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This book has an overwhelming amount of information, mostly regarding Afghanistan and the early years of Al Qaeda. If there is one thing that I took away from this avalanche of material, it is the opinion that the USA has done a miserable job on intelligence gathering in the region, and our policies were even worse.

If pressed, I’d have to put more blame on the American military than the intelligence services. Like the old saying goes, when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Our military elite represent the worst elite in the entire nation. They are even worse than the Wall Street thieves because at least those guys were successful concerning their own self-interests. Our military just can’t seem to understand that few of our international problems have a military solution.

Take a look at the Stinger Missile program in which we supplied the Afghani Mujahedin with the missiles to fight the Soviet invaders. After the war, we had to frantically work to buy back our own missiles so they wouldn’t be used against American civil aviation targets. We were also heavily funding religious lunatics who would go on to put the USA in their sights.

We can never seem to look more than one move ahead on the board. We are losing.