Valor vs. red tape with the soul of democracy at stake.
The author of megaselling novels in the techno/gung-ho genre (The Bear and the Dragon, 2000, etc.) that he practically invented adds an untimely entry to his body of nonfiction dissections (Every Man a Tiger, 1999, etc.) of what makes our military so great: everything you wanted to know about Special Forces except for Afghanistan.
Teamed this time with a retired former chief of US Special Operations Command, Clancy delves into the origins and evolution of the Special Forces concept. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan get special credit for a relevant grasp of realpolitik: the need for a new kind of force capable of Cold War dirty tricks, counterinsurgencies, and holding terrorists to account for their crimes anywhere in the world. Some action vignettes from SF roots in WWII and Vietnam rival Clancy fiction, but things get bogged down with military trivia as the author and General Stiner interweave narratives (liberally laced with the kind of DOD jargon that makes a ship a “naval platform” and an airplane an “aviation asset”) on the Achille Lauro (hijacked cruise liner) incident, “taking down” Noriega's Panama, and other actions. The central theme is a somewhat predictable one of guys in the field taking heat, or worse, because Washington never quite gets it. For example, only after Vietnam, when the Pentagon finally allows that the standard US ground soldier is frighteningly inept at forging good relations with “friendlies,” does that become a top SF training priority. Also well documented is the depth and breadth of opposition to any concept of elite units by mainstream military commanders who tend to see Special Ops planners as “princes of darkness” out to rob the “Big Army” of budget and resources. Obviously caught with the book already in the publishing pipeline when the 2001 War on Terrorism was declared, Clancy awkwardly tacks on a final chapter to cover repercussions of September 11 (but not including any military operations in Afghanistan), which adds nothing original either in his analysis of the Al Qaeda brand of terrorism or proposed countermeasures.
Valor vs. red tape with the soul of democracy at stake.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14783-7
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2001
An absorbing stroll down a potholed, rubble-strewn memory lane with a leading left-wing journalist. The late Kopkind (Decade of Crisis, not reviewed, etc.), a regular contributor to stalwarts like the Nation and more ephemeral publications like Hard Times and Ramparts, possessed both the hard eye of the streetwise reporter and the historical depth of a scholar. This highly unusual combination is everywhere evident in this anthology of his work, which begins with the civil rights movement in the Deep South in the early '60s and ends with gay- rights activism in New York City in 1994. Reading through Kopkind's literate reporting, one revisits flashes of recent history: the ``morality playlet'' of Joe Namath's forced resignation from professional football for owning a bar in which gambling took place while the owner of the New York Jets owned a racetrack in New Jersey and put big money on the Super Bowl; Janis Joplin's dawning awareness of her lesbianism and the effects that self-knowledge had on her soon-to-end career (``even her death is not her own; it merely extends the metaphor''); the abundant hypocrisies attendant at the Woodstock festival (``an environment created by a couple of hip entrepreneurs to consolidate the culture revolution and extract the money of its troops''); Pee-Wee Herman's big misadventure in a Florida porno theater (``don't think you can survive as a rebel, however hilarious, in TV's well-fortified cultural garrison''). Whether writing of the machinations of Black Panthers and Green Berets, the Bay of Pigs, the Stonewall riots, disco, or modern literature, Kopkind commands extraordinary grace and vision—and an extraordinary ability to delight and rile at the same moment. Shelve this collection next to the best writings of I.F. Stone and H.L. Mencken in that great library of books that torment the comfortable.
Pub Date: June 15, 1995
ISBN: 1-85984-902-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: Verso
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
Gilbert’s deep, lifelong scholarship and knowledge of his subject lend his book both authority and accessibility.
British historian and Churchill biographer Gilbert (Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction, 2006, etc.) explores the great statesman’s early, fervent support of Zionism and wartime pleas to save the Jews from Nazi persecution.
Churchill believed the Jews, thanks to Moses and the code of conduct he received at Mt. Sinai, “grasped and proclaimed an idea of which all the genius of Greece and all the power of Rome were incapable.” Continuing his father Randolph’s friendship with prominent British Jews such as Lord Rothschild, Churchill, as a young MP in 1904, became a vocal critic of the Aliens Bill restricting Jewish immigration from Tsarist Russia. As Home Secretary, he dispatched troops to restore order after the pogrom at Tredegar, South Wales. Early on, he became friendly with the one who would most shape Zionist policy, Chaim Weizmann, the Manchester chemist whom he enlisted during World War I to manufacture explosives for British ammunition. While supporting the Balfour Declaration, Churchill was deeply wary of Bolshevism as representing the “bad” Jews. Indeed, he hoped that Zionism would work to counterbalance Jewish Bolshevik sympathies. Churchill visited the Holy Land, excoriated Islam as a “retrograde force” and lobbied against restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine, especially as Arab resistance grew and Nazi persecution of the Jews gained force. Regarding the rise of the Nazis, Churchill demonstrated extraordinary prescience as early as 1933 and continually warned in speeches and writings of the impending menace. He led the debate against Partition and called the MacDonald White Paper (devising a policy in Palestine of permanent Arab majority) a “shameful act of appeasement.” Gilbert diligently pursues Churchill’s attempts to save Jews throughout the war, his disillusionment with Jewish terrorism and failure to bring up the future of Palestine at Potsdam. The author masterfully sketches the evolution of Israel through a long, difficult British Jewish process of conception.
Gilbert’s deep, lifelong scholarship and knowledge of his subject lend his book both authority and accessibility.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8050-7880-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2007
GENERAL HISTORY | MODERN | HOLOCAUST | JEWISH | HISTORY
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