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Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda
On September 11, 2001, Doug Laux was a freshman in college, on the path to becoming a doctor. But with the fall of the Twin Towers came a turning point in his life. After graduating he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, determined to get himself to Afghanistan and into the center of the action. Through persistence and hard work he was fast-tracked to a clandestine operations position overseas. Dropped into a remote region of Afghanistan, he received his baptism by fire. Frustrated by bureaucratic red tape, a widespread lack of knowledge of the local customs and culture and an attitude of complacency that hindered his ability to combat the local Taliban, Doug confounded his peers by dressing like a native and mastering the local dialect, making contact and building sources within several deadly terrorist networks. His new approach resulted in unprecedented successes, including the uncovering the largest IED network in the world, responsible for killing hundreds of US soldiers. Meanwhile, Doug had to keep up false pretenses with his family, girlfriend and friends--nobody could know what he did for a living--and deal with the emotional turbulence of constantly living a lie. His double life was building to an explosive resolution, with repercussions that would have far reaching consequences.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published April 5, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 135 reviews
April 10, 2016
I'll echo another reviewer's comment that the book is uneven -- it is very much an unfinished, unpolished narrative. There is a wealth of experience in Doug Laux's recounting of his work as a case officer for the CIA, but the telling of it is flawed. Conversations are stilted. Descriptions are lacking. The women in his life are presented as shrewish and irrational.
What is truly frustrating is the vast sections of text that are 'redacted.' Within the book, sections are blacked out. It's a nifty little trick the first few times. Then it gets cute. Then it gets tiresome. Then it becomes a 'yes, yes, we know -- you were in the CIA.' It strikes me as being exceptionally gimmicky, and it is overused.
There was an excellent opportunity for a memoir like this to have moments of introspection and reflection on eight years of exceptionally difficult public service. My suspicion is that Laux wrote this memoir too soon.
What is truly frustrating is the vast sections of text that are 'redacted.' Within the book, sections are blacked out. It's a nifty little trick the first few times. Then it gets cute. Then it gets tiresome. Then it becomes a 'yes, yes, we know -- you were in the CIA.' It strikes me as being exceptionally gimmicky, and it is overused.
There was an excellent opportunity for a memoir like this to have moments of introspection and reflection on eight years of exceptionally difficult public service. My suspicion is that Laux wrote this memoir too soon.
September 23, 2021
CIA agents tend to come from a higher intellectual calibre than most other U.S. government agencies. This book is the account of an atypical agent who came into the agency from outside its traditional Ivy League recruiting grounds, coming from rural Indiana to join the agency and becoming a fluent linguist and field operative. Laux's narrative of being a CIA agent running assets in Afghanistan is moderately interesting. He has endless conversations with sources, provides his appraisals of them, and then talks about what he was trying to do in country. The interspersed narrative about his troubles with drug use and girlfriends back home makes it seem like this was intended to be the rough draft of a movie script. Believe it or not nothing is really accomplished in the war, and even his personal objective of catching a Taliban IED supplier named Wolverine (who even knows if this is true) is anti-climactic.
What was most telling to me about the book however was what it revealed about the slapdash way in which the wars were fought. Laux was a rarity because, by his own account, he was fluent in Pashto and could communicate with the locals. Even then he was out of the country half the time on vacation or taking care of administrative affairs in DC or just being cycled out of service so someone else could start fresh. Very few people seemed to know what exactly was going on or what they were doing in Afghanistan, something that Laux complains about as soon as he arrives there. I had a hard time believing parts of the narrative, including when he shows up in DC and heroically beats up someone at a bar. His telling of his life in Afghanistan was so low-key however, no action-packed scenes of killing or anything like that and lots of accounts of his own health problems and discomfort, that I feel that in some way it must've been true. He was focused on accomplishing a more or less impossible, albeit limited task, of decreasing U.S. casualties in a warzone that had already been lost a decade ago and took his best shot. That's about it.
Although it takes up most of the book Laux actually didn't spend that time in Afghanistan in total, just spurts of months here and there. By his own telling he got some sources inside the Taliban, but the title suggestion that he infiltrated Al Qaeda is not at all substantiated in the actual narrative. Laux in some ways is an unpolished loudmouth and defender of the CIA's torture program. This book will not fit liberal sensitivities. But unlike many boneheaded military memoirs he actually doesn't come across as a terrible person who is completely ignorant about the gravity of what he was taking part in. He experiences guilt, sympathy, empathy, depression, and other self-reflective feelings even while taking his own job as a CIA case officer in rural Afghanistan seriously. The book is in some sense an unremarkable account of one person's above-average contribution to a poorly thought-out and ultimately failed small war. One war or another I was impressed that he taught himself Pashto.
What was most telling to me about the book however was what it revealed about the slapdash way in which the wars were fought. Laux was a rarity because, by his own account, he was fluent in Pashto and could communicate with the locals. Even then he was out of the country half the time on vacation or taking care of administrative affairs in DC or just being cycled out of service so someone else could start fresh. Very few people seemed to know what exactly was going on or what they were doing in Afghanistan, something that Laux complains about as soon as he arrives there. I had a hard time believing parts of the narrative, including when he shows up in DC and heroically beats up someone at a bar. His telling of his life in Afghanistan was so low-key however, no action-packed scenes of killing or anything like that and lots of accounts of his own health problems and discomfort, that I feel that in some way it must've been true. He was focused on accomplishing a more or less impossible, albeit limited task, of decreasing U.S. casualties in a warzone that had already been lost a decade ago and took his best shot. That's about it.
Although it takes up most of the book Laux actually didn't spend that time in Afghanistan in total, just spurts of months here and there. By his own telling he got some sources inside the Taliban, but the title suggestion that he infiltrated Al Qaeda is not at all substantiated in the actual narrative. Laux in some ways is an unpolished loudmouth and defender of the CIA's torture program. This book will not fit liberal sensitivities. But unlike many boneheaded military memoirs he actually doesn't come across as a terrible person who is completely ignorant about the gravity of what he was taking part in. He experiences guilt, sympathy, empathy, depression, and other self-reflective feelings even while taking his own job as a CIA case officer in rural Afghanistan seriously. The book is in some sense an unremarkable account of one person's above-average contribution to a poorly thought-out and ultimately failed small war. One war or another I was impressed that he taught himself Pashto.
April 8, 2016
This is a very uneven book. When he describes his work for the CIA it is fascinating and rich with detail. The narrator is both a party-hard bro and someone who is quite sensitive to other cultures. He interacts fruitfully with locals in Afghanistan and the middle east and is able to build a functioning network of agents. He seems quite competent and was given a high degree of trust and responsibility.
In short his description of what its like to work inside the CIA as an overseas operative is great. But at least half of the book is devoted to the travails of keeping his relationships with his girlfriends going while having to lie to them about his work. I get that this is difficult, and that it is ultimately what led him to leave the agency. But do we really need in-depth accounts of all the bickering and couple's fights? It is not revealing and very poorly written.
In short his description of what its like to work inside the CIA as an overseas operative is great. But at least half of the book is devoted to the travails of keeping his relationships with his girlfriends going while having to lie to them about his work. I get that this is difficult, and that it is ultimately what led him to leave the agency. But do we really need in-depth accounts of all the bickering and couple's fights? It is not revealing and very poorly written.
October 3, 2016
While in his senior year at Indiana University, Douglas Laux applied for a job online with the Central Intelligence Agency. He aspired to build a challenging career that would take him outside of rural eastern Indiana where he grew up. He was surprised and excited when the CIA offered him a position.
Bright, articulate, fresh out of college and full of optimism for the future, Doug began training for his job. As a CIA employee, Doug was informed that he was not at liberty to discuss his employment with anyone outside of the organization— not even his family. Any assignments or responsibilities were to remain strictly confidential. As the summer of 2010 approached, Doug eagerly anticipated his first assignment as a case officer in Afghanistan.
Gradually, the stress and danger involved with his posting, the frustrating efforts to deal with the bureaucracy at home, as well as the deceptions about his real life that he was required to portray to family and friends, began to take a toll on Doug’s emotional and physical health. Feeling isolated and under appreciated, Doug’s life began to spiral out of control.
In this fascinating memoir, Doug Laux provides a rare, insider’s view of life as a case officer on the front lines with the CIA. Before this book was published, it had to be reviewed by the CIA, and parts of it are redacted. Nonetheless, it is a revealing account of the work being carried out each day by people at the highest levels of our national security agency.
Each chapter begins with a quote which is relevant to the chapter. One in particular stood out for me. It is a quote from Soren Kierkegaard:
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true”.
Bright, articulate, fresh out of college and full of optimism for the future, Doug began training for his job. As a CIA employee, Doug was informed that he was not at liberty to discuss his employment with anyone outside of the organization— not even his family. Any assignments or responsibilities were to remain strictly confidential. As the summer of 2010 approached, Doug eagerly anticipated his first assignment as a case officer in Afghanistan.
Gradually, the stress and danger involved with his posting, the frustrating efforts to deal with the bureaucracy at home, as well as the deceptions about his real life that he was required to portray to family and friends, began to take a toll on Doug’s emotional and physical health. Feeling isolated and under appreciated, Doug’s life began to spiral out of control.
In this fascinating memoir, Doug Laux provides a rare, insider’s view of life as a case officer on the front lines with the CIA. Before this book was published, it had to be reviewed by the CIA, and parts of it are redacted. Nonetheless, it is a revealing account of the work being carried out each day by people at the highest levels of our national security agency.
Each chapter begins with a quote which is relevant to the chapter. One in particular stood out for me. It is a quote from Soren Kierkegaard:
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true”.
April 23, 2017
An interesting memoir, mostly focused on the author’s operations against IED networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and his operations in support of rebels in Syria.
Lax does a great job driving home the sacrifices made by DO officers. The narrative is personal and engaging, and Lax does a great job describing his own evolution from recruit to officer and the toll it took, and how he struggled to balance his profession with his personal life. Lax also describes how little the US seemed to know about the region after over a decade of war there, with soldiers and CIA officers serving for short tours that look good on a resumé but are often spent just trying to familiarize yourself, then turning the job over to new arrivals that have to go through the same steep learning curve. Lax also describes how the military focused on the Taliban and the Agency focused on al-Qaeda.
There are lots of redactions in the text but in many cases you can infer what they hide, and they don’t slow down the narrative much. The parts dealing with Lax’s home life are a bit of a slog, though. Still, a candid and focused memoir.
Lax does a great job driving home the sacrifices made by DO officers. The narrative is personal and engaging, and Lax does a great job describing his own evolution from recruit to officer and the toll it took, and how he struggled to balance his profession with his personal life. Lax also describes how little the US seemed to know about the region after over a decade of war there, with soldiers and CIA officers serving for short tours that look good on a resumé but are often spent just trying to familiarize yourself, then turning the job over to new arrivals that have to go through the same steep learning curve. Lax also describes how the military focused on the Taliban and the Agency focused on al-Qaeda.
There are lots of redactions in the text but in many cases you can infer what they hide, and they don’t slow down the narrative much. The parts dealing with Lax’s home life are a bit of a slog, though. Still, a candid and focused memoir.
February 19, 2021
There is too much time spent by the author on his personal love life and problems with alcohol and substance abuse. I did enjoy the operational aspects of the Agency’s work in the Middle East though.
November 25, 2022
Easily among the worst books I’ve ever read. Truly an embarrassment to the entire body of literature it attempts to represent.
Some tips:
-if you have to redact an entire page, just leave the page out
-if you have to redact an entire paragraph, just leave the paragraph out
-if you black out your eyes on the front cover, maybe black them out in all the pictures on the insert as well, for consistency’s sake if nothing else
-if you redact a word that is easily inferred by reading the next sentence, maybe you shouldn’t have written that next sentence.
-if you redact a word that you then explain in the next parenthetical phrase, maybe you shouldn’t have explained it
-97% of the redacted portions could easily just have been written around, explained in a non-sensitive way without wasting the ink to redact, and the other 3% didn’t add to the story anyways.
Bonus critique:
-the author’s complete lack of ability to acknowledge or address massive moral failings in his friends/coworkers was truly sad
-the author sounds like an intelligent idiot just in general - yeah he speaks a few languages, but his decision-making is among the worst (self professed) I’ve ever seen.
Bottom line: this entire book was written for clout and it’s pathetic.
Some tips:
-if you have to redact an entire page, just leave the page out
-if you have to redact an entire paragraph, just leave the paragraph out
-if you black out your eyes on the front cover, maybe black them out in all the pictures on the insert as well, for consistency’s sake if nothing else
-if you redact a word that is easily inferred by reading the next sentence, maybe you shouldn’t have written that next sentence.
-if you redact a word that you then explain in the next parenthetical phrase, maybe you shouldn’t have explained it
-97% of the redacted portions could easily just have been written around, explained in a non-sensitive way without wasting the ink to redact, and the other 3% didn’t add to the story anyways.
Bonus critique:
-the author’s complete lack of ability to acknowledge or address massive moral failings in his friends/coworkers was truly sad
-the author sounds like an intelligent idiot just in general - yeah he speaks a few languages, but his decision-making is among the worst (self professed) I’ve ever seen.
Bottom line: this entire book was written for clout and it’s pathetic.
May 28, 2016
Everything I didn't know that I wanted to know about the covert ops of the war on terror.
Not only did the material spark my interest, but the fact that it is written by a former CIA officer made me pick up this title. And while I do enjoy non-fiction occasionally, it is not my go-to as it can often be dry. This is not the case here. I blew through this book faster than any other non-fiction book of its kind that I think I've ever read. It is so easy to read and intriguing, that I found myself reading through it as fast as nearly any novel.
If you're interested in the subject matter, any non-fiction, war stories, or memoirs, I'd highly recommend giving this title a serious look.
Not only did the material spark my interest, but the fact that it is written by a former CIA officer made me pick up this title. And while I do enjoy non-fiction occasionally, it is not my go-to as it can often be dry. This is not the case here. I blew through this book faster than any other non-fiction book of its kind that I think I've ever read. It is so easy to read and intriguing, that I found myself reading through it as fast as nearly any novel.
If you're interested in the subject matter, any non-fiction, war stories, or memoirs, I'd highly recommend giving this title a serious look.
May 14, 2016
The story is interesting enough, but the author's gimmick of redacting lines from the book- sometimes almost entire pages- is extremely annoying. I get it- top-secret CIA stuff. Can't expose govt secrets, puts lives in danger.
But reword the sentence to avoid the specifics that must be redacted.
For example, "I finally flew out on a ⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️ plane to Kandahar."
WHAT IS WRONG WITH "I finally flew out on a plane to Kandahar"????
But reword the sentence to avoid the specifics that must be redacted.
For example, "I finally flew out on a ⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️ plane to Kandahar."
WHAT IS WRONG WITH "I finally flew out on a plane to Kandahar"????
March 25, 2018
I had high hopes for this book and I really wanted to enjoy it, but unfortunately I was disappointed. I've read quite a few of the previous reviews and found that most of the issues I had with the book have already been mentioned by other readers. The things that really bothered me were:
1. The author - I first heard of Douglas Laux on a TV show called 'Finding Escobar's Millions'. After watching the show and hearing his backstory I was intrigued to read Left of Boom. I found him likeable on the show so I was surprised when I read the book as I felt he came across as really arrogant and self-aggrandising. There were several passages in the book that felt condescending. For example, in the first chapter he's sitting in a bar with his girlfriend when he hears about an attack in Khost and he says: 'So I sat amid tables of people drinking, eating, conversing, and watching college football on TV and considered the implications of an attack on a place they had never heard of, and probably couldn't pronounce'. This 'if you've got no immediate plans to work in a war zone (at this point in the book he hasn't been to Afghanistan yet) then you're probably an idiot' attitude crops up a few time. There are also instances where he makes unnecessary comparisons (for example he says something along the lines of 'It was like finally getting a chance to talk to the girl you really like and then throwing up on her shoes') that seemed to be saying 'you probably wont understand my complex emotions so let me make a mundane reference that will be easier to understand for you'.
2. The relationships - as others have mentioned, there was far too much narrative on his various romantic relationships which added little to the story. He presented all three women in his life as clingy, nagging, needy shrews who ran to him the second he wanted them and seemed to make him the centre of their universe. As mentioned above, in the first chapter he's discussing the attack in Khost, while his girlfriend Kate is portrayed as this vapid woman who rambles on about the Kardashians and her friends, has no interest in world events, and sulks because he's not paying enough attention to her. The excerpts of Kate's diary and the gratuitous mentions of sex (plus a weird, seemingly irrelevant penis infection story) were particularly cringeworthy for me. If he wanted to go into his personal life outside of Afghanistan, it would've been much more interesting to focus on his post-resignation, reintegration back into his normal life, the psychological effect his work had on this 'normal life' and the therapy sessions which were discussed briefly.
3. The redactions - these are the main issue as they're tedious, far too frequent and made me feel like I was missing a big part of the story. In some places something had been redacted but then the footnotes would refer to a news article that provided all the missing information. I probably don't understand the intricacies of the redaction process, but it seems weird to me that something can't be included in the book if the information is already available in the public domain.
4. The tagline - the book is described as an account of how a young CIA case officer penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, which implies that he was an undercover agent working from within these groups. This is a misrepresentation. In reality, he paid a network of Pashtuns who were either involved in the Taliban, knew someone who was, or from an area controlled by the Taliban, to provide him with information. There didn't seem to be much mention of AQ. Given his limited involvement with both groups, it can't be said that he 'penetrated' either of them. I think a large part of the disappointment I felt with the book came from the story not really being what I expected or what was advertised.
I'd say this was more of a 2.5 stars book for me. I definitely didn't hate it, but it fell too far short of my expectations for me to say I enjoyed it. There were some interesting stories and anecdotes, but for the most part the book was poorly narrated, misrepresented and focused on the wrong information.
1. The author - I first heard of Douglas Laux on a TV show called 'Finding Escobar's Millions'. After watching the show and hearing his backstory I was intrigued to read Left of Boom. I found him likeable on the show so I was surprised when I read the book as I felt he came across as really arrogant and self-aggrandising. There were several passages in the book that felt condescending. For example, in the first chapter he's sitting in a bar with his girlfriend when he hears about an attack in Khost and he says: 'So I sat amid tables of people drinking, eating, conversing, and watching college football on TV and considered the implications of an attack on a place they had never heard of, and probably couldn't pronounce'. This 'if you've got no immediate plans to work in a war zone (at this point in the book he hasn't been to Afghanistan yet) then you're probably an idiot' attitude crops up a few time. There are also instances where he makes unnecessary comparisons (for example he says something along the lines of 'It was like finally getting a chance to talk to the girl you really like and then throwing up on her shoes') that seemed to be saying 'you probably wont understand my complex emotions so let me make a mundane reference that will be easier to understand for you'.
2. The relationships - as others have mentioned, there was far too much narrative on his various romantic relationships which added little to the story. He presented all three women in his life as clingy, nagging, needy shrews who ran to him the second he wanted them and seemed to make him the centre of their universe. As mentioned above, in the first chapter he's discussing the attack in Khost, while his girlfriend Kate is portrayed as this vapid woman who rambles on about the Kardashians and her friends, has no interest in world events, and sulks because he's not paying enough attention to her. The excerpts of Kate's diary and the gratuitous mentions of sex (plus a weird, seemingly irrelevant penis infection story) were particularly cringeworthy for me. If he wanted to go into his personal life outside of Afghanistan, it would've been much more interesting to focus on his post-resignation, reintegration back into his normal life, the psychological effect his work had on this 'normal life' and the therapy sessions which were discussed briefly.
3. The redactions - these are the main issue as they're tedious, far too frequent and made me feel like I was missing a big part of the story. In some places something had been redacted but then the footnotes would refer to a news article that provided all the missing information. I probably don't understand the intricacies of the redaction process, but it seems weird to me that something can't be included in the book if the information is already available in the public domain.
4. The tagline - the book is described as an account of how a young CIA case officer penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, which implies that he was an undercover agent working from within these groups. This is a misrepresentation. In reality, he paid a network of Pashtuns who were either involved in the Taliban, knew someone who was, or from an area controlled by the Taliban, to provide him with information. There didn't seem to be much mention of AQ. Given his limited involvement with both groups, it can't be said that he 'penetrated' either of them. I think a large part of the disappointment I felt with the book came from the story not really being what I expected or what was advertised.
I'd say this was more of a 2.5 stars book for me. I definitely didn't hate it, but it fell too far short of my expectations for me to say I enjoyed it. There were some interesting stories and anecdotes, but for the most part the book was poorly narrated, misrepresented and focused on the wrong information.
April 29, 2017
finished this one this evening, 4/23/17, good read, i liked it and then some, so 3.5 stars. just read that other one no good men among the living and i wanted more, so this one.
makes one wonder how an individual...a country...can be so incredibly advanced and so incredibly focking stupid at the same time. how did we survive?
reads fast, this. and as some have noted and complained about, there are redacted parts. a few are small enough to entice puzzling...until you see a line of words, readable...four words on a line that has room for twenty. meh. big deal. for much of you you get the jist. one of the last ones, or close to one of the last redacted, i think he musta broke his foot...probably putting it up someone's behind. hence the redaction. didn't jo-blo politician reportedly injure his or her arse in a skiing accident? didn't i read that in the times?
afghanistan was well underway by the time this guy was assigned there and all manner of mistakes had been made prior. from the telling, he accomplished much because he tried to do things right, or effectively. some curious joes in this one, one a former seal, and they sound like cia-employed now, ground breakers or ground pounders security muscle flex...whatever. but this one time, this other, in some other group, i dunno, got the sense or wonderment...well, so what? seal team six was hush hush. do we have all manner of such groups now? wouldn't surprise me. i guess that sense comes from the...head-butting that goes on.
and too...having read that other, there is some that, the business of information applied here, too. some guys hearing on the afghan radio that american forces are looking for achmet...and so those being handled...or those seeking payment...all line up and say they have a name. achmet. and he does relate that information was learned from e.i.t. and his girlfriend was provided opportunity to wring her hands about torture, the moral right or wrong. yadda yadda yadda. as if war is polite. the only obscenity of the times is that this nation sends good men to die and wrings its hands when they shed blood. or something.
and too...in that other i just read, there was the one guy, you got the information that he read the koran...as in...he read the koran. and there's a sense of that here, too, in this one... a sense that some of the basic goat-herding, poppy-growing farmers are not all up on chapter and verse of the good prophet's words. i dunno...you get the sense based on the mews that unless you can say jesus wept and mean it with authority, they lope off your head, knowing it front and back and so forth. curious is all. maybe some...maybe not most?
anyway, good read, all in all. 3.5+ stars
(afterword: finished dirty wars 4/26/17, and in that one, there is information related to one of many stories herein...to-do with a land rover running over some people in pakistan killing them or something like that. the land rover was a back-up team to ray davis who had shot two isi agents who were likely trying to stop him for whatever...and in that other, dirty wars...he writes about a yemen prison break...in this one, the break's genesis originated outside the prison, in a tunnel begun outside...and in the other, dirty wars...that writer makes no mention of that...quoted another who said it sounds like an inside job. yemen has had a lot of prison 'breaks'. )
an edit, 4/28/17
i think it was this one...and the one after? talk of the escape...i had two countries mixed up, although there were prison escapes from both. afghanistan is the one with the tunnel from outside in.
makes one wonder how an individual...a country...can be so incredibly advanced and so incredibly focking stupid at the same time. how did we survive?
reads fast, this. and as some have noted and complained about, there are redacted parts. a few are small enough to entice puzzling...until you see a line of words, readable...four words on a line that has room for twenty. meh. big deal. for much of you you get the jist. one of the last ones, or close to one of the last redacted, i think he musta broke his foot...probably putting it up someone's behind. hence the redaction. didn't jo-blo politician reportedly injure his or her arse in a skiing accident? didn't i read that in the times?
afghanistan was well underway by the time this guy was assigned there and all manner of mistakes had been made prior. from the telling, he accomplished much because he tried to do things right, or effectively. some curious joes in this one, one a former seal, and they sound like cia-employed now, ground breakers or ground pounders security muscle flex...whatever. but this one time, this other, in some other group, i dunno, got the sense or wonderment...well, so what? seal team six was hush hush. do we have all manner of such groups now? wouldn't surprise me. i guess that sense comes from the...head-butting that goes on.
and too...having read that other, there is some that, the business of information applied here, too. some guys hearing on the afghan radio that american forces are looking for achmet...and so those being handled...or those seeking payment...all line up and say they have a name. achmet. and he does relate that information was learned from e.i.t. and his girlfriend was provided opportunity to wring her hands about torture, the moral right or wrong. yadda yadda yadda. as if war is polite. the only obscenity of the times is that this nation sends good men to die and wrings its hands when they shed blood. or something.
and too...in that other i just read, there was the one guy, you got the information that he read the koran...as in...he read the koran. and there's a sense of that here, too, in this one... a sense that some of the basic goat-herding, poppy-growing farmers are not all up on chapter and verse of the good prophet's words. i dunno...you get the sense based on the mews that unless you can say jesus wept and mean it with authority, they lope off your head, knowing it front and back and so forth. curious is all. maybe some...maybe not most?
anyway, good read, all in all. 3.5+ stars
(afterword: finished dirty wars 4/26/17, and in that one, there is information related to one of many stories herein...to-do with a land rover running over some people in pakistan killing them or something like that. the land rover was a back-up team to ray davis who had shot two isi agents who were likely trying to stop him for whatever...and in that other, dirty wars...he writes about a yemen prison break...in this one, the break's genesis originated outside the prison, in a tunnel begun outside...and in the other, dirty wars...that writer makes no mention of that...quoted another who said it sounds like an inside job. yemen has had a lot of prison 'breaks'. )
an edit, 4/28/17
i think it was this one...and the one after? talk of the escape...i had two countries mixed up, although there were prison escapes from both. afghanistan is the one with the tunnel from outside in.
June 11, 2024
Atsiminimai įdomūs tuo, kad aprašo žvalgo patirtį šiuolaikiniame kare. Patiks tiems, kas mėgsta kietus bičus ir nemėgsta biurokratijos. Kita vertus, atsiminimų autoriaus reakcijos į biurokratiją ir kova su ja atrodo įtartinai jaunatviškai, vietomis net isteriškai. Jau nekalbant apie alkoholizmą ir psichologines problemas, kurių čia daug. Taigi, knyga, kurią reikia skaityti protingai ir vertinti atsargiai. Bet kai kurie fragmentai tikrai labai įdomūs.
April 24, 2017
This book can be great if not censored by CIA. It became almost unreadable. If you want to cover details, then cover,why provide this classical music nonsense on over 60% (of entire book).
December 29, 2016
My dear brother brought this book for me to read during his Christmas visit. He thought that I needed to be more knowledgeable about world events. Although the Central Intelligence Agency required quite a number of parts to be redacted, the true tales nevertheless proved very interesting. The author, Douglas Laux, is definitely an alpha male [like my brother!] and has a fairly high opinion of himself. However, he does seem to accurately convey what it is like to be a successful CIA case officer in some very dangerous places. Included are several kiss and tell stories about former girlfriends. In spite of these revelations, I am so very envious and would love to spend one or hopefully several nights with Douglas:) This book is not a literary masterpiece but a report of what really happened by someone who was in Southwest Asia!
November 28, 2019
Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda
(This book was one of several I reviewed in 2016 related to the US war on terror. See list below.)
This book had a lot to do with why I couldn't vote for Evan McMullin, even as a protest vote, in the 2016 election. I recommend reading it with Ali Soufan's Black Banners, which details the FBI's run-in with the CIA and their illegal, ineffective methods at interrogation and complicitness in terrorist activities by way of not sharing information the FBI could have used to prevent attacks. Laux's account of the CIA backs up Soufan's account for me. I have not yet read Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, Michael Morell's memoirs, and others, but I feel like I have seen and heard enough. Like Soufan's book and Mohamedou Slahi's Guantanamo Diary, much of this book is redacted by the CIA. Laux seems trying to blow the whistle on CIA incompetence but still does enough to glorify the CIA lifestyle that I'm certain the book will be a movie. What appears to be a highly-valuable field agent almost dies of an alcoholism-induced heart attack at age 29 from the stress of his work.
CIA officers are liars and killers trained and rewarded by your tax dollars and with little public oversight or accountability. They are not "bad" people, indeed recruits are generally disqualified if they drink or have smoked marijuana-- finding recruits that pass with such a clean record has become difficult in recent years. Hence, agents are made up of largely conservative people, it's easy to understand why a Mormon like McMullin would be an ideal fit. You just have to chuck your identity and morals at the door-- Country First. Surprisingly, most of the CIA is risk-averse, they are career-minded agents that are looking forward to retirement and pension just like any government worker. Hence, as Laux describes it, this culture contributes indirectly to one of the most inept operations in US government history--Afghanistan. (Maybe if it wasn't for all the other CIA follies such as Vietnam and not forseeing the fall of the Shah in Iran, etc.)
Laux gets an offer out of a college job fair and away he goes. Much of Laux's recruitment and CIA orientation is redacted, but he spends four months "on the farm" in Virginia doing interrogation training. He comes across as the arrogant and immature type described by FBI agent Ali Soufan who decried CIA interrogators. He basically demands an action/hardship assignment and gets it. Laux has multiple romantic relationships in this book, all of which he has to keep his job as CIA officer secret. He's spent the last 10 months studying Pashto and can't explain that other than being a "contractor." In most cases, they're wise, but they want to be let in on a life he can't share. So, he becomes a good liar. Combine that isolation with the stress of keeping up with multiple, detailed, identities and passports and living in a hostile environment every day and you have the inevitable psychological self-destruction that occurs by the end of the book. Laux at least has the good sense to see a psychologist, who can't completely help him because Laux can't say exactly what he does. But the rapid spiral into very deep alcoholism is saved only by a angel-woman who does not know him but takes pity on him and saves his life. (Laux is probably a fascinatingly mysterious and physically strong specimen that attracts women, I imagine college students reading this and thinking "Jason Bourne-like life killing 'bad guys' while having romantic and dangerous rendezvous in Paris and drowning all your sorrows by hard-partying with alcohol sounds like an ideal life, sign me up!" After all, he's made the newspaper headlines in this book being courted like a Hollywood star.)
The author gets an assignment in Afghanistan in 2010 shortly after a bomber the CIA had thought was an Al Qaeda informant blew up a base and killed nine CIA officers. He's left at a remote Southern base (Wahid) with little info and from which the US military rarely ventures out. Alas, his Pashto training was for a Northern dialect and it takes him a while to get up to speed (but he does get to operate some in the North, which helps). "We haven't been in Afghanistan for ten years, but one year ten times," Laux writes of the one-year tours of duty that destroy any hope of policy continuation. Everyone wants to do their year as safely as possible, then punch out to their desk job in DC. Some CIA agents are simply learning names of wanted Taliban agents from locals who were learning names from US military radio broadcasts, and then selling them to the CIA agents for cash, who would then include the names in their reports back to Langley. Amazing incompetence. If an operation you helped design went bad, your "head rolled," so there was little risk in not actually doing anything.
Laux wanted to go after the Taliban itself, which were more dangerous, but the US had declared war on Al Qaeda so they were the target. As Richard Holbrooke would say about the war, "We may be fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country." Laux recruits a Pashto driver to spy on Taliban activity and begins developing a network of informants, giving the military valuable intel on roadside bombs. He writes of pedophile warlords and other such things that have made the news in this quagmire. However, his own agency undermines him; one of his high-valued contacts is treated badly in Kabul by incompetent CIA officers and an opportunity is lost. The highest-value target that Laux identifies, codenamed Wolverine, is unmasked in a scene that is redacted-- Wolverine is funded by _______ and the government will not believe reports that connect him to _________, and he is eventually released. The reader is left to guess who the ____ is. Possibly Pakistan's ISI, possibly the Saudis, or someone else? The supply chain through Pakistan was frought with problems. At one point, 600 trucks carrying weapons and supplies from Pakistan and Afghanistan were either hijacked or stolen from and the government did nothing.
There are trips back to DC and rendezvous with one of his girlfriends in Paris, in which he's tailed by some counterintelligence. Relationships are all built around lies and emails are obviously difficult. At one point, he has emergency surgery that he refuses to let slow him down. He has so many identities in his head that his life is a maze of confusion and he basically tries to destroy himself. A woman named Emma, who was keeping bar during one of his benders, sees how hard he's trying to kill himself and vows to help him.
Laux ends his career working on Syria, he was on a team meeting with Syrian opposition in an undisclosed country (he needs a translator, suggesting to me this really happened). After Sec. of State Clinton visits Turkey and claims the US is considering a no-fly zone, the US lost all credibility. Barack Obama's "red line" was crossed and all hope was lost; the Syrians refuse to meet with him or the CIA any longer. He writes that the Free Syrian Army has lost all faith in the US. Supposedly, a plan Laux had worked on was eventually presented to Obama. In the book, his policy advice on Syria is to either get all the way out or get all the way in, don't muddle around and stick our fingers in the dike like we have been doing making false promises. Getting all the way in would mean setting up a multi-national decades-long occupation that can keep peace and rebuild in Syria and Iraq, something no one has the stomach or desire to do-- so the US should stay out, as hard as that may be for Syrians and others.
Much of this book is redacted, if you've read other CIA-redacted works then this won't surprise you. But some of the redactions are more tantalizing than I've seen in other works, which actually make me question their authenticity or purpose--mystery makes things more attractive. I give this book 3.5 stars. It contributes a good chapter to the failed campaign of Afghanistan and takes a shine of the CIA's work as an opaque agency, even if it seems to make the work the agents do sound "cool" to a generation raised on video games. But take Laux's testimony to heart, the demons of his work almost robbed him of life at age 29, they certainly ended his career.
-----------------------------
Other related books reviewed in 2016:
Foreign policy/Americans traveling in Middle East and Central Asia:
Between Two Worlds - Roxana Saberi (2.5 stars)
Children of Jihad - Jared Cohen (4 stars)
The Taliban Shuffle - Kim Barker (4 stars)
A Rope and a Prayer - David Rohde and Kristin Mulvihill (3.5 stars)
Left of Boom - Douglas Laux (3.5 stars)
Fault Lines - ...Understanding America's Role in the...Middle East - Don Liebich (2.5 stars)
Other Al Qaeda and ISIS-related books reviewed in 2016:
The Siege of Mecca - Yaroslav Trofimov (5 stars)
The Bin Ladens - Steve Coll (4 stars)
Growing Up Bin Laden - Najwa and Omar Bin Laden (4.5 stars)
Guantanamo Diary - Mohamedou Ould Slahi (4.5 stars)
The Black Banners - Ali Soufan (5 stars)
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS - Joby Warrick (4.5 stars)
Jihad Academy: The Rise of the Islamic State - Nicholas Henin (4.5 stars)
ISIS: The State of Terror - Jessica Stern and JM Berger (4 stars)
ISIS Exposed - Erick Stackelbeck (2.5 stars)
Rise of ISIS - Jay Sekulow and David French (1 star)
Also useful for perspective on Afghanistan/Pakistan:
Descent into Chaos by Ahmed Rashid
(This book was one of several I reviewed in 2016 related to the US war on terror. See list below.)
This book had a lot to do with why I couldn't vote for Evan McMullin, even as a protest vote, in the 2016 election. I recommend reading it with Ali Soufan's Black Banners, which details the FBI's run-in with the CIA and their illegal, ineffective methods at interrogation and complicitness in terrorist activities by way of not sharing information the FBI could have used to prevent attacks. Laux's account of the CIA backs up Soufan's account for me. I have not yet read Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, Michael Morell's memoirs, and others, but I feel like I have seen and heard enough. Like Soufan's book and Mohamedou Slahi's Guantanamo Diary, much of this book is redacted by the CIA. Laux seems trying to blow the whistle on CIA incompetence but still does enough to glorify the CIA lifestyle that I'm certain the book will be a movie. What appears to be a highly-valuable field agent almost dies of an alcoholism-induced heart attack at age 29 from the stress of his work.
CIA officers are liars and killers trained and rewarded by your tax dollars and with little public oversight or accountability. They are not "bad" people, indeed recruits are generally disqualified if they drink or have smoked marijuana-- finding recruits that pass with such a clean record has become difficult in recent years. Hence, agents are made up of largely conservative people, it's easy to understand why a Mormon like McMullin would be an ideal fit. You just have to chuck your identity and morals at the door-- Country First. Surprisingly, most of the CIA is risk-averse, they are career-minded agents that are looking forward to retirement and pension just like any government worker. Hence, as Laux describes it, this culture contributes indirectly to one of the most inept operations in US government history--Afghanistan. (Maybe if it wasn't for all the other CIA follies such as Vietnam and not forseeing the fall of the Shah in Iran, etc.)
Laux gets an offer out of a college job fair and away he goes. Much of Laux's recruitment and CIA orientation is redacted, but he spends four months "on the farm" in Virginia doing interrogation training. He comes across as the arrogant and immature type described by FBI agent Ali Soufan who decried CIA interrogators. He basically demands an action/hardship assignment and gets it. Laux has multiple romantic relationships in this book, all of which he has to keep his job as CIA officer secret. He's spent the last 10 months studying Pashto and can't explain that other than being a "contractor." In most cases, they're wise, but they want to be let in on a life he can't share. So, he becomes a good liar. Combine that isolation with the stress of keeping up with multiple, detailed, identities and passports and living in a hostile environment every day and you have the inevitable psychological self-destruction that occurs by the end of the book. Laux at least has the good sense to see a psychologist, who can't completely help him because Laux can't say exactly what he does. But the rapid spiral into very deep alcoholism is saved only by a angel-woman who does not know him but takes pity on him and saves his life. (Laux is probably a fascinatingly mysterious and physically strong specimen that attracts women, I imagine college students reading this and thinking "Jason Bourne-like life killing 'bad guys' while having romantic and dangerous rendezvous in Paris and drowning all your sorrows by hard-partying with alcohol sounds like an ideal life, sign me up!" After all, he's made the newspaper headlines in this book being courted like a Hollywood star.)
The author gets an assignment in Afghanistan in 2010 shortly after a bomber the CIA had thought was an Al Qaeda informant blew up a base and killed nine CIA officers. He's left at a remote Southern base (Wahid) with little info and from which the US military rarely ventures out. Alas, his Pashto training was for a Northern dialect and it takes him a while to get up to speed (but he does get to operate some in the North, which helps). "We haven't been in Afghanistan for ten years, but one year ten times," Laux writes of the one-year tours of duty that destroy any hope of policy continuation. Everyone wants to do their year as safely as possible, then punch out to their desk job in DC. Some CIA agents are simply learning names of wanted Taliban agents from locals who were learning names from US military radio broadcasts, and then selling them to the CIA agents for cash, who would then include the names in their reports back to Langley. Amazing incompetence. If an operation you helped design went bad, your "head rolled," so there was little risk in not actually doing anything.
Laux wanted to go after the Taliban itself, which were more dangerous, but the US had declared war on Al Qaeda so they were the target. As Richard Holbrooke would say about the war, "We may be fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country." Laux recruits a Pashto driver to spy on Taliban activity and begins developing a network of informants, giving the military valuable intel on roadside bombs. He writes of pedophile warlords and other such things that have made the news in this quagmire. However, his own agency undermines him; one of his high-valued contacts is treated badly in Kabul by incompetent CIA officers and an opportunity is lost. The highest-value target that Laux identifies, codenamed Wolverine, is unmasked in a scene that is redacted-- Wolverine is funded by _______ and the government will not believe reports that connect him to _________, and he is eventually released. The reader is left to guess who the ____ is. Possibly Pakistan's ISI, possibly the Saudis, or someone else? The supply chain through Pakistan was frought with problems. At one point, 600 trucks carrying weapons and supplies from Pakistan and Afghanistan were either hijacked or stolen from and the government did nothing.
There are trips back to DC and rendezvous with one of his girlfriends in Paris, in which he's tailed by some counterintelligence. Relationships are all built around lies and emails are obviously difficult. At one point, he has emergency surgery that he refuses to let slow him down. He has so many identities in his head that his life is a maze of confusion and he basically tries to destroy himself. A woman named Emma, who was keeping bar during one of his benders, sees how hard he's trying to kill himself and vows to help him.
Laux ends his career working on Syria, he was on a team meeting with Syrian opposition in an undisclosed country (he needs a translator, suggesting to me this really happened). After Sec. of State Clinton visits Turkey and claims the US is considering a no-fly zone, the US lost all credibility. Barack Obama's "red line" was crossed and all hope was lost; the Syrians refuse to meet with him or the CIA any longer. He writes that the Free Syrian Army has lost all faith in the US. Supposedly, a plan Laux had worked on was eventually presented to Obama. In the book, his policy advice on Syria is to either get all the way out or get all the way in, don't muddle around and stick our fingers in the dike like we have been doing making false promises. Getting all the way in would mean setting up a multi-national decades-long occupation that can keep peace and rebuild in Syria and Iraq, something no one has the stomach or desire to do-- so the US should stay out, as hard as that may be for Syrians and others.
Much of this book is redacted, if you've read other CIA-redacted works then this won't surprise you. But some of the redactions are more tantalizing than I've seen in other works, which actually make me question their authenticity or purpose--mystery makes things more attractive. I give this book 3.5 stars. It contributes a good chapter to the failed campaign of Afghanistan and takes a shine of the CIA's work as an opaque agency, even if it seems to make the work the agents do sound "cool" to a generation raised on video games. But take Laux's testimony to heart, the demons of his work almost robbed him of life at age 29, they certainly ended his career.
-----------------------------
Other related books reviewed in 2016:
Foreign policy/Americans traveling in Middle East and Central Asia:
Between Two Worlds - Roxana Saberi (2.5 stars)
Children of Jihad - Jared Cohen (4 stars)
The Taliban Shuffle - Kim Barker (4 stars)
A Rope and a Prayer - David Rohde and Kristin Mulvihill (3.5 stars)
Left of Boom - Douglas Laux (3.5 stars)
Fault Lines - ...Understanding America's Role in the...Middle East - Don Liebich (2.5 stars)
Other Al Qaeda and ISIS-related books reviewed in 2016:
The Siege of Mecca - Yaroslav Trofimov (5 stars)
The Bin Ladens - Steve Coll (4 stars)
Growing Up Bin Laden - Najwa and Omar Bin Laden (4.5 stars)
Guantanamo Diary - Mohamedou Ould Slahi (4.5 stars)
The Black Banners - Ali Soufan (5 stars)
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS - Joby Warrick (4.5 stars)
Jihad Academy: The Rise of the Islamic State - Nicholas Henin (4.5 stars)
ISIS: The State of Terror - Jessica Stern and JM Berger (4 stars)
ISIS Exposed - Erick Stackelbeck (2.5 stars)
Rise of ISIS - Jay Sekulow and David French (1 star)
Also useful for perspective on Afghanistan/Pakistan:
Descent into Chaos by Ahmed Rashid
February 21, 2018
Was interested to read this book after seeing the author's Reddit AMA. I really enjoy non-fiction accounts of the intelligence community so I was really hoping to like this but overall was not impressed in the end. There did not seem to be much a central plot. They tried to use the take-down of the Wolverine network as the central plot line but it really just felt like a bunch of haphazard stories thrown together. It was interspersed with lots of accounts of his lackluster romantic pursuits that were neither interesting nor added anything useful to the story. Several glaring grammatical errors. Felt like the author was trying to hard to act like a flippant badass but it just did not come across that well. Interesting approach that they left all the redacted areas in the book, in what seems like an attempt to make it feel more "authentic". It really just served to make it choppy and hard to read and understand what was going on, which really just served to further harm the already stumbling plot line. The footnotes were also quite odd... the vast majority consisted of the author saying "This is true and I can prove it because it is in the general media". You don't need to put a foot note for each of these. It seemed more like they were there to preempt redaction by the CIA reviewers. Laux seems like a high energy guy who would be exciting to be around, who had some great experiences in the CIA, but needs to find either a better coauthor or some other type of work besides being a writer. I think the CIA really hit the nail on the head with their release about the book: "We hope that someday, maybe with age and greater maturity, [Laux] will have better perspective on his time here". In summary, the juice was not worth the squeeze (weirdest saying that he threw in there a bunch of times...)
July 26, 2017
Left of Boom left me with mixed emotions, the strongest of which was frustration toward the CIA for the bureaucratic, risk averse politicking culture that missed so many opportunities and ultimately chased the author out of the Agency. The futility of the war in Afghanistan isn't a major theme (as, say, in The Operators). Doug Laux sees lots he can do for the Good Guys, and as one of the few (if only) Pashtun speakers in the Agency, he is a novelty among both his colleagues and potential informants. Where Laux delves more deeply is into the character of the Afghan people, and what he concludes isn't highly favorable. So there are Taliban front line commanders who ambush US and allied troops by night but sell information on their fellows (for reasons of jealousy or personal vendettas) by day via Laux. The author also opens up about how his clandestine life and long unexplained absences from family, friends and girlfriends left him estranged and a heavy drug and alcohol user when he was Stateside. Overall, LOB is a disturbing, well-written and topical autobiography about a chapter in the US military that seemingly will never close. The book does have one substantial downside, however, that being the redaction of large parts of it. Fragments, sentences and entire paragraphs appear only as black lines. Nevertheless, recommended reading.
December 1, 2018
"Left of Boom" is an expression that means you are on the "safe" side of a catastrophic event. However, reading the book, I'm not sure that Douglas Laux was all that safe.
The book is fascinating because it gives a true picture to know what a case officer (CO) in the CIA does on a day-to-day basis. How they develop human assets to better the state of the country and mitigate upcoming issues.
I am impressed by the work of men and women who take this thankless and impossible job to work in the defense of the country. I guess I didn't appreciate what these people go through because of their patriotism and how little thanks they get in return.
Douglas Laux joined the CIA out of college and learned tradecraft at the agency. Is assignment was in Afghanistan starting in 2009 and, having learned Pushtun was able to communicate one-on-one with his asserts. He gained a lot of intelligence, but at times his frustration spilled over. I'm not sure any of us could understand what he went through.
No unexpectedly, he burned out and finally resigned from the agency. He's resignation was a loss for the country, but no one could know how much. If you extrapolate his story, how many more as it affected?
The book is fascinating because it gives a true picture to know what a case officer (CO) in the CIA does on a day-to-day basis. How they develop human assets to better the state of the country and mitigate upcoming issues.
I am impressed by the work of men and women who take this thankless and impossible job to work in the defense of the country. I guess I didn't appreciate what these people go through because of their patriotism and how little thanks they get in return.
Douglas Laux joined the CIA out of college and learned tradecraft at the agency. Is assignment was in Afghanistan starting in 2009 and, having learned Pushtun was able to communicate one-on-one with his asserts. He gained a lot of intelligence, but at times his frustration spilled over. I'm not sure any of us could understand what he went through.
No unexpectedly, he burned out and finally resigned from the agency. He's resignation was a loss for the country, but no one could know how much. If you extrapolate his story, how many more as it affected?
May 13, 2022
This was a really good book. I am giving it four stars because it talks a lot about his life more than I wanted it to, but the concepts were really interesting. I like how he included how hard it was to keep his job anonymous. “ realizing that this is a strange conversation to be having with my girlfriend, I stopped myself.” This is a quote from the book where his girlfriend Kate and him are having an argument because he is trying to keep his identity and job anonymous. It was really interesting to me because if I wanted to consider a job in this field I would need to think about and the kind of social life I would have and how I would deal with not being able to tell people that I love what I really do.
It was also kind of annoying that you had to read around all of the blacked out lines of information but I see why he had to do that because it is such sensitive info.
It was a really interesting to learn about The process of tracking down information and it was really cool how he was able to connect with the people from Iraq that had info he needed.
Overall this is a really good book and I recommend reading it.
It was also kind of annoying that you had to read around all of the blacked out lines of information but I see why he had to do that because it is such sensitive info.
It was a really interesting to learn about The process of tracking down information and it was really cool how he was able to connect with the people from Iraq that had info he needed.
Overall this is a really good book and I recommend reading it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 20, 2017
I genuinely can't tell if this is fiction or not. For one this is blatant propaganda for the CIA. Secondly the character writes in a style that is incongruent with his own description of himself.
If it is genuine then I guess this is why everyone hates the CIA. It's staffed by people like this who have no conscience or even self-awareness. As long as they are having a blast and fulfilling their patriotic fantasies the rest of the world can (and will) burn. Unless you're American you're not even considered a human being. I'm sure Americans are glad the CIA is operating outside of their borders because if I had this sort of organisation I'd want it as far away from me as humanly possible too.
The money quote for me was when the main character was being hired and the lady who was interviewing him was complaining to him about his cluelessness and asking him whether he had read any books on the history and operations of the CIA. The main character hadn't which explains a lot of his attitudes and general level of awareness of the world.
If it is genuine then I guess this is why everyone hates the CIA. It's staffed by people like this who have no conscience or even self-awareness. As long as they are having a blast and fulfilling their patriotic fantasies the rest of the world can (and will) burn. Unless you're American you're not even considered a human being. I'm sure Americans are glad the CIA is operating outside of their borders because if I had this sort of organisation I'd want it as far away from me as humanly possible too.
The money quote for me was when the main character was being hired and the lady who was interviewing him was complaining to him about his cluelessness and asking him whether he had read any books on the history and operations of the CIA. The main character hadn't which explains a lot of his attitudes and general level of awareness of the world.
June 19, 2022
I’ve read a lot of memoirs and auto-biographies which I usually find fascinating. The premise behind this book sounds like it would be an intense page turner. However I can not wait to be done with this book. Probably should’ve just quit but here we are. The author comes off as very self-righteous and as a one man army against terrorism. Without him they’d never have been able to do x, y, or z. That’s the first issue and the second is the redaction. I understand that his book had to be submitted for official review and the government chose what had to be redacted for whenever reason. But it’s out of control. At times he’d even say that this next part will be reacted…then why not just remove jt or edit it. I don’t need to look at a page and a half of black lines. Last issue is kind of nitpicky but I also didn’t need a foot note every time the author “changed a name for anonymity”. I know you were running assets in war zone could have just made a blanket statement at the beginning of the book.
February 17, 2022
This book was very interesting it comes a real lice CIA CASE WORKER. This man was in the middle of it all in Afghanistan. He worked to get information from the TAliban. He was there when Osama Bin Laden capture and death. He tells his side if the story of what the CIA done and how he was hired to hire people for low pay but they think the pay is great. These people help him to him find Al-Qaida and the people the weapons and who they buy them from. Then in return our government pays them for the info and promises them certain. One time they (our government) promises not to strike or bomb their country which unbeknownst to the CIA CASE WORKER our country sometimebstrikes or bombs anyway not even caring where our people or if they themselves are in the line of the bomb. Crazy.The case WORKER also tells our government certain things and is no we are not letting this out. Even if it should.
The CIA censored this book by marking whole lines and paragraphs out that tells oh how they attacked who. And blacked out other stuff too. But you steal get the jest of it all.
The CIA censored this book by marking whole lines and paragraphs out that tells oh how they attacked who. And blacked out other stuff too. But you steal get the jest of it all.
January 11, 2018
Fantastic book. I understand this is one persons account of working in the CIA, I also understand this person was young during his tenure and there is question of his maturity . But the story he tells in his book fascinated me. It opens your mind up to bureaucracies that most of us will never understand. The only downside that i will not ding my rating on is the amount of blacked out sections there are from C.I.A. sensors. I'm sure for good reason? it just made me want to know more. While reading this book, I had the desire to do research and look up some of the things he references in the book like Aldrich Ames and Wolverine, which is now leading me back to another book i wanted to read, "The Billion Dollar Spy". Overall, great book!
February 22, 2019
This was a quick and enjoyable biography that mingled a period of the author's personal life with his professional life. Mr. Laux gives an insightful account of his experiences as a CIA case officer working primarily with human intelligence. While a full explanation of methods is redacted, some of the fundamental attributes of intelligence-gathering are covered in fantastic detail. The story loses steam for the last 20% or so (the main thrust focuses on the author's time in Afghanistan), but that didn't detract much from an otherwise excellent narrative.
November 30, 2020
This is a very interesting read. This book gives insight into those who make great sacrifices to protect the freedoms we enjoy in this country. Most of us have no idea the sacrifices made by those who work in the shadows, behind enemy lines, finding assets, compiling data, and making strategies in times of conflict.
I encourage you to pick up this book to gain a little insight into how our government works to ensure our safety as citizens of the United States. There is much more that happens than what meets the eye. Be thankful for those who give their lives to work for our freedom.
I encourage you to pick up this book to gain a little insight into how our government works to ensure our safety as citizens of the United States. There is much more that happens than what meets the eye. Be thankful for those who give their lives to work for our freedom.
June 23, 2017
I wanted to really like this book, and I thought the story itself was okay. However, there were so many redacted passages, which started out as simply annoying, then became increasingly infuriating to listen to. I felt like I was missing a lot of important information that would really help to flesh out the story better.
I read a lot of epic fantasies, which are much longer than this book, but for as short as this audiobook was, it felt like a real chore to finish it.
I read a lot of epic fantasies, which are much longer than this book, but for as short as this audiobook was, it felt like a real chore to finish it.
April 5, 2018
Fast paced and action packed, this book is an excellent window into the secrecy of the CIA. It's hard to know whether to sympathize with the author or wonder if he's telling the truth, but his story is fascinating. It's a quick read (helped along by a lot of redaction), and it gives some insight into a world even well-informed Americans can't understand. If nothing else, it's a lesson in futility with the best of intentions.
March 24, 2020
I thought this was a great memoir. The book takes you into the personal struggles of a CIA officer and deep undercover as he penetrates the Taliban. It allows you to comprehend some of the dangers our Agents and military deal with and the risk they take every day abroad to keep us safe on the home front. You are offered a glimpse into some of the missions which border on the verge of classified. It was insightful and I really enjoyed reading the personal side of his life, too.
December 14, 2022
Fascinating read about a young CIA agent and his initial enthusiasm and eventual disillusionment with the CIA. As a freshmen attending college on 9/11, Laux is inspired to change his path and pursue a career in the CIA. His enthusiasm is tempered by the red tape and risk averse attitude exhibited by the CIA. I finished the book and wondered how many good agents the CIA loses and how this handcuffs the CIA.
May 14, 2017
3.5/5
I enjoyed reading it and all, but where were the takeaways? I don't think this book quite knew what it wanted to be, because it seemed like a weird mashup of travelogue, dating recollection, critique of the CIA, and "I'm such an idiot badass look at me". But none of that put together made for a complete book. It was missing something, and a key something.
I enjoyed reading it and all, but where were the takeaways? I don't think this book quite knew what it wanted to be, because it seemed like a weird mashup of travelogue, dating recollection, critique of the CIA, and "I'm such an idiot badass look at me". But none of that put together made for a complete book. It was missing something, and a key something.
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