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5 reviews for:
Beirut Rules: The Murder of a CIA Station Chief and Hezbollah's War Against America
Fred Burton, Samuel M. Katz
4.13 AVERAGE
5 reviews for:
Beirut Rules: The Murder of a CIA Station Chief and Hezbollah's War Against America
Fred Burton, Samuel M. Katz
4.13 AVERAGE
Disclaimer: As an atheist Vietnamese, I have no stake in this quarrel. Just wanted to learn WTF is going on in Middle East and how religion can be such a strong motivator.
Read Ronen Bergman's Rise and Kill First if you want to understand Hezbollah and the Middle East. It is based on ex-IDF officer interviews and top secret internal IDF documents. The easiest way to see why Bergman's book is superior is the fact that Bergman was spied on by the IDF and condemned by Israel during the process of writing his book whereas Burton openly redacted information on the behest of the CIA.
This book did a ok job telling the story from CIA/US perspective. Frankly, though, the US is at best a conduit of weaponry and at worst a PR advisor to ensure Israel actions do not receive significant international condemnations or disrupt certain US operations. As such, if you read this book first, some of the rationales as well as developments in the Middle East aren't clear or rational. Not the fault of the author. The problem is information on ME/Hezbollah first goes through an Israel filter and then a US filter before reaching the author and, as such, leave much to be desired.
Read Ronen Bergman's Rise and Kill First if you want to understand Hezbollah and the Middle East. It is based on ex-IDF officer interviews and top secret internal IDF documents. The easiest way to see why Bergman's book is superior is the fact that Bergman was spied on by the IDF and condemned by Israel during the process of writing his book whereas Burton openly redacted information on the behest of the CIA.
This book did a ok job telling the story from CIA/US perspective. Frankly, though, the US is at best a conduit of weaponry and at worst a PR advisor to ensure Israel actions do not receive significant international condemnations or disrupt certain US operations. As such, if you read this book first, some of the rationales as well as developments in the Middle East aren't clear or rational. Not the fault of the author. The problem is information on ME/Hezbollah first goes through an Israel filter and then a US filter before reaching the author and, as such, leave much to be desired.
I received this book as an advanced copy from the publisher based on my reviews of Burton's previous books. As a disclaimer, I should mention that I am personally acquainted with Fred Burton, as we went to school together and grew up in the same town. We still run into each other occasionally at events that support the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad where Fred was a long time member.
This is the second collaboration between Burton, chief security officer for Stratfor (a global authority on security & terrorism) and Samuel Katz, an international expert on Middle East security and former member of the IDF. Like their first book, Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi, the duo puts together a compelling, edge of the seat accounting. In Beirut Rules we learn the story of the kidnapping, torture & murder of Beirut CIA station chief William Buckley. Detailing the political climate of the Middle East during the 1980's, Beirut Rules introduces us to a young terrorist, Imad Mughniyeh, who made a name for himself as a brutal purveyor of car bombs and other acts of terror in his late teens. Mughniyeh, in short order, launches Lebanon's Islamic Jihad Organization & later becomes 2nd in command of Hezbollah.
I was a young adult in the early 80's and aware of the bombings of American interests in Beirut, including the US Embassy bombing in 1982 and the bombing at the military barracks which killed 241 American peacekeepers in 1983. However, I never knew the full story of the US involvement in the Middle East during that time period or what was behind the desires of terrorists to carry out these bombings. And I certainly did not know anything about our CIA operations. Beirut Rules is redacted in several places and it's my understanding that the authors and publisher have chosen to leave the redactions in place to indicate that even 35 years later there are still many details that remain classified. We may never know much of what took place during this time.
In a nutshell, the major take aways for me were these:
1. The Middle East in the 1980's was a powder keg. Anti-Israel sentiment was high and that continues to this day.
2. The US was not prepared for the terrorist response to their presence with the UN Peacekeeping Force or their CIA station.
3. Due to both political considerations & classified intel derived from sources on the ground, our hands were tied to the extent that an all-out effort to locate and rescue Buckley was not going to happen. The inability to act on his behalf was a heartbreaking frustration to his fellow officers and friends from his days as an Army officer.
4. As civilians, the American people can't ever know the full truth of many of the actions of our government overseas. The troubling piece of this also is how unwilling they might be to locate and rescue any of us should we fall into the wrong hands outside of the US. The bottom line concern for us would depend on the interests of our government.
I am never disappointed with the stories my friend Fred Burton writes. He and Katz have once again given us an accounting that gives us at times more info than we thought we wanted; however, discover later that it is info we need as the story further unfolds. I highly recommend this book.
This is the second collaboration between Burton, chief security officer for Stratfor (a global authority on security & terrorism) and Samuel Katz, an international expert on Middle East security and former member of the IDF. Like their first book, Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi, the duo puts together a compelling, edge of the seat accounting. In Beirut Rules we learn the story of the kidnapping, torture & murder of Beirut CIA station chief William Buckley. Detailing the political climate of the Middle East during the 1980's, Beirut Rules introduces us to a young terrorist, Imad Mughniyeh, who made a name for himself as a brutal purveyor of car bombs and other acts of terror in his late teens. Mughniyeh, in short order, launches Lebanon's Islamic Jihad Organization & later becomes 2nd in command of Hezbollah.
I was a young adult in the early 80's and aware of the bombings of American interests in Beirut, including the US Embassy bombing in 1982 and the bombing at the military barracks which killed 241 American peacekeepers in 1983. However, I never knew the full story of the US involvement in the Middle East during that time period or what was behind the desires of terrorists to carry out these bombings. And I certainly did not know anything about our CIA operations. Beirut Rules is redacted in several places and it's my understanding that the authors and publisher have chosen to leave the redactions in place to indicate that even 35 years later there are still many details that remain classified. We may never know much of what took place during this time.
In a nutshell, the major take aways for me were these:
1. The Middle East in the 1980's was a powder keg. Anti-Israel sentiment was high and that continues to this day.
2. The US was not prepared for the terrorist response to their presence with the UN Peacekeeping Force or their CIA station.
3. Due to both political considerations & classified intel derived from sources on the ground, our hands were tied to the extent that an all-out effort to locate and rescue Buckley was not going to happen. The inability to act on his behalf was a heartbreaking frustration to his fellow officers and friends from his days as an Army officer.
4. As civilians, the American people can't ever know the full truth of many of the actions of our government overseas. The troubling piece of this also is how unwilling they might be to locate and rescue any of us should we fall into the wrong hands outside of the US. The bottom line concern for us would depend on the interests of our government.
I am never disappointed with the stories my friend Fred Burton writes. He and Katz have once again given us an accounting that gives us at times more info than we thought we wanted; however, discover later that it is info we need as the story further unfolds. I highly recommend this book.
4.5 Stars -- a tick off because this is a non-fiction book collated and written by two writers, not a release of government documents. So, the use of redactions throughout the book was rather unnecessary.
Nevertheless, this is a stunning book. I was rather dense at the time the majority of this book was written -- the 1980s. I knew of the Iran Hostages of 1979-81, and I knew of the Beirut barracks bombing of American servicemen in 1983, but before this book, I couldn't tell you a thing about before, during or after that period.
****EDIT -- I never read others' reviews until I finish mine, and I feel a little better knowing that there were a lot of people, apparently around my age, that didn't know what happened below.****
I thought of using bullet points about what I learned in the first 15 pages, but I'll simply rattle them off.
Before outside countries got involved, the civil war in Lebanon, which began in 1975, was prior to Israel entering southern Lebanon. The poor majority Shiites thought they were liberators, but soon found out that the forces helped set up Israeli intelligence sites in the country.
This drew in Syria, and their Soviet-Union weapons into the conflict -- so that Russia is militarily backing Syria is not a new development.
Lebanon had a newly-elected president, and during a speech, someone backed by Syria put a half-ton of explosives in the room above where he was speaking that leveled the building. This really hurt the U.S., because, in listing CIA assets, not only was the president-elect one, but the head of Black September, the Palestinian group that assaulted the 1972 Munich Olympics, was a CIA asset.
This also brought in Iran into the mess. A 15-year-old Shiite boy drove a car filled with explosives into the Israeli military HQ, being the first suicide bomber outside of the Iran-Iraq War -- thanks to the Iranians.
All of this later led to the kidnapping of the CIA Chief of Station in Beirut, William Buckey, which was described into the Prologue and followed throughout the book. All told in the first 15 pages.
It is a very dense 360-page book, but a book that I won't forget.
Nevertheless, this is a stunning book. I was rather dense at the time the majority of this book was written -- the 1980s. I knew of the Iran Hostages of 1979-81, and I knew of the Beirut barracks bombing of American servicemen in 1983, but before this book, I couldn't tell you a thing about before, during or after that period.
****EDIT -- I never read others' reviews until I finish mine, and I feel a little better knowing that there were a lot of people, apparently around my age, that didn't know what happened below.****
I thought of using bullet points about what I learned in the first 15 pages, but I'll simply rattle them off.
Before outside countries got involved, the civil war in Lebanon, which began in 1975, was prior to Israel entering southern Lebanon. The poor majority Shiites thought they were liberators, but soon found out that the forces helped set up Israeli intelligence sites in the country.
This drew in Syria, and their Soviet-Union weapons into the conflict -- so that Russia is militarily backing Syria is not a new development.
Lebanon had a newly-elected president, and during a speech, someone backed by Syria put a half-ton of explosives in the room above where he was speaking that leveled the building. This really hurt the U.S., because, in listing CIA assets, not only was the president-elect one, but the head of Black September, the Palestinian group that assaulted the 1972 Munich Olympics, was a CIA asset.
This also brought in Iran into the mess. A 15-year-old Shiite boy drove a car filled with explosives into the Israeli military HQ, being the first suicide bomber outside of the Iran-Iraq War -- thanks to the Iranians.
All of this later led to the kidnapping of the CIA Chief of Station in Beirut, William Buckey, which was described into the Prologue and followed throughout the book. All told in the first 15 pages.
It is a very dense 360-page book, but a book that I won't forget.
Thanks for the history lesson refresher. Awesome. I became a teenager in 1987... I only remember snippets on the local news stations. What a mess.
Now what? It's a quagmire with no end in sight.
Thank you for writing FB and SK.
Now what? It's a quagmire with no end in sight.
Thank you for writing FB and SK.
Excellent telling of not only the kidnapping and death of William Buckley, but of some of the genesis of unrest and terror in the Middle East. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.