The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00CC1GRYS | Format: PDF
The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth Description
Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Mazzetti examines secret wars over the past decade, tracking key characters from the intelligence and military communities across the world. Among the characters we meet in The Way of the Knife are a young CIA officer dropped into the tribal areas to learn the hard way how the spy games in Pakistan are played; an Air Force test pilot who fired the first drone missile in the Nevada desert; a chain-smoking Pentagon official who ran an off-the-books spying operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan; and a woman from the Virginia horse country who became obsessed with Somalia and convinced the Pentagon to hire her to gather intelligence about al Qaeda operatives there.
Gripping, newsbreaking, and powerfully told, The Way of the Knife reveals the true nature of American warfare in the 21st century-a model that is here to stay.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 11 hours and 47 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Recorded Books
- Audible.com Release Date: April 12, 2013
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00CC1GRYS
This book is about the fundamental changes that have occurred in the CIA and the US govt as to how to wage war against non-state enemies in the post 9/11 world. In presenting a composite picture of these changes, the author shows how the roles of the CIA and the Pentagon have overlapped and even switched. He raises moral and ethical questions associated with conducting 'war' on a country without ever declaring 'war', killing 'enemies' in foreign lands by remotely piloted drones and outsourcing espionage and killing to private firms and mercenaries. These are thought-provoking questions to ponder about.
Mark Mazetti traces the philosophy of the CIA over the past fifty years as follows: In the 1960s, the CIA was allowed to carry out assassinations overseas as part of its job. In the 70s, President Ford reversed all that, forbidding the CIA from being a killing machine and instead making it focus on intelligence gathering and spying as its primary job. However, 9/11 changed all that yet again, with the CIA getting into the business of tracking down Islamic extremists, incarcerating and torturing them overseas. The adverse reaction to this practice and the Congressional indictments that followed, made them choose the silver bullet of killing terrorists abroad again through remote-controlled drones without opting for on-the-ground assassination squads. In doing so, the American government has outsourced the basic functions of spycraft to private contractors, making the American way of war morph from clashes between tank columns - into the shadows, outside the declared war zones. In the process, the constraints on who can be killed, where they can be killed and when they can be killed have been conveniently blurred.
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