Hopefully, I’ll be able to get through some personal reading this Christmas break. I did finish the first book on my shelf, Jawbreaker by Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzulo. The subtitle is The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA’s Key Field Commander. Reading it today, two years after publication and six years after Tora Bora, I’d title it “Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden: How Bureaucratic Nonsense Let Our Nation’s Number One Enemy Slip Away.”
Let me preface the rest of my post by saying that I never know what to make of these kinds of books. They are written by men far braver and far smarter than I. Though it seems that every quote fits perfectly with the story, makes the author look good, and mistakes are glossed over or they are the kinds of weaknesses one employs in a job interview (e.g. sometimes I push too hard when the people around me aren’t ready for the kind of change we need to get the job done). So, in a way the book seems to gloss over whatever weaknesses (if any) the author - a twenty year CIA veteran and national hero - might have.
That said, the book is awesome. And infuriating. And enlightening.
