In his explosive New York Times bestseller, top CIA operative Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides startling evidence of how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA’s efforts to root out the world’s deadliest terrorists, allowing for the rise of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the continued entrenchment of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
A veteran case officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations in the Middle East, Baer witnessed the rise of terrorism first hand and the CIA’s inadequate response to it, leading to the attacks of September 11, 2001. This riveting book is both an indictment of an agency that lost its way and an unprecedented look at the roots of modern terrorism, and includes a new afterword in which Baer speaks out about the American war on terrorism and its profound implications throughout the Middle East.
“Robert Baer was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field
officer in the Middle East.”
–Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker
From The Preface
This book is a memoir of one foot soldier’s career in the other cold war, the one against terrorist networks. It’s a story about places most Americans will never travel to, about people many Americans would prefer to think we don’t need to do business with.
This memoir, I hope, will show the reader how spying is supposed to work, where the CIA lost its way, and how we can bring it back again. But I hope this book will accomplish one more purpose as well: I hope it will show why I am angry about what happened to the CIA. And I want to show why every American and everyone who cares about the preservation of this country should be angry and alarmed, too.
The CIA was systematically destroyed by political correctness, by petty Beltway wars, by careerism, and much more. At a time when terrorist threats were compounding globally, the agency that should have been monitoring them was being scrubbed clean instead. Americans were making too much money to bother. Life was good. The White House and the National Security Council became cathedrals of commerce where the interests of big business outweighed the interests of protecting American citizens at home and abroad. Defanged and dispirited, the CIA went along for the ride. And then on September 11, 2001, the reckoning for such vast carelessness was presented for all the world to see.
如果說中國的奸佞要拉去槍斃,那麼美國的奸佞拉齣去槍斃十次都不過分。
一個落後的資本主義保守派。
在他的眼中,status quo隻不過是一種政治遊戲罷瞭。
從文學性的角度來看,這本書的語言風格無疑是高超的。它擺脫瞭當前文學市場中常見的口語化、追求即時爽感的寫作傾嚮,轉而采用瞭一種更具韻律感和古典美的句式結構。作者在遣詞造句上顯示齣深厚的功底,很多句子讀起來需要反復咀嚼,初讀時或許會覺得稍顯晦澀,但細品之下,其內部蘊含的張力和美感便會逐層顯露齣來。更難得的是,這種高水準的文學性並沒有以犧牲故事性為代價,它巧妙地將深沉的哲學思考融入到緊張的懸念之中。讀完後,我感覺不僅僅是讀瞭一個故事,更像是經曆瞭一次關於人性、時間與選擇的深度對話。這是一種需要耐心去品味,但迴報極其豐厚的閱讀體驗,絕對值得那些追求深度閱讀的愛好者收藏。
评分這本書在對環境的描摹上,展現瞭一種近乎病態的精準度。它構建的世界觀並非是那種宏大敘事下扁平化的背景闆,而是充滿瞭生命力的、有氣味的、甚至能讓人感到潮濕和寒冷的真實空間。作者似乎對細節有著近乎偏執的追求,無論是老舊圖書館裏書籍黴變的獨特氣味,還是都市霓虹燈下雨水反射齣的那種迷離光影,都通過精準的詞匯被刻畫得入木三分。這種環境的塑造,並非單純的烘托氣氛,它本身就是推動情節發展、甚至可以說是一個“活著的角色”。很多時候,情節的突破點就隱藏在那些看似不經意的環境描述之中,迫使讀者必須全神貫注地去解讀那些潛藏在文字背後的暗示。這種“環境即綫索”的寫作手法,極大地提升瞭閱讀的參與度和智力挑戰性。
评分這本書最讓我感到震撼的,是它對於“非綫性時間”的處理手法。它並沒有采用傳統的時間軸敘事,而是如同打碎瞭一麵鏡子,將過去、現在甚至某種近乎預言的未來片段,以碎片化的形式交織在一起。起初這種敘事方式讓人感到一絲睏惑,仿佛需要用更多的腦力去梳理事件的先後順序。然而,隨著閱讀的深入,這種錯位的時空感反而營造齣一種強烈的宿命論色彩。你逐漸明白,作者的目的並非是讓你去“解謎”時間順序,而是讓你去體驗角色在時間洪流中掙紮的無力感。這種高難度的敘事結構,處理稍有不慎就會導緻故事崩塌,但這本書卻完美地駕馭瞭這種復雜性,讓所有的碎片最終匯閤成一股強大的情感洪流。
评分不得不提的是,這本書在角色驅動力上的構建是極其細緻入微的。它沒有依賴於突如其來的巨大外部衝擊來驅動主角行動,而是將一切的動因都內化到瞭角色自身的創傷、信念和無法擺脫的道德睏境之中。你會發現,每一個主要人物的每一次選擇,無論多麼齣人意料,最終都能在之前鋪墊的心理側寫中找到閤理的根源。這種深度的心理挖掘,使得角色不再是情節的工具,而成為瞭故事的真正引擎。特彆是反派角色的塑造,完全超越瞭臉譜化的惡人設定,其邏輯的自洽性和情感的復雜性,甚至讓人在某些時刻對他産生一種病態的理解和同情。這種對人性幽暗角落的坦誠探索,是這本書區彆於同類作品的關鍵所在。
评分這本書的敘事節奏把握得極為精妙,從一開始的娓娓道來,到中段幾個關鍵轉摺點的陡然加速,再到結尾處那種令人窒息的緩慢收束,每一次呼吸的切換都像是被作者精準計算過的。它不像某些懸疑小說那樣堆砌大量的無關緊要的枝節來拖延時間,而是每一個場景、每一次人物間的對話,都像是一塊塊精確切割的拼圖,最終拼湊齣一個宏大而又細緻入微的圖景。我尤其欣賞作者在塑造核心人物時的那種剋製感,沒有過多的內心獨白去解釋角色的動機,而是通過他們細微的肢體語言、不經意的眼神交流,將人物的復雜性深深地嵌入讀者的感知之中。讀到一半時,我甚至覺得自己的心跳頻率都跟著故事的緊張程度在波動,那種沉浸式的體驗,是近年來閱讀體驗中極為罕見的。那種閱讀完後,需要花上好一會兒時間纔能從故事的氛圍中抽離齣來的感覺,足以證明其敘事力量的強大。
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