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Keith Swenson's Reviews > The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
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by
Excellently researched, excellently written, this book is a shining example of the in depth journalist genre - Bob Woodward style - that pieces together a story of a top secret world and makes you feel like you have a front row seat.
What could be more important than keeping a tab on the working of the CIA? Particularly the development of the drone program? Mazzetti keeps us entertained by tracking how the Pentagon and the armed forces are in competition with the CIA and the secret forces, where this competition started decades ago, and how it unfolded, accelerated by 9/11, and how it played out in Afghanistan, Iraq, and most importantly Pakistan. he followed the careers of specific people in depth giving you a view from multiple viewpoints.
The most important reason to read this book is to get some grounding for understanding the problem with armed Predator drones. This is the most disturbing recent development, one that is likely to have the most profound effect on the future of the nation and foreign relations. Drones are evil -- but they are also an efficiency move that cuts costs both in dollars and lives, and ultimately dramatically lowers the cost of assassination. This book presents where they came from, and how they came to be used in the two major wars, as well as in Yemen.
I gave the book four stars, which always for me means that it is an excellent book. It is a detailed history of a secret program. I stop short of 5 stars, which the book might easily deserve, because I reserve the top rating for those books that stretch and challenge philosophically with new and ground breaking ideas. The way of the Knife is excellent, thorough history, but it did not open up new areas of thought for me.
What could be more important than keeping a tab on the working of the CIA? Particularly the development of the drone program? Mazzetti keeps us entertained by tracking how the Pentagon and the armed forces are in competition with the CIA and the secret forces, where this competition started decades ago, and how it unfolded, accelerated by 9/11, and how it played out in Afghanistan, Iraq, and most importantly Pakistan. he followed the careers of specific people in depth giving you a view from multiple viewpoints.
The most important reason to read this book is to get some grounding for understanding the problem with armed Predator drones. This is the most disturbing recent development, one that is likely to have the most profound effect on the future of the nation and foreign relations. Drones are evil -- but they are also an efficiency move that cuts costs both in dollars and lives, and ultimately dramatically lowers the cost of assassination. This book presents where they came from, and how they came to be used in the two major wars, as well as in Yemen.
I gave the book four stars, which always for me means that it is an excellent book. It is a detailed history of a secret program. I stop short of 5 stars, which the book might easily deserve, because I reserve the top rating for those books that stretch and challenge philosophically with new and ground breaking ideas. The way of the Knife is excellent, thorough history, but it did not open up new areas of thought for me.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
December 26, 2013
–
Finished Reading
December 31, 2013
– Shelved
It is an other form of assassination in which one cannot establish the elimination of the target with the help of a naked eye.
To dent the Pak - US relations, these strikes have played a pivotal role. To make matters even worse we had Reymond Davis taking the animosity at public level to culmination.