Manhunt
Al Qaeda expert and CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen paints a multi-dimensional picture of the hunt for bin Laden over the past decade, as well as the recent campaign that gradually tightened the noose around him. Other key elements of the book include: A careful account of Obama's decision-making process in the final weeks and days as the raid was planned, as well as what NSC cabinet members were advising him; the fascinating story of a group of mostly women analysts at the CIA in the HVT (high value target) section, who never gave up assembling the tiniest clues about OBL's whereabouts; the untold and action-packed history of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the SEALs, which accounts for the confidence Obama had in tasking them with the mission; and, an analysis of what the death of OBL means for al Qaeda, for the wider jihadist movement that looked to him for inspiration and strategic guidance, and for Obama's legacy. Just as Hugh Trevor-Roper's "The Last Days of Hitler" was the definitive account of the death of the Nazi dictator, so too is "Manhunt" the authoritative, immersive account of the operation that killed the man who organized the largest mass murder in American history.
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What Hacker News says
- Hard to choose for myself who made the post.
But some of my favorites are -
1. God: The Failed Hypothesis Book by Victor J. Stenger
2. The God Delusion Book by Richard Dawkins
3. Berlin: The Downfall 1945 Book by Antony Beevor
4. A Song of Ice and Fire Novel series by George R.R. Martin
5. A Short History of Nearly Everything Book by Bill Bryson
6. Billions and Billions Book by Carl Sagan
7. Flowers for Algernon Short story by Daniel Keyes
8. I'm Glad My Mom Died Book by Jennette McCurdy
9. Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--from 9/11 to Abbottabad Book by Peter Bergen
10. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space Book by Carl Sagan
11. The Metamorphosis Novella by Franz Kafka
12. The Selfish Gene Book by Richard Dawkins
Gun to my head, pick one? The God Delusion.
- Did you read the article?
‘‘It’s always possible,’’ Bowden told me. ‘‘But given the sheer number of people I talked to from different parts of government, for a lie to have been that carefully orchestrated and sustained to me gets into faked-moon-landing territory.’’ Other reporters have been less generous still. ‘‘What’s true in the story isn’t new, and what’s new in the story isn’t true,’’ said Peter Bergen of CNN, who wrote his own best-selling account of the hunting and killing of bin Laden, ‘‘Manhunt.’’
... Filkins, who covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for The Times before moving to The New Yorker, spent about a week running the tip by sources inside the Pakistani government and military with little success. ‘‘It wasn’t even that I was getting angry denials,’’ Filkins told me. ‘‘I was getting blank stares.’’
- I read the implication that there isn't a solution; his point seems to be that connected devices are becoming so pervasive that even if you want to avoid them you can't.
The implication, at least to me, is that the only way to avoid it would be to go mountain man (I'm aware that may be a bit non-sequitor). But even that would be a wasted effort should the government, for example, decides it wants to surveil you. I've recently finished reading The Triple Agent (http://www.amazon.com/Triple-Agent-al-Qaeda-Mole-Infiltrated...) and Manhunt (http://www.amazon.com/Manhunt-Ten-Year-Search-Laden-Abbottab...). The capabilities held to detect and surveil are staggering and the abilities developed over the last decade to find and capture/kill are impressive and a bit scary.
