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A review by long218
Beirut Rules: The Murder of a CIA Station Chief and Hezbollah's War Against America by Samuel Katz, Fred Burton
3.0
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.