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    Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
    Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
    Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
    Audiobook (abridged)7 hours

    Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib

    Written by Neil Douglas-Klotz

    Narrated by Peter Friedman

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his stories in The New Yorker magazine, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu Gharaib prison scandal. Now, in Chain of Command, he brings together this reporting, along with new revelations, to answer the critical question of the last three years: how did America get from the clear morning when hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq?

    Hersh established himself at the forefront of investigative journalism thirty-five years ago when he broke the news of the massacre in My Lai, Vietnam, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Ever since, he's challenged America's power elite by publishing the stories that others can't or won't tell.

    In Chain of Command, Hersh takes an unflinching look behind the public story of President Bush's ""war on terror"" and into the lies and obsessions that led America into Iraq. With an introduction by The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, Chain of Command is a devastating portrait of an Administration blinded by ideology and of a President whose decisions have made the world a more dangerous place for America.

    Read by Peter Friedman

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateOct 5, 2004
    ISBN9780060795344
    Author

    Neil Douglas-Klotz

    Neil Douglas-Klotz is on the faculty of the Institute for Culture and Creation Spirituality in Oakland, CA, and is founding director of the International Center for the Dances of Universal Peace. He has over a dozen years of experience teaching movement, music, voice, and body awareness all over the world.

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    Reviews for Chain of Command

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Having already read most of Hersh's articles in the New Yorker, I come late to Chain of Command which bundles the banality of evil and incompetence that was the Bush administration. It makes me sad to note that most of the perpetrators fell upwards. All honorable men, indeed. Only the powerless received punishment.The book is a kaleidoscope of the early Bush years, a fractured impression of many scandals in eight parts. The book opens with the Abu Ghraib scandal and its iconic ugly America. Nearly five years later, no general officer has spent time in jail. Donald Rumsfeld simply sat out the scandal and remained in office long after. The second part moves back in time to the intelligence failures of 9/11. The third part discusses the Afghanistan invasion. The fourth, fifth and sixth part deal with the snake oil salesmen of the Iraq War as well as the invasion itself. The seventh part sheds light on Pakistan and its peculiar friend of George W. Bush, Musharraf. The eighth and final is a tour de horizon of the US policy in the Middle East.The book offers three major lessons. The first lesson is that even egregious failure does not lead to punishment or disgrace for members of the elite. Being a good German pays off with tenure, places on the bench, stars and other sinecures. The power of media disclosure (as far as the US corporate media allows) has lost much of its strength. If perpetrators manage to survive a media cycle, interest will wane.The second lesson is that the failures of the Bush administration can look back on a long tradition of US foreign policy failure. The US has a penchant for allying with dictators and other nasty folks for short-term gain, selling their principles of liberty and democracy for small concessions - with a huge price tag in the future as the mistaken trade-offs hit home. A better US foreign policy would stick to promoting its core values and not try to accommodate bad guys just to do some business.The third lesson is the on-going incompetence of the CIA, the state and defense departments in dealing with foreigners. How long does it take them to learn that speaking a foreigner's language is a sine qua non in playing the intelligence game? Having a huge inward-looking bureaucracy in Langley is of little value.Overall, the articles have aged well. Rereading them leaves me sad and angry. The US used to be a beacon of hope.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      You may know of Seymour Hersch already. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who often writes for the New Yorker. More particularly he is the one who broke the story of both the My Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib. Yes, if there's one man in this country doing real reporting, it's him. For his impeccable investigative skills, I picked up the 2004 book Chain of Command.Hersch is remarkable. In this book he details just how something like Abu Ghraib could have happened. Who said what to whom to allow such atrocities to begin and continue? How did the reorganization and power juggling within the Administration lead to a failure of intelligence before 9/11? Who knew what when about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Chain of Command is a magnum opus, but also a difficult one to read. Is it the subject matter? The mendacity of this Administration? The atrocities? No, it is precisely the attention to detail that makes Hersch such a good journalist. Take for example his insistence on context for each statement. I can't help but be reminded of Homer. As in the Iliad every introduction of a person includes his entire history. Just for comparison:"Kalchas, Thestor's son, far the best of the bird interpreters who knew all things that were....""Robert Baer, an Arabic speaker who was considered perhaps the best on-the ground field officer in the Middle East..."See what I mean? It's informative, it gives you all the context for the following statement you could ever desire, but it is rather cumbersome. I quickly began to wish that I could read this book in short 15 page article segments instead of 400 pages at a time. Hersch is scrupulous about his sources, about his sources' sources, about his timelines and places and facts. That's a wonderful thing in a journalist, but makes for dry reading.The best moments of the book are in the Epilogue. Here he scathingly attacks the Administration and caught my breath with his conclusion. After a long list of facts and press statements Hersch concludes with this: "There are many who believe George Bush is a liar, a President who knowingly and deliberately twists facts for political gain. But lying would indicate an understanding of what is desired, what is possible, and how best to get there. A more plausible explanation is that words have no meaning for this President beyond the immediate moment, and so he believes that his mere utterance of the phrases makes them real. It is a terrifying possibility."Terrifying indeed. I recommend this book to anyone who wants an in depth knowledge of what went wrong, and in many cases, what is still going wrong. Hersch is of course still reporting, so instead of reading this book already 3 years old, you may want to take a gander at the New Yorker Online for his latest analyses of politics in the Middle East. Hersch is a truthspeaker in a time when we so desperately need transparency and honesty.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his stories in The New Yorker, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Now, in Chain of Command, he brings together this reporting, along with new revelations, to answer the critical question of the last three years: how did America get from the clear morning when hijackers crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq?Hersh established himself at the forefront of investigative journalism thirty-five years ago when he broke the news of the massacre at My Lai, Vietnam, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Ever since, he's challenged America's power elite by publishing the stories that others can't, or won't, tell. In exposés on subjects ranging from Saudi corruption to nuclear black marketeers and -- months ahead of other journalists -- the White House's false claims about weapons of mass destruction, Hersh has cemented his reputation as the indispensable reporter of our time.In Chain of Command, Hersh takes an unflinching look behind the public story of President Bush's "war on terror" and into the lies and obsessions that led America into Iraq. He reveals the connections between early missteps in the hunt for Al Qaeda and disasters on the ground in Iraq. The book includes a new account of Hersh's pursuit of the Abu Ghraib story and of where, he believes, responsibility for the scandal ultimately lies. Hersh draws on sources at the highest levels of the American government and intelligence community, in foreign capitals, and on the battlefield for an unparalleled view of a crucial chapter in America's recent history. With an introduction by The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, Chain of Command is a devastating portrait of an Administration blinded by ideology and of a President whose decisions have made the world a more dangerous place for America.
    • 1/5
      Looked interesting when I saw it on the table at Costco, but had a hard time getting through it. Put is down, may not ever pick it up.
    • 4/5
      Hersh started on the road to journalism fame with his Mai Lai relevations. How sad for the United States that this book on Abu Ghraib reads like a progression in a serial story. Based on New Yorker articles Hersh continues the Vietnam theme with the way lower ranked military was charged, higher authority, including the White House was not affected. Good book.