Book Review: See No Evil
May 2nd, 2008 by admin
- Robert Baer
Embarrassingly, perhaps, I knew very little about terrorism when the attacks of 9/11 happened. Maybe I was in line with most Americans in that, terrorism was not exactly the top thing on their minds. But suddenly the news were filled with names and titles that had my head spinning. And along with that came all sorts of allegations and commentary regarding the failures of the CIA in the events that led up to this catastrophe.
After watching the movie Syriana, which is essentially a film about the oil industry and the politics involved, I grew interested in this book, simply because it clearly dealt with problems regarding the agency.
Not by any means meant to be an unbiased account, See No Evil is a former agent’s account about the events that made, in his opinion a mockery of the agency he once loved to work for. Doing his best to present the facts, the author does so without every trying to hide the fact that all of this is coming from his own point of view and his own experiences in the field. What he relates is an interesting account of numerous events that clearly show the disintegration of the CIA into the troubled organization it now is.
Broken up roughly into four parts, Mr. Baer tells his story in specific categories. The first is mostly autobiographical, an explanation of his background, his childhood and his training. The second part of the book relates his stories as a field agent, brand new to the job. The third focuses on the terrorism side while the fourth focuses on the oil companies, two concepts that seemingly often go hand in hand. All of this is tied together with bookend narrations of his own problems within the Agency.
This book reads well, with plenty of details and decent narrative, but it assumes that you have some background knowledge of the themes it deals with. In general, I would say that anybody that listens to the news will not be entirely lost here, but there are a number of times where a little wikipedia did not hurt. Unfortunately, the book was not entirely as in-depth as I would have wanted it to be and while it works as a good entry into the genre, it certainly does not stand alone and needs to be balanced with either some counter arguments or a more thorough tome that will shed greater light on the subject.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Category: Non-fiction – Current Events