Courting Disaster: One of the most important books of the year
Fellow Regnery author, friend, and patriot Marc Thiessen’s new book launches today. Courting Disaster is a must-must-read that gives you an inside, in-depth look at the successful CIA interrogations program under the Bush administration and the reckless subversion of our security by the current administration and its jihadi-abetting bedfellows:
Thiessen will be on Hannity on Fox tonight to discuss the book. Here’s a taste of the thorough research he conducted with the intelligence, military, and homeland security officers who have been vilified for keeping America safe:
…I have had the chance to actually meet the real Jack Bauers — the CIA officials who questioned Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other senior terrorist leaders and got them to reveal their plans for new terrorist attacks. They explained to my why their approach has nothing in common with the methods used by Bauer on the fictional 24.
On July 31, 2006, I walked up the winding stairs of the Eisenhower Building to a secure conference room in the offices of the National Security Council’s intelligence directorate. I had been assigned to write a speech for President Bush acknowledging the existence of what was then the most highly classified program in the war on terror: the CIA program to detain and question captured terrorists. To write this speech, I was given access to some of the most sensitive intelligence our country possessed on the interrogation of senior al-Qaeda terrorists, as well as to intelligence officers who could explain to me how the program worked and why it had been successful in stopping new terrorist attacks.
Sitting across the table from me were several CIA officials, including two men I will call Harry and Sam (not their real names), I didn’t know anything about the individuals before me except that they were with the CIA and knowledgeable about the interrogation program.
…Harry and Sam walked me through specific examples of how the interrogations had helped disrupt a series of terrorist plots in this way, showing me how information from a particular terrorist custody had led to the capture of other specific individuals, who in turn led us to other individuals, until the plots had been disrupted. These disrupted plots are detailed in Courting Disaster.
For example, information from detainees in CIA custody led to the arrest of an al-Qaeda terrorist named Jose Padilla, who was sent to America on a mission to blow up high-rise apartment buildings in the United States.
Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of a cell of Southeast Asian terrorists which had been tasked by KSM to hijack a passenger jet and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles.
Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, KSM’s right-hand-man in the 9/11 attacks, just as he was finalizing plans for a plot to hijack airplanes in Europe and fly them into Heathrow airport and buildings in downtown London.
Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of Ammar al-Baluchi and Walid bin Attash, just as they were completing plans to replicate the destruction of our embassies in East Africa by blowing up the U.S. consulate and Western residences in Karachi, Pakistan.
Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the disruption of an al-Qaeda plot to blow up the U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, in an attack that could have rivaled the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.
Information from detainees in CIA custody helped break up an al-Qaeda cell that was developing anthrax for terrorist attacks inside the United States.
In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al-Qaeda — giving U.S. officials a picture of the terrorist organization as seen from the inside, at a time when we knew almost nothing about the enemy who had attacked us on 9/11.
In addition, CIA detainees helped identify some 86 individuals whom al-Qaeda deemed suitable for Western operations — most of whom we had never heard of before. According to the intelligence community, about half of these individuals were subsequently tracked down and taken off the battlefield. Without CIA questioning, many of these terrorists could still be unknown to us and at large — and may well have carried out attacks against the West by now.
Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, well over half of the information our government had about al-Qaeda — how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks — came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.Another reason the program was so effective, Harry and Sam explained, was that because the terrorists were in a secure location, CIA officials could also expose sensitive information to them — asking them to explain the meaning of materials captured in terrorist raids, and to indentify phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and voices in recordings of intercepted communications. This could never be done if the terrorists were being held in a facility where they had regular contact with the outside world. The danger of this information getting out would have been far too great.
Harry and Sam told me that the agency believed without the program the terrorists would have succeeded in striking our country again. Harry put it bluntly: “It is the reason we have not had another 9/11.”
“If you want to know what really happened” at the “CIA interrogation sites and at Guantanamo Bay,” says former Vice President Dick Cheney, “you simply must read this book.” As Thiessen notes in the introduction, he shouldn’t have had to write this book. But someone had to tell the true stories of our brave and heroic men and women who worked behind the scenes to prevent future plots while politicians postured, newspapers blabbed, and transnationalists blamed the real victims.
In Courting Disaster, Thiessen fills the vacuum and performs an invaluable public service. He’s a hero, too.
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Excellent. And may those CIA officers who recently lost their lives RIP.
Can’t wait to read it! More and more people are realizing we are not safe under the current administration!!
Thanks Michelle, this is a must on our book list to get. So sad this bho, team, and the d’s in dc are un-doing all terror investigations. The scum bags terrorits now have the same rights as we American citizens.
L
Don’t worry less waterboarding and more Miranda rights for suicidal Jihadists will keep us safe.
The One knows the path to Peace in Our Time.
Wave some paper in the air Barry and tell us all will be well.
every democrat administration since jfk has hated the cia, and done everything in their power to destroy the agency. whether they deserve destruction or not is not my point, but every dem admin goes after the cia. maybe jfk was embarrassed when he stupidly flip flopped on the cuba invasion. ditto johnson on vietnam, ditto carter on iran, ditto clinton on yugoslavia, ditto obama on afghanistan. none of these dems ever took blame for their poor decisions, they just pointed the finger at the intelligence given by the cia.
The next major attack will finish the Democrats.
Along with a substantial number of Americans. We never learn.
No doubt The Dullard In Chief has accepted plenty of input from the CIA, but would kick them to the curb in public if it suits him & his mouthbreathing minions. This is OT, but consistent in that this imposter has blamed Bush for everything, including cloudy days. Yet, he calls upon Bush for help in the Haitian crisis, who has the class to accept & act graciously. Perhaps that example could serve as a “teachable moment”, if the chump has sufficient wit to grasp it.
“Protecting the Force: Lessons From Fort Hood” never mentions Islamist terror. Its 86 mind-numbing pages treat “the alleged perpetrator,” Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, as just another workplace shooter (guess they’re still looking for the pickup truck with the gun rack).
The report is so politically correct that its authors don’t even realize the extent of their political correctness — they’re body-and-soul creatures of the PC culture that murdered 12 soldiers and one Army civilian.
Reading the report, you get the feeling that, jeepers, things actually went pretty darned well down at Fort Hood. Commanders, first responders and everybody but the latest “American Idol” contestants come in for high praise.
From the NYPost…Hood massacre report gutless and shameful
Double Post Alert
The man one heartbeat away from filling Obama’s seat is a flaming idiot….
***********************************
Vice Moron and former Senator Joe Biden complains that the Senate doesn’t pass all its legislation on a simple majority.
Hmmm…
Source: US Senate
12 soliders, a civilian and an unborn baby…
the Must Read is on my list. Now can we waterboard Joe Biden?
(Glub, glub, glub)….”Ok, ok, I’ve never been to Home Depot…”
We don’t need to wait for another attack. I’m thinking they are pretty much finished now!!
I had to do a double take on the title. I’ve got Pat Robertson’s “Courting Disaster”. I guess I’ll be getting THIS one, too.
Oh happy…. stop acting like a Viking at Lambeau Field.
*If we could only get the Hidden Imam in the White House to read it!; The truth hurts, but political correctness kills; The people at the top, sworn to uphold the constitution, must identify the root cause problem: Islamic fundamentalism, led by a false prophet, based on a 7th century invented religion of death cult savages; Strip away the PC bovine scatology and the truth will be revealed!
So………..how ’bout dem Cowboys?
I can’t wait to read this book. I really hate this approach to things, but I’d have two hopes that spring from it: on one (far-fetched) side, maybe it would shame the current administration into managing our national security properly and preventing terror strikes where it can, and on the other side, it will be a good source to begin to look at what went wrong after the next attack (to say “someone told you so” in an effort to get someone in office who will do their job).
We’ve already seen in the Fort Hood attack where obvious signs were ignored, and in the Flight 253 attack when all the dots were there but we were told in effect that it couldn’t have been stopped.
Yet the administration persists in pursuing civilian trials (which do harm to our justice system/Constitution on so many levels it’s impossible to enumerate), shutting down gitmo, insisting that we did torture (which alone should get KSM set loose in civilian court), etc.
There will be a day when they succeed in attacking us. It could be tomorrow, or it could be years from now. The administration’s actions increase the probability of it being sooner than later, and they should be held to account for that.
(wringing hands) This interrogation stuff is so icky! Oh why do they hate us so? I really really want us to be friends. That would be so kewl!
So, can anyone doubt that Democrats are incapable of keeping us safe? Or that they even care to keep us safe?
The Obummer administration
intereinquirers to terrorists:“You have the right to remain silent, etc etc,….now, tell us what we want to know or it’s the comfy chair for you!!
The moment Obama stopped these interrogation programs, he assumed full responsibility for any attacks that occur after that point.
It isn’t like we will even be able to know which attacks were or were not preventable.
I see the likelihood of another…other…major attacks on Americans and American interests as a pure question of economics…
Lower the price on anything, and you will get increased demand for it.
THE ONE has systematically lowered the cost of terrorism against the Western world. He has done it in myriad ways, while RAISING the costs of resisting terrorism among those who are at the cutting edge of protecting the innocent.
The Collectivists have seemingly worked a small revolution in the culture of our defense and intelligence communities, turning them into PC bastions fearful of giving offense that could damage careers…or lead to the cataclysm of prosecution.
Heck-uv-a-job, Barry…
The Obama administration is so blinded by its collective hubris that it is dangerously naive about the sophistication and malice of our muslim enemies. We are governed by pseudo-intellectuals who are clueless about the true nature of the enemies we all face. The Obama administration cannot even identify the enemy, let alone effectively deal with it. The terrorist muslims laugh at Obama. I pray people won’t die for this insanity.
After reading this “book report”, I linked over and purchased one!
Knowing a little about the trade-craft, it is a shame that this book would have to be written and published. But because the far left counter-culture “I hate America” hippie freaks of the 60s and 70s are now running the country and persecuting our personnel while protecting the perpetrators I suppose “America’s side” of this story must be told so We the People can reign in our out of control leftist government.
For a historic overview of our secret intelligence activities dating from George Washington to the Bay of Pigs, I suggest the book “Honorable Treachery” by the late CIA historian, George J. A. O’Toole.
Glad I don’t live in DC or NYC, let the libs get the results of their policies…
I hope this is OK to do …
The excerpt was put up earlier this AM on Lucianne Goldberg’s site.
MM folks here may enjoy the comments over there.
Yeah…HOW ABOUT THOSE VIKINGS, HUH?? I was so excited when we got Favre…always felt he was a class act! We have our work cut out for us next week….but the Cowboys were really hyped up as being so formidable and they fell apart. We’ll see.
The liberals who currently hold the reigns of power in this country are clueless twits. Let’s hope that the lessons they learn are not paid for by using innocent blood. Like 9/11.
Ordered my copy from Amazon. Love that ‘One-Click’!
When the army field manual replaced tough interrogation of enemy combatants; when foreign enemy combatants were given the rights of US citizens to challenge their detention by the liberal block of the Supreme Court; and when we “Mirandized” the Christmas day bomber and gave him access to taxpayer funded lawyers, instead of turning him over to the military to be interrogated…our Country became far less safe. We might as well drop leaflets from the sky on Al Queda saying “please attack us already”.
1. Again, I’d like to know whether there are any publicly accessible memorials or family funds for these unsung underground soldiers.
2. I hope it doesn’t take a catastrophe for us to take truly brutal measures against terrorists who are actually protected by “legal shields” of rules of engagement and other PC restrictions. I think the Israeli “Sword of Gideon” terrorist assassination squad is an ideal model to perm-in-place to take the chains off special squads to ferret out and quietly ice these animals in their beds like avenging wraiths with their neighbors none the wiser. Ditto hiring “mercenaries” to stake out roads used by our military to sniper-out anyone setting up IEDs at ten grand a head, no trials, no reviews. If you’re caught digging IEDs in the dead of night you’re toast on the spot! Yet our uniformed guys aren’t even allowed to that!
James Greenidge
Queens NY
.
Subtitle: What happens when you let pansy liberals run the government.