Book TV

CSPAN's Book TV was a goldmine last night. Ron Suskind is an incredible speaker as well as an outstanding writer. New York Times Book Review says Suskind's book, The One Percent Doctrine "...sheds new light on the Bush White House's strategic thinking and its doctrine of pre-emptive action." Talking about the book, Suskind describes both chilling terrorist scenarios and the bizarre responses to them from the White House. I'm rushing right out to buy the book, not only for the topic, but because I remember the excellent writing in his last book The Price of Loyalty.

Next was First Sergeant Daniel Hendrex's book, A Soldier's Promise. Hendrex describes the events surrounding the appearance of an Iraqi boy at Dragon Troop's headquarters on the Syrian border. The boy was asking to be arrested and claimed to have information about insurgents, including his father. At first, officers doubted they could use the boy's information. But his information proved true and extraordinarily helpful in targeting insurgents. Americans questioned the boy's motivation 'til he told them about the day his father laughingly showed him a picture of a badly beaten man, a local shopkeeper. His father said "This is what happens to people who help Americans." The boy questioned why his father had told him that Americans were bad because they hurt and kill Muslims and couldn't reconcile why his father was laughing and proud of having beaten this Muslim man. You have to wonder where a child got moral logic like that.

I watched Michelle Malkin for a while just because it's so astonishing to see how nasty she is while whining that people who don't like her are racist.

Vali Nasr, talked about his book, The Shia Revival, and about Iran's role in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

And Stephen Kinzer in his book, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq acknowledges that regime change is sometimes necessary and describes how badly it turns out for both the country where regime change takes place and for the United States manipulating the regime change.

Incidentally, Book TV page has a link to President Bush's Summer Reading List, Provided by the White House Press Office. No kidding. Take a look.