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See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism (平装)
by Robert Baer
| Category:
American politics, War, Terrorism, Non-fiction |
| Market price: ¥ 158.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
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MSL rating:
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Gripping and eye-opening, this insider's account is a critical examination from within the CIA. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 12 items |
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Seymour M. Hersh (The New Yorker) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-17 00:00>
Robert Baer was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East. |
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Wall Street Journal (MSL quote) , USA
<2007-01-17 00:00>
See No Evil is a compelling account of America's failed efforts to "listen in" on the rest of the world, especially the parts of it that intend to do us harm.
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Scott Locklin (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-17 00:00>
Robert Baer was a sort of accidental CIA operative. His mom was a rich hippie who dragged him all over creation as a child, and he was a ski-bum. He applied to the CIA as a joke while taking Mandarin at U.C. Berkeley. One of the amusing things he left out about his background (or which he never explicitly stated) was the fact that he went to Georgetown University as an undergrad. Georgetown seems to be one of those "gimme" schools for CIA recruits; if you go to school there, you're pretty much a legacy.
In fact, many have criticized this aspect to CIA recruitment: as a result of this, the CIA is made up of graduates of a fairly narrow range of academic institutions, and as such have a narrower view of the world than a more catholic group would. Then again, considering the titanic idiocies and anti-american monstrosities taught by former vietnam-war protestors in the schools these days, perhaps there is a reason for it.
In any case, Baer is a sort of class clown type guy who managed to get into the CIA. He used to ride his Harley around the Georgetown Library, to give you an idea of what type of guy he is. Since he had extensive language skills and experience living abroad, he became an "on the ground" operative. Much of his work with the CIA was involving terrorist cells in places like Lebanon in the 80s, Tajekistan, and among the Kurds in Northern Iraq in the mid 90s.
He gives what appears to be a fair account of the ways in which politically correct bureaucracy have gotten in the way of the business of spying. He claims (with some supporting evidence from the Kurdish community) that a coup against Saddam was quite possible in 95, but the National Security Council at the time more or less told the plotters to call it off. His accounts of the thought processes of the whackjob islamicists and of middle east residents in general pretty much match my observations from work: that part of the world sees everything as a giant conspiracy theory. People still don't seem to have absorbed this important fact about international politics.
I was particularly entertained at his account of his adventures in Washington. Since he had more experience with dealing with terrorists and KGB agents overseas, he applied the same lines of thinking to figure out washington, with amusingly mixed results. |
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S. Haye (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-17 00:00>
This book could be said to be a rougher edged, true John LeCarre novel, and it is equally hard to put down. The author served in many of the areas in the news today from the mid 70's to the mid 90's. Baer was an on the ground operative speaking Arabic and running Arab agents. He finally quit when he saw the C IA turning into the see-no evil,, hear-no evil, do-no evil spy agency that has proved so ineffective in the new century. Agents now are mostly yuppies who cannot speak local languages and are discouraged from taking any risks. The result is no reliable intelligence.
See No Evil is a paean and an obituary for a spy agency that has no spies. It is also a history of the CIA when it did have spies and the background for events in the Middle East today. Entertaining, and educational - pretty good.
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S. Annand (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-17 00:00>
One could probably say there is something here for everybody. I have some experience and knowledge regarding some topics in this book, which is what I will address rather than rehash other reviews.
On page 86 Bob talks about the application process. I had a MA regarding counterinsurgency in Vietnam and was a Level 3 Arabic speaker, having also lived in the West Bank. Bob does not talk much about the written exam, but I only missed one question. This got me nothing but heartache, as every interview started with "I never saw a score as high as yours." I did not make any friends by stating "it was an easy test," which it was. I was also sent to DO for an interview. They rent a room for one day and you drive all over the place. The man who interviewed me was really rude, sucking on a pipe and never looking at me. They also ALWAYS take your picture with a polaroid and other childish games like that. Obviously, Bob's answers were better than mine. The interviewer, for instance, asked me how I would get information and recruit. I said you train me. He said take a shot at it. I said you need to know the language and, in the Middle East, get good background information from coffee shops and taxi drivers. The man scoffed. I said, "well, you didn't even know who Khomeini was and all you had to do was ask the man on the street." He also made the remark about "how do you feel about dealing with traitors." I answered "maybe he isn't a traitor and wants to overthrow a dictatorship for a better democracy." Boy, was I stupid. Bob said they only had three Arabic speakers at that time. And you wonder why?
I wish they had asked me about Pearl Harbor. My grandmother's sister was living in Japan with her weapons' producing husband and son. He spoke fluent Japanese. A couple of days before Dec. 7 they were in a restaurant and the Japanese admirals, hearing them speak English, remarked how surprised the Americans will be when they attack. The son told his parents but they did nothing. The son and mother were sent packing on the last boat out and the father was held in Japan for the duration. See what I mean about coffee shops and taxi drivers?
Page 87-88 is not true about the Sudanese, who I also know. He is not a Muslim Brother.
Bob also has a real prejudice against Arabs. On page 128-31 he goes on about Arafat, etc., being terrorists and tied to extremists. Ever since Begin every PM has needed settler support--or you wind up like Rabin. Mossad also started Hamas as a fundamentalist counterweight to the PLO (about the same time we back bin Laden). Like al-Qaeda, Hamas became independent and is now a real problem. Sure Arafat was hooked into the Nazi thing (all Arab nationalists, like Sadat and Nasser were), but so was the Stern Gang, of which Begin belonged to. The Israeli extremists tried to get Nazi support to fight the common enemy, England. Begin was a former terrorist who blew up the King David and Shamir took part in the murder of Count Bernadotte. I think Bob Baer really missed the point.
Bob writes another gaffe on page 178. He states some Arabs believed Saddam was on the CIA payroll. Hello!! Yes he was, in the 1950s, while plotting in Egypt. It's how he got his start. This is absolutely no secret and in any number of biographies on Saddam.
Bob's remark about money corrupting everything in Washington and hence America is sadly very true. I think Bob Baer is a patriot, not mistake about it, and he paid a price. Many people are naive enough to think the press really cares, like his experience when he tried to blow the whistle on corrupt congressmen.
What is best about this book is the last part. We should all take a look on the history of Chalabi and Talabani and others he writes about prior to the 2003 invasion. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-17 00:00>
See No evil is a fascinating account of former CIA operative Robert Baer. Not only is it an in-depth look at how the CIA works, it also reads like a spy novel. Mr. Baer served for twenty-plus years and worked in some of the world's most dangerous locations. Most notably, Baer worked in places like Lebanon and Iraq, chasing terrorists, and supporting Iraqi dissidents, respectively. As a case officer for the operations division, Baer's main job was to recruit foreign spies and extract information from them. He also offered clandestine assistance to foreign dissidents when their native countries happened to be enemies of the United States. His story is crucial in this age of terrorism and governmental deceit.
Some interesting and revealing highlights include:
-Political correctness and bureaucratic micro-management increasingly hindered the effectiveness of Baer and his fellow agents. Senior CIA officials were more concerned about their own careers and not upsetting the status quo than they were about catching terrorists.
-In 1995, the CIA was involved in a plot to overthrow Saddam Hussein. They were preparing to assist in an uprising, when CIA headquarters abandoned the operation at the last minute.
-Iran, not Saudi Arabia or Iraq, is the chief exporter of terrorism. Iran directly supports terrorist acts against the U.S. and has links with virtually every Islamic terrorist organization in the middle east. Baer believes that they even met with Osama Bin Laden. On page 264, Baer writes this whopper: "As I looked at the evidence in front of me, the conclusion was unavoidable: The Islamic Republic of Iran had declared a secret war against the United States, and the United States had chosen to ignore it."
Robert Baer admits that he is no boy scout. He has done some ugly things in his service to his country. With that said, I believe that he is a genuine patriot who has sacrificed many years of his life-putting his life at risk the entire time- doing what he thinks is right. Unfortunately, it seems that those who sign his paycheck do not share his integrity. |
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Simon Cleveland (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-17 00:00>
I became interested in this book after watching Syriana when at the end of the movie a post-script announced "... based on the book See No Evil by Robert Baer." Naturally I became interested in learning about the truth behind the fiction.
The movie is largely based on one of the many cases during the author's long career as a CIA agent (this one was related to his experience with a shady investment figure from the Washington lobbying community and closely connected with Clinton's campaign contributions scandal).
See No Evil is collection of cases, an autobiographical account of the ex-CIA agent Baer and his utter discontent with his former employer. The book is also a wake-up call, a bitter cup of strong coffee that jolts in the early morning hours of the day. It is a crash course on the history of Militant Islamism and the agent's personal involvement in the recruitment of spies in the fight against enemies of the US. It is also an example of how not to lead a government institution. As in all bureaucratic agencies, the CIA (which it seems to me should be the least bogged in bureaucracy) succumbed a long time ago to careerism, lack of professionalism and carelessness.
As I read this book, I became worried. No - I became down right scared about the lack of intelligence the US had about this great perils of evil - the terrorism in the modern age. What do you mean the US didn't know for years who committed the suicide bombing of the American embassy in Beirut? What do you mean agents of the CIA were trying to convert Muslim spies to Christianity and could care less about that other thing they're hired to do (their job)? Are we talking about one of the most feared organizations in the world, or are we talking about my grandma's church group? And what do you mean CIA agents were embezzling funds from the US government to set up their own European businesses and were never punished for that?
As the author voiced his disappointment with the CIA I huddled and shivered. If this is how CIA is being run, I better invest in a bunker underneath my back yard, because only God would be able to help me against those idiots with the bombs underneath their clothes.
I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to learn more about the things going on behind the scenes in the war against terrorism. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-17 00:00>
Wow, this has to be one of the most enthralling and intriguing books on foreign policy and intelligence. Robert Baer provides a rare first hand account on the murky world of espionage and the bureaucracy and politics behind it. Better than any movie, tv show or Tom Clancy novel, he illustrates the intricacies involved in becoming a successful case officer for the CIA's Directorate of Operations. One gets a glimpse of what it takes to do everything from evading surveillance to recruiting spies to surviving the backstabbing world of Beltway politics.
The bulk of the novel deals with his experiences abroad, as an agent in what he describes as the world's true hellholes. Baer spends the majority of these chapters in Beirut, Lebanon and Kurdistan, Iraq. In Lebanon Baer zealously immerses himself into the world of Islamic fanaticism trying to link together the vast inter-locking terrorist networks of Arafat's Fatah, the Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran's Revolutionary Guards in an attempt, among other things, to find out who committed the brutal bombing of our Beirut Embassy and what was behind the mass kidnappings in that region which included CIA bureau chief William Buckley along with countless members of the American media and academic world. The utter chaos that he describes in Beirut only reminds me of the never ending bloodbath we see in present day Baghdad, as in both cases there are countless accounts of massive suicide bombings, sectarian violence and foreign abductions.
In Iraq Baer talks about his relationships with Kurdish leader and now President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani and Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi, the duplicitous exile that allegedly fed Washington's neocons false WMD intel to help pave the way for the 2003 invasion. Baer focuses on the months leading up to the failed 1995 coup of Saddam Hussein. He goes into great detail about the players and even the specific plans of the coup, all the plotters wanted was the approval of the US, who they suspiciously felt was propping up Saddam's regime. However prior to the execution of the coup, Clinton's NSC advisor Anthony Lake decides to withdraw any and all support for the conspirators at the 12th hour, endangering the lives of the brave men that risked everything to rid the world of the megalomaniac. What was even more astounding was the fact that Lake wanted Baer to come back to Washington immediately to face charges for violating federal law in trying to execute Saddam. No wonder hardly any Iraqis rose up against Saddam in 2003 even as American forces crossed the Euphrates, not knowing if we were serious about removing the dictator or just implementing another half measure that would lead to another massacre of the opposition by Saddam's security forces.
The consistent theme of the book is that Washington politics slowly eroded the CIA's effectiveness to do their job. Though the agency is partly to blame, due to their propensity for falling into scandal after scandal. However Washington's knee-jerk reaction to clean up the agency at all costs, proved to be more of a long-term detriment to the country than any of the scandals themselves. The last section of the book is about Baer's experiences working a mid level admin job in the now risk adverse agency during the Clinton administration. He shows us that naïve and ignorant technocrats and policy makers in the White House and NSC were just as much of a threat to our national security as terrorists from Iran or the Arab world. Say what you want about the alleged ties and conspiracies involving Bush and Cheney's connections to big oil and such, Baer makes it explicitly clear that the Clinton White House was in bed with the oil companies. Clinton utilized his national security apparatus to advance the interests of the oil lobby rather than focus on terrorists like Hezbollah and Bin Laden. I found it appalling that during much of this time the administration would turn a blind eye to what was happening in the hot spots of the world especially the Mid East and Central Asia. The agency, rather than staffing these locales with experts that understood the people, the cultures, the languages and what it meant to collect human intelligence with people like Baer, instead used career minded, paper pushing bureaucrats as the frontline in against terrorism and over relied on technology to collect vital intel. No one wanted to take risks to protect our country for fear that they may cause some embarrassing diplomatic incidence that may harm our trade relations. With all the recent publicity over the last few years over our intelligence agencies' inability to stop 9/11, the Iraq WMD failings among other things, no should be surprised any of this transpired once you finish reading See No Evil.
One can only hope that much of this has improved after the catastrophic events of 9/11. But due to the secrecy involved in intelligence we will not know for years or perhaps even decades if the Bush administration has taken the necessary steps to rebuild the CIA. |
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Tim Ritter (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-17 00:00>
One hears a lot of things about the CIA, everything from Bondish fantasy to tales of deskbound drudgery. I really didn't know what to believe. So the first pages of See No Evil, where Robert Baer describes what it is to begin a career in the CIA, were very welcome.
I was not expecting the passage on page 32, written by this 21-year veteran of the agency: "... case officers are in fact second-story men, thieves who steal other countries' secrets. The DO (Directorate of Operations) is the only arm of the federal government dedicated to breaking the law - foreign law, but still the law." And, a paragraph later, "... like any other professional criminal organization, it lived according to a strict code of professional secrecy."
Baer describes making contact with a number of potential sources in his early days. A couple of them, in India, are striking for their resemblance to sexual seduction. Baer puts himself in a situation where he will see the "target" a great deal, shows great interest in what they have to say, and eventually invites them over to his place. For one, he makes a gift of an expensive hunting rifle. Then, when they've accepted gifts and come over to his place, and intimacy has grown up between them, he pops the question. Not, "will you sleep with me?", but, "will you betray secrets of your country to me?", a betrayal which in most countries is a capital offense. And this, according to Baer, is the typical work of a case officer in the CIA.
Which raises the question: Is this a wise way to operate in countries with whom we are not at war? Is it moral for our intelligence pros to deliberately (and often gratuitously) endanger the lives of persons who have done us no harm? Do our CIA officers encourage treason in all the nations of the world? Not just India and Lebanon, but Turkey? Brazil? Mexico? Israel? Britain? I wonder how many people worldwide have been executed by their governments for giving information to the CIA that the CIA did not really need.
The author believes it was the steady diminishment of these "criminal" capabilities that led to our vulnerability prior to 9/11. In support of this hypothesis, he recounts a handful out of the many espionage maneuvers that made up his career, impressing on the reader how it became steadily more difficult to do his job as the years went by; and how each year there were fewer operatives of his ilk who were willing to get their hands dirty in the criminal enterprise. Baer's view is that the difficulty stemmed from pressure from Washington interests who were more interested in protecting the profits of American corporations abroad than in protecting Americans from terrorists abroad.
He pays special attention to his quest to find the bombers of the US Embassy in Beirut in 1983. This ultimately fruitless search often pointed to Yasir Arafat. Baer points out the absurdity of such a man receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and wonders about the possibility of Osama bin Laden becoming a "statesman" as well. Many Israeli statesmen, he notes, "started out their political lives conducting what we would now define as terrorist operations against Britain". Which is putting it mildly. Menachem Begin's bombing of the King David Hotel killed more people than either the July mass transit attacks in London or the Beirut Embassy bombing, and he, like Arafat, was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. Is it irrational for the Arabs to think that they can get what they want by terrorism when the Israelis got exactly what they wanted (a state) just two years after this attack on innocent civilians?
More to the point of this book, is it a rational goal for the CIA to try to get enough foreigners to commit treason to stop all future attacks? Certainly human intelligence (humint, in the syllable-saving formulation) is valuable, but might there be a better way to get it than encouraging people to betray their countries, especially since today's typical terrorist is not aligned with any particular country?
Certainly Baer is right about the pullback from human contact into satellite peeping, but there is no doubt that a reevaluation of the ground rules for humint (if indeed there are any) is in order. The agency's obsession with secrecy, for example, doesn't always have a firm basis in reason. Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, the chief coordinator of the 9/11 attacks, was picked up in Pakistan in 2003 and turned over to the CIA or NSA or some other agency. Since then, we who pay the salaries of the people in these agencies have heard exactly nothing about him. He might have given good information, he might have given bad information, he might have gotten a bullet to the back of the head, he might have been suffocated, or he may have been in a stress position since 2003. Whatever his position, I think the people who run the CIA owe us a bit more than nothing. At the very minimum, they owe us a progress report and a disclosure of where he is being held or has been buried. |
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M. Bunenko (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-17 00:00>
Robert Baer's See No Evil is one of those once-in-a-lifetime memoirs that's extremely difficult to put down. The book is not only, in essence, an adventure story, it's also a political treatise, but without the partisan hackery. Baer's life with the CIA makes for very interesting material, and parts of the book, especially when he begins to explore the ties between the Clinton Administration and Big Oil, read like a Grisham-esque suspense novel, only even Grisham couldn't spin a web this complex. In other words, Baer's biggest selling point is that his story is so weird, it has to be true.
One aspect of the book that I found disagreeable was that Baer sporadically condescended to his readers. Throughout his narrative, he reminded us that a particular circumstance may seem strange to us, the laymen, but to those with expertise in the Middle East, it's a garden-variety problem. This was a bit irritating, but I think that in the final analysis, Baer's material - from his work to his problems with the CIA - far eclipses whatever bit of pretension he's accumulated over the years. And, I think, it could be agreed upon that he deserves to be far more patronizing than he is.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has even the slightest interest in terrorism, oil, or the CIA. See No Evil is one of the fastest reads I've come across, and it details an organization that is, in itself, such a vast bastion of conspiracies and "operations" that no fiction writer, no matter how good, could surmise.
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