Surprise Kill Vanish

Download Surprise Kill Vanish full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Surprise Kill Vanish ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

Surprise, Kill, Vanish

Author : Annie Jacobsen
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316441406
Total Pages : 586 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (164 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Surprise, Kill, Vanish by : Annie Jacobsen

Download or read book Surprise, Kill, Vanish written by Annie Jacobsen and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units. Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace. When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world. Originally known as the president's guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky and ruthless operations that have evolved over time to defend America from its enemies. Almost every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and, yes, assassination. With unprecedented access to forty-two men and women who proudly and secretly worked on CIA covert operations from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day, along with declassified documents and deep historical research, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen unveils -- like never before -- a complex world of individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers, and saboteurs. Despite Hollywood notions of off-book operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually one piece in a colossal foreign policy machine. Written with the pacing of a thriller, Surprise, Kill, Vanish brings to vivid life the sheer pandemonium and chaos, as well as the unforgettable human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope that define paramilitary and intelligence work. Jacobsen's exclusive interviews -- with members of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon's generals), its counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Special Activities Division's Ground Branch operators who conduct today's close-quarters killing operations around the world -- reveal, for the first time, the enormity of this shocking, controversial, and morally complex terrain. Is the CIA's paramilitary army America's weaponized strength, or a liability to its principled standing in the world? Every operation reported in this book, however unsettling, is legal.

Area 51

Author : Annie Jacobsen
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316193852
Total Pages : 628 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (161 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Area 51 by : Annie Jacobsen

Download or read book Area 51 written by Annie Jacobsen and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2011-05-17 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This "compellingly hard-hitting" bestseller from a Pulitzer Prize finalist gives readers the complete untold story of the top-secret military base for the first time (New York Times). It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government — but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades. Myths and hypotheses about Area 51 have long abounded, thanks to the intense secrecy enveloping it. Some claim it is home to aliens, underground tunnel systems, and nuclear facilities. Others believe that the lunar landing itself was filmed there. The prevalence of these rumors stems from the fact that no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside the base. Until now. Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there for extended periods. In Area 51, Jacobsen shows us what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets to pursuing the War on Terror. This is the first book based on interviews with eye witnesses to Area 51 history, which makes it the seminal work on the subject. Filled with formerly classified information that has never been accurately decoded for the public, Area 51 weaves the mysterious activities of the top-secret base into a gripping narrative, showing that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make.

Operation Paperclip

Author : Annie Jacobsen
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316221058
Total Pages : 626 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (162 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Operation Paperclip by : Annie Jacobsen

Download or read book Operation Paperclip written by Annie Jacobsen and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “remarkable” story of America's secret post-WWII science programs (The Boston Globe), from the New York Times bestselling author of Area 51. In the chaos following World War II, the U.S. government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific minds. These were the brains behind the Nazis' once-indomitable war machine. So began Operation Paperclip, a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States. Many of these men were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder and slavery. They were also directly responsible for major advances in rocketry, medical treatments, and the U.S. space program. Was Operation Paperclip a moral outrage, or did it help America win the Cold War? Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, colleagues, and interrogators, and with access to German archival documents (including previously unseen papers made available by direct descendants of the Third Reich's ranking members), files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and dossiers discovered in government archives and at Harvard University, Annie Jacobsen follows more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into a startling, complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secret of the twentieth century. In this definitive, controversial look at one of America's most strategic, and disturbing, government programs, Jacobsen shows just how dark government can get in the name of national security. "Harrowing...How Dr. Strangelove came to America and thrived, told in graphic detail." —Kirkus Reviews

The Pentagon's Brain

Author : Annie Jacobsen
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316371653
Total Pages : 585 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (163 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Pentagon's Brain by : Annie Jacobsen

Download or read book The Pentagon's Brain written by Annie Jacobsen and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times bestseller Area 51. No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain," from its Cold War inception in 1958 to the present. This is the book on DARPA -- a compelling narrative about this clandestine intersection of science and the American military and the often frightening results.

Phenomena

Author : Annie Jacobsen
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316349372
Total Pages : 502 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (163 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Phenomena by : Annie Jacobsen

Download or read book Phenomena written by Annie Jacobsen and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of the military's decades-long investigation into mental powers and phenomena, from the author of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Pentagon's Brain and international bestseller Area 51. This is a book about a team of scientists and psychics with top secret clearances. For more than forty years, the U.S. government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the Navy, Air Force, and Army-and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs, using never before seen declassified documents as well as exclusive interviews with, and unprecedented access to, more than fifty of the individuals involved. Speaking on the record, many for the first time, are former CIA and Defense Department scientists, analysts, and program managers, as well as the government psychics themselves. Who did the U.S. government hire for these top secret programs, and how do they explain their military and intelligence work? How do scientists approach such enigmatic subject matter? What interested the government in these supposed powers and does the research continue? Phenomena is a riveting investigation into how far governments will go in the name of national security.

The Way of the Knife

Author : Mark Mazzetti
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101617942
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Way of the Knife by : Mark Mazzetti

Download or read book The Way of the Knife written by Mark Mazzetti and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The new American way of war is here, but the debate about it has only just begun. In The Way of the Knife, Mr Mazzetti has made a valuable contribution to it.” —The Economist A Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter’s riveting account of the transformation of the CIA and America’s special operations forces into man-hunting and killing machines in the world’s dark spaces: the new American way of war The most momentous change in American warfare over the past decade has taken place away from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, in the corners of the world where large armies can’t go. The Way of the Knife is the untold story of that shadow war: a campaign that has blurred the lines between soldiers and spies and lowered the bar for waging war across the globe. America has pursued its enemies with killer drones and special operations troops; trained privateers for assassination missions and used them to set up clandestine spying networks; and relied on mercurial dictators, untrustworthy foreign intelligence services, and proxy armies. This new approach to war has been embraced by Washington as a lower risk, lower cost alternative to the messy wars of occupation and has been championed as a clean and surgical way of conflict. But the knife has created enemies just as it has killed them. It has fomented resentments among allies, fueled instability, and created new weapons unbound by the normal rules of accountability during wartime. Mark Mazzetti tracks an astonishing cast of characters on the ground in the shadow war, from a CIA officer dropped into the tribal areas to learn the hard way how the spy games in Pakistan are played to the chain-smoking Pentagon official running an off-the-books spy operation, from a Virginia socialite whom the Pentagon hired to gather intelligence about militants in Somalia to a CIA contractor imprisoned in Lahore after going off the leash. At the heart of the book is the story of two proud and rival entities, the CIA and the American military, elbowing each other for supremacy. Sometimes, as with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, their efforts have been perfectly coordinated. Other times, including the failed operations disclosed here for the first time, they have not. For better or worse, their struggles will define American national security in the years to come.

Black Ops

Author : Ric Prado
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1250271851
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Black Ops by : Ric Prado

Download or read book Black Ops written by Ric Prado and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Explosive National Bestseller A memoir by the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the veil of secrecy and offer a glimpse into the shadow wars that America has fought since the Vietnam Era. Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric’s legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism. Operating in the shadows, Ric and his fellow CIA officers fought a little-seen and virtually unknown war to keep USA safe from those who would do it harm. After duty stations in Central, South America, and the Philippines, Black Ops follows Ric into the highest echelons of the CIA’s headquarters at Langley, Virginia. In late 1995, he became Deputy Chief of Station and co-founding member of the Bin Laden Task Force. Three years later, after serving as head of Korean Operations, Ric took on one of the most dangerous missions of his career: to re-establish a once-abandoned CIA station inside a hostile nation long since considered a front line of the fight against Islamic terrorism. He and his team carried out covert operations and developed assets that proved pivotal in the coming War on Terror. A harrowing memoir of life in the shadowy world of assassins, terrorists, spies and revolutionaries, Black Ops is a testament to the courage, creativity and dedication of the Agency’s Special Activities Group and its elite shadow warriors.

Kiss Kill Vanish

Author : Jessica Martinez
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062274511
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (622 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Kiss Kill Vanish by : Jessica Martinez

Download or read book Kiss Kill Vanish written by Jessica Martinez and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love. Betrayal. Murder. Valentina is living a charmed, glittering life in Miami—falling in love for the first time, showered with gifts and affection by her father, surrounded by friends—when one shocking moment shatters everything she thought she knew about herself, her boyfriend, and her world. With no one left to trust, Valentina sheds her identity and flees to Montreal, where she finds work posing for a series of portraits by a pompous young artist. Valentina has always been at home in the art world, but she's never felt quite so alone. Valentina's carefully constructed new life comes crashing down when someone from her past resurfaces, putting her safety in question and her heart on the line. With betrayal at every turn, Valentina must untangle the deceptions of those she once loved and race to find her own truth—before it's too late.

Useful Enemies

Author : Noel Malcolm
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192565818
Total Pages : 616 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Useful Enemies by : Noel Malcolm

Download or read book Useful Enemies written by Noel Malcolm and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-02 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, when Ottoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration. In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion. Useful Enemies shows how the concept of 'oriental despotism' began as an attempt to turn the tables on a very positive analysis of Ottoman state power, and how, as it developed, it interacted with Western debates about monarchy and government. Noel Malcolm also shows how a negative portrayal of Islam as a religion devised for political purposes was assimilated by radical writers, who extended the criticism to all religions, including Christianity itself. Examining the works of many famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, and Montesquieu) and many less well-known ones, Useful Enemies illuminates the long-term development of Western ideas about the Ottomans, and about Islam. Noel Malcolm shows how these ideas became intertwined with internal Western debates about power, religion, society, and war. Discussions of Islam and the Ottoman Empire were thus bound up with mainstream thinking in the West on a wide range of important topics. These Eastern enemies were not just there to be denounced. They were there to be made use of, in arguments which contributed significantly to the development of Western political thought.

We Stand Divided

Author : Daniel Gordis
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062873717
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (628 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis We Stand Divided by : Daniel Gordis

Download or read book We Stand Divided written by Daniel Gordis and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From National Jewish Book Award Winner and author of Israel, a bold reevaluation of the tensions between American and Israeli Jews that reimagines the past, present, and future of Jewish life Relations between the American Jewish community and Israel are at an all-time nadir. Since Israel’s founding seventy years ago, particularly as memory of the Holocaust and of Israel’s early vulnerability has receded, the divide has grown only wider. Most explanations pin the blame on Israel’s handling of its conflict with the Palestinians, Israel’s attitude toward non-Orthodox Judaism, and Israel’s dismissive attitude toward American Jews in general. In short, the cause for the rupture is not what Israel is; it’s what Israel does. These explanations tell only half the story. We Stand Divided examines the history of the troubled relationship, showing that from the outset, the founders of what are now the world’s two largest Jewish communities were responding to different threats and opportunities, and had very different ideas of how to guarantee a Jewish future. With an even hand, Daniel Gordis takes us beyond the headlines and explains how Israel and America have fundamentally different ideas about issues ranging from democracy and history to religion and identity. He argues that as a first step to healing the breach, the two communities must acknowledge and discuss their profound differences and moral commitments. Only then can they forge a path forward, together.

The Invention of Solitude

Author : Paul Auster
Publisher : Faber & Faber
ISBN 13 : 0571266746
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (712 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Invention of Solitude by : Paul Auster

Download or read book The Invention of Solitude written by Paul Auster and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2010-11-25 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'One day there is life . . . and then, suddenly, it happens there is death.' So begins Paul Auster's moving and personal meditation on fatherhood. The first section, 'Portrait of an Invisible Man', reveals Auster's memories and feelings after the death of his father. In 'The Book of Memory' the perspective shifts to Auster's role as a father. The narrator, 'A', contemplates his separation from his son, his dying grandfather and the solitary nature of writing and story-telling.

Top Secret America

Author : Dana Priest
Publisher : Hachette+ORM
ISBN 13 : 0316194042
Total Pages : 339 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (161 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Top Secret America by : Dana Priest

Download or read book Top Secret America written by Dana Priest and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The top-secret world that the government created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has become so enormous, so unwieldy, and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or exactly how many agencies duplicate work being done elsewhere. The result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe may be putting us in greater danger. In Top Secret America, award-winning reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin uncover the enormous size, shape, mission, and consequences of this invisible universe of over 1,300 government facilities in every state in America; nearly 2,000 outside companies used as contractors; and more than 850,000 people granted "Top Secret" security clearance. A landmark exposé of a new, secret "Fourth Branch" of American government, Top Secret America is a tour de force of investigative reporting-and a book sure to spark national and international alarm.

Hunting the Jackal

Author : Billy Waugh
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062133578
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (621 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Hunting the Jackal by : Billy Waugh

Download or read book Hunting the Jackal written by Billy Waugh and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-12-06 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning more than five decades, here is a riveting true account of fighting America’s enemies around the world—told by the soldier/operative who was there I am not a hero. Billy Waugh has lurked in the shadows and on the periphery of many of the most significant events of the past half-century on active duty with U.S. Army Special Forces and the CIA fighting enemies of the United States. In Hunting the Jackal, this legendary warrior reveals the extraordinary events of his life and career, offering a point-by-point eyewitness account of the historical events in which he participated. Serving in Korea and Vietnam, Waugh was among the first Green Berets in 1963. He has helped train Libyan commandos in the Sahara Desert, while spying on Russian missile sites in Benghazi, and has worked against Caribbean drug runners. He was the first CIA operative to watch Osama Bin Laden in Khartoum “from a spot close enough to kill him had I been allowed,” and tracked him over the course of two years. In 1994 he found the notorious Carlos the Jackal in Sudan, and tailed him until he was captured—a story that until now has never been told. And, just last year, at age 72, Waugh was on the ground in Afghanistan with a joint SpecForces/CIA unit. This is his remarkable true story.

Jawbreaker

Author : Gary Berntsen
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307351068
Total Pages : 362 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Jawbreaker by : Gary Berntsen

Download or read book Jawbreaker written by Gary Berntsen and published by Crown. This book was released on 2006-10-24 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Book the CIA Doesn’t Want You to Read Gary Berntsen, the CIA’s key commander coordinating the fight against the Taliban forces around Kabul, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit—and cornering—of Osama bin Laden, and the reason the terrorist leader escaped American retribution. As disturbingly eye-opening as it is adrenaline-charged, Jawbreaker races from CIA war rooms to diplomatic offices to mountaintop redoubts to paint a vivid portrait of a new kind of warfare, showing what can and should be done to deal a death blow to freedom’s enemies.

Ending War Crimes, Chasing the War Criminals

Author : Jonathan Power
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004346341
Total Pages : 150 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Ending War Crimes, Chasing the War Criminals by : Jonathan Power

Download or read book Ending War Crimes, Chasing the War Criminals written by Jonathan Power and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-08-28 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers a history of one of the most important issues of our age. It begins with an analysis of the characters of Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler, the two men in charge of “the Final Solution”. It moves on to look at the role played by some of Africa’s war criminals and also offers portraits of alleged war criminals from the Western world, including the self-confessed war criminal Robert McNamara who led the war in Vietnam on behalf of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. The book also tracks the wars and genocide in, and subsequent international criminal law trials relating to Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia. In a final chapter, it asks the question: can human rights be pursued by making war?

The Imagineers of War

Author : Sharon Weinberger
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0804169721
Total Pages : 498 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (41 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Imagineers of War by : Sharon Weinberger

Download or read book The Imagineers of War written by Sharon Weinberger and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-02-20 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon agency that has quietly shaped war and technology for nearly sixty years. Founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, the agency’s original mission was to create “the unimagined weapons of the future.” Over the decades, DARPA has been responsible for countless inventions and technologies that extend well beyond military technology. Sharon Weinberger gives us a riveting account of DARPA’s successes and failures, its remarkable innovations, and its wild-eyed schemes. We see how the threat of nuclear Armageddon sparked investment in computer networking, leading to the Internet, as well as to a proposal to power a missile-destroying particle beam by draining the Great Lakes. We learn how DARPA was responsible during the Vietnam War for both Agent Orange and the development of the world’s first armed drones, and how after 9/11 the agency sparked a national controversy over surveillance with its data-mining research. And we see how DARPA’s success with self-driving cars was followed by disappointing contributions to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Weinberger has interviewed more than one hundred former Pentagon officials and scientists involved in DARPA’s projects—many of whom have never spoken publicly about their work with the agency—and pored over countless declassified records from archives around the country, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and exclusive materials provided by sources. The Imagineers of War is a compelling and groundbreaking history in which science, technology, and politics collide.

First Casualty

Author : Toby Harnden
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 031654096X
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (165 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis First Casualty by : Toby Harnden

Download or read book First Casualty written by Toby Harnden and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning journalist reveals the dramatic true story of the CIA's Team Alpha, the first Americans to be dropped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan after 9/11. America is reeling; Al-Qaeda has struck and thousands are dead. The country scrambles to respond, but the Pentagon has no plan for Afghanistan—where Osama bin Laden masterminded the attack and is protected by the Taliban. Instead, the CIA steps forward to spearhead the war. Eight CIA officers are dropped into the mountains of northern Afghanistan on October 17, 2001. They are Team Alpha, an eclectic band of linguists, tribal experts, and elite warriors: the first Americans to operate inside Taliban territory. Their covert mission is to track down Al- Qaeda and stop the terrorists from infiltrating the United States again. First Casualty places you with Team Alpha as the CIA rides into battle on horseback alongside the warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. In Washington, DC, few trust that the CIA men, the Green Berets, and the Americans’ outnumbered Afghan allies can prevail before winter sets in. On the ground, Team Alpha is undeterred. The Taliban is routed but hatches a plot with Al-Qaeda to hit back. Hundreds of suicidal fighters, many hiding weapons, fake a surrender and are transported to Qala-i Jangi—the “Fort of War.” Team Alpha’s Mike Spann, an ex-Marine, and David Tyson, a polyglot former Central Asian studies academic, seize America’s initial opportunity to extract intelligence from men trained by bin Laden—among them a young Muslim convert from California. The prisoners revolt and one CIA officer falls—the first casualty in America’s longest war, which will last two decades. The other CIA man shoots dead the Al-Qaeda jihadists attacking his comrade. To survive, he must fight his way out against overwhelming odds. Award-winning author Toby Harnden gained unprecedented access to all living Team Alpha members and every level of the CIA. Superbly researched, First Casualty draws on extensive interviews, secret documents, and deep reporting inside Afghanistan. As gripping as any adventure novel, yet intimate and profoundly moving, it tells how America found a winning strategy only to abandon it. Harnden reveals that the lessons of early victory and the haunting foretelling it contained—unreliable allies, ethnic rivalries, suicide attacks, and errant US bombs—were ignored, tragically fueling a twenty-year conflict. "Masterful, complex, and heartfelt, from the deeply personal to the critically strategic. Captures many lessons on many levels." —Ambassador Hank Crumpton, former senior CIA officer