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Failures of Imagination
- The Deadliest Threats to Our Homeland - and How to Thwart Them
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
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Publisher's summary
America is overwrought with fear. Serial killers, terrorist groups, nuclear attacks, deadly pandemics - every day a new headline hits, warning of the next inevitable catastrophe that will bring the country to ruins. The media fans embers of threats into fires that stir the entire nation into terror. But little do the American people know that the most real and imminent dangers to the country are the ones we've heard about the least and are doing the least about.
Congressman and Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security Michael McCaul has spent years in Washington watching the administration turn a blind eye to the most pressing possible threats to the country. Now, in Failures of Imagination, McCaul turns away from the over-sensationalized, unrealistic fears circulated through the media in order to expose the most legitimate and looming national security threats, which have long been swept under the rug by the administration.
In his book, McCaul details the most pressing threats to our country based on his deep knowledge of our national security readiness, and advocates for the action needed to protect us from them. In stunning detail, he depicts the truth behind these hazards that are closer than we realize - from well-researched patterns that depict the issue's growing urgency, to the past responses (or lack thereof) from the administration - and provides potential solutions for the government to take in order to keep Americans safe. As the 2016 presidential election quickly approaches, Americans must turn their attention to these real and present dangers, and demand an administration that will combat them with the seriousness and urgency they require.
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Three and a half years ago, David Sanger’s book The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power described how a new American president came to office with the world on fire. Now, just as the 2012 presidential election battle begins, Sanger follows up with an eye-opening, news-packed account of how Obama has dealt with those challenges, relying on innovative weapons and reconfigured tools of American power to try to manage a series of new threats.
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Sobering reminder on what the presidency requires
- By Marilyn on 09-03-12
By: David E. Sanger
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The Perfect Weapon
- War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
- By: David E. Sanger
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents - Bush and Obama - drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal.
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mix of information and propaganda
- By Inthego on 06-14-19
By: David E. Sanger
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Raven Rock
- The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself - While the Rest of Us Die
- By: Garrett M. Graff
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A fresh window on American history: the eye-opening truth about the government's secret plans to survive a catastrophic attack on US soil, even if the rest of us die - a road map that spans from the dawn of the nuclear age to today.
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Awesome Read!!
- By Brewer Richardson on 05-05-17
By: Garrett M. Graff
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Good Hunting
- An American Spymaster's Story
- By: Jack Devine
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story is the spellbinding memoir of Devine's time in the CIA, where he served for more than 30 years, rising to become the acting deputy director of operations, responsible for all of the agency's spying operations. This is a story of intrigue and high-stakes maneuvering - all the more gripping when the fate of our geopolitical order hangs in the balance. But this audiobook also sounds a warning to our nation's decision makers.
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Fascinating, An education on spying
- By Anthony on 12-13-15
By: Jack Devine
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Enemies Within
- Inside the NYPD's Secret Spying Unit and bin Laden's Final Plot Against America
- By: Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In Enemies Within Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman lay bare the complex and often contradictory state of counterterrorism and intelligence in America through the pursuit of Najibullah Zazi, a terrorist bomber who trained under one of bin Laden's most trusted deputies. Zazi and his coconspirators represented America's greatest fear: a terrorist cell operating inside America. Apuzzo and Goldman lift the veil of secrecy to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of our counterterrorism measures.
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Very in depth. I highly detailed account.
- By Patrick on 10-08-20
By: Matt Apuzzo, and others
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At the Center of the Storm
- My Years at the CIA
- By: George Tenet
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In the whirlwind of accusations and recriminations that has attended the post 9/11 world, one man's vital testimony has been conspicuously absent. Candid and compelling, At the Center of the Storm is George Tenet's memoir of his life at the CIA - a revelatory look at the inner workings of America's top intelligence agency and its dealings with national leaders at home and abroad.
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Brilliant!
- By Karen on 05-05-07
By: George Tenet
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Harpoon
- Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism's Money Masters
- By: Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Samuel M. Katz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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A revelatory account of the cloak-and-dagger Israeli campaign to target the finances fueling terror organizations - an effort that became the blueprint for US efforts to combat threats like ISIS and drug cartels. ISIS boasted $2.4 billion of revenue in 2015, yet for too long the global war on terror overlooked financial warfare as an offensive strategy. "Harpoon", the creation of Mossad legend Meir Dagan, directed spies, soldiers, and attorneys to disrupt and destroy money pipelines and financial institutions that paid for the bloodshed.
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Riveting!!!
- By Treavor on 12-11-17
By: Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, and others
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The Way of the Knife
- The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
- By: Mark Mazzetti
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Mazzetti examines secret wars over the past decade, tracking key characters from the intelligence and military communities across the world. Among the characters we meet in The Way of the Knife are a young CIA officer dropped into the tribal areas to learn the hard way how the spy games in Pakistan are played; an Air Force test pilot who fired the first drone missile in the Nevada desert; and a chain-smoking Pentagon official who ran an off-the-books spying operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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Excellent critique of covert operations
- By Keefer on 04-27-13
By: Mark Mazzetti
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Twilight Warriors
- The Soldiers, Spies, and Special Agents Who Are Revolutionizing the American Way of War
- By: James Kitfield
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In Twilight Warriors, award-winning foreign correspondent James Kitfield introduces us to the tight-knit brotherhood that strives to keep the United States safe from the dimly understood threats it now faces. Together these men have broken down the boundaries between their respective agencies to engineer a network-centric way of fighting using a seamless web of intelligence analysts, information networks, FBI forensics experts, and Special Forces units to take the fight to America's enemies as never before.
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South African Perspectives
- By Bernard Remacle on 03-22-17
By: James Kitfield
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The Main Enemy
- The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB
- By: Milton Bearden, James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A landmark collaboration between a thirty-year veteran of the CIA and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, The Main Enemy is the inside story of the CIA-KGB spy wars, told through the actions of the men who fought them. Based on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both sides, The Main Enemy puts us inside the heads of CIA officers as they dodge surveillance and walk into violent ambushes in Moscow. This is the story of the generation of spies who came of age in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis and rose to run the CIA and KGB in the last days of the Cold War.
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A masterpiece of espionage history
- By kucherv on 08-21-18
By: Milton Bearden, and others
What listeners say about Failures of Imagination
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- dmbreview
- 02-16-21
Good read for a student or imaginative citizen
This is an excellent book to read if you have an interest in homeland security, crisis management, or threat mitigation. Generally large impact risk consideration. The part of the book that was sometimes frustrating is that it was not written from an unbiased perspective. It was written from a somewhat GOP, Obama-era critical perspective
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- Melinda Little
- 04-14-16
The Dangerous World We Live in
Congress McCaul has done a great job telling us the story of many possible threats that await us and why we need to do a better job of being prepared. He does it through various fictional stories based on real events that clearly spell out how easy it would be to create mass chaos in America. This is a must read for every American.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Prince Parker
- 02-27-16
Spot on.
the most awakening book so far this year. It is eye opening and a true jaw dropper. as I watch the news of todays events, I'm constantly reminding myself of how far mankind has come and yet how far we have to go. We are confronted on all sides with menacing foes and a President who is only interested in preserving his legacy in the annals of history. I see now we need to send a mad man to face mad men. there's a old phrase in a 60's melody, it goes I may not be the one you want but I sure am the one you need. Donald Trump.
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- Travis
- 06-23-17
A scared conservative jingo's wet nightmare
I thought that perhaps the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee would put partisanship aside in an attempt to inform a wider audience. He didn't. Just about every fictitious - yet very imaginable - scenario is somehow related to the Obama administration's policies told through a subjectively negative narrative. The author also heavily subscribes to the failed pillars of the Bush Doctrine - many of which carried into the Obama administration - of pursuing threats abroad before they materialize, which typically result in civilian casualties attributed to US strikes that help to promulgate the narrative of politically-violent islamism that groups like AQ or ISIS are trying to spread across the muslim world.
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1 person found this helpful