thing in the book he pretty clearly advocates.
   
   The book is sprinkled with interesting and amusing anecdotes, connecting Robert Whitehead, the inventor of the modern torpedo, with the movie the Sound of Music, for instance, and explaining how Robert Ballard, the guy who found the Titanic, also worked looking for sunken subs with his robot submersibles. This makes the subject of the book rather more easy to digest than otherwise. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject, except perhaps someone already very knowledgeable on it.



5. Of all the books currently coming out about modern warfare, THE NEW FACE OF WAR by Bruce Berkowitz is conceptual and pragmatic more than political and personal. Its focus is on the vital role of information and communications, and he makes a cogent case for the primary importance of information in modern warfare by showing the evolving role of both in war, as well as the evolving nature of war, before zeroing in on the present. Not clogged with technical jargon, yet cogent, this book is excellent though being three years old, some of his final conclusions about modern information warfare may no longer hold true.

No comments about Al-qaeda: Osama Bin Laden's Army of Terrorists (Inside the World's Most Infamous Terrorist Organizations).

1 comments about Critical Masses and Critical Choices: Evolving Public Opinion on Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Security.

1. The authors point out that the book is somewhat late. Originally thought of in early 2001, in response to the end of the Cold War. But history proceeded to intervene in September of that year. The radical changes in US foreign policy necessitated a complete redirection of the book. But it is still about the US and how Americans perceived and coped with evolving dangers in the world.
   
   Of these, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a major topic. Another is the spending policies of the US government. Unsurprisingly, an entire chapter is devoted to terrorism. The book summarises and interprets many surveys taken in the last 10 years, about these issues. The surveys were of US public opinion. The motivation of the analyses is to suggest how the government can best present policies and decisions to the public, as well as possibly use the surveys to find the most acceptable policies.

No comments about Terrorism, War, and the Press.

1 comments about Ending Terrorism: A Strategy for Defeating Al-Qaeda.

1. There's not a better primer on how to think about terrorism. This book takes a vast amount of knowledge (and discards a lot of bunkum) and boils it all down. This isn't an idiot's guide; instead it provides an intellectual rigorous framework for thinking about how terrorism works, how governments have successfully ended terrorist campaigns, and what all of this means for people thinking about the threat from al-Qaeda.
   
   You'll be amazed how much is packed in here. There are no literary flourishes and no wasted words. This is practical, effective knowledge, and it's hard to imagine a policy maker or police official who deals with terrorist threats who wouldn't benefit tremendously from reading this book.
   
   It is certainly the best policy paper I've read all year, and I've read more than 100.

No comments about Considering the Consequences: The Developmental Implications of Initiatives on Taxation, Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism.

No comments about Evaluating Novel Threats to the Homeland: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Cruise Missiles.