Insanity Defense
Why Our Failure to Confront Hard National Security Problems Makes Us Less Safe
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Narrated by:
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Jane Harman
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By:
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Jane Harman
About this listen
This program is read by the author.
An insider's account of America's ineffectual approach to some of the hardest defense and intelligence issues in the three decades since the Cold War ended.
Insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. As a nation, America has cycled through the same defense and intelligence issues since the end of the Cold War. In Insanity Defense, Congresswoman Jane Harman chronicles how four administrations have failed to confront some of the toughest national security policy issues and suggests achievable fixes that can move us toward a safer future.
The reasons for these inadequacies are varied and complex, in some cases going back generations. American leaders didn’t realize soon enough that the institutions and habits formed during the Cold War were no longer effective in an increasingly multi-power world transformed by digital technology and riven by ethno-sectarian conflict. Nations freed from the fear of the Soviets no longer deferred to America as before. Yet the United States settled into a comfortable, at times arrogant, position as the lone superpower. At the same time our governing institutions, which had stayed resilient, however imperfectly, through multiple crises, began their own unraveling.
Congresswoman Harman was there - as witness, legislator, exhorter, enabler, dissident and, eventually, outside advisor and commentator. Insanity Defense is an insider’s account of decades of American national security - of its failures and omissions - and a road map to making significant progress on solving these perennially difficult issues.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
©2021 Jane Harman (P)2021 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond, Scahill speaks to the CIA agents, mercenaries, and elite Special Operations Forces operators who populate the dark side of American war-fighting. He goes deep into al Qaeda-held territory in Yemen and walks the streets of Mogadishu with CIA-backed warlords. We also meet the survivors of US night raids and drone strikes - including families of US citizens targeted for assassination by their own government - who reveal the human consequences of the dirty wars the United States struggles to keep hidden.
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Non political BUT very anti-violence
- By aaron on 05-11-13
By: Jeremy Scahill
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Known and Unknown
- A Memoir
- By: Donald Rumsfeld
- Narrated by: Donald Rumsfeld
- Length: 30 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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A powerful memoir from the late former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. With the same directness that defined his career in public service, Rumsfeld's memoir is filled with previously undisclosed details and insights about the Bush administration, 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also features Rumsfeld's unique and often surprising observations on eight decades of history. Both a fascinating narrative and an unprecedented glimpse into history, Known and Unknown captures the legacy of one of the most influential men in public service.
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Inside view of five decades in politics
- By Brooks on 02-19-11
By: Donald Rumsfeld
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To Start a War
- How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq
- By: Robert Draper
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Even now, after more than 15 years, it is hard to see the invasion of Iraq through the cool, considered gaze of history. For too many people, the damage is still too palpable, and still unfolding. Most of the major players in that decision are still with us, and few of them are not haunted by it, in one way or another. Perhaps it's that combination, the passage of the years and the still unresolved trauma, that explains why so many protagonists opened up so fully for the first time to Robert Draper.
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If you’ve grown weary of the current GOP administration’s incompetence...
- By Marynelle on 09-04-20
By: Robert Draper
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The Plot Against the President
- The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History
- By: Lee Smith
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Investigative journalist Lee Smith's The Plot Against the President tells the story of how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the commander-in-chief. While popular opinion holds that Russia subverted democratic processes during the 2016 elections, the real damage was done not by Moscow or any other foreign actor. Rather, this was a slow-moving coup engineered by a coterie of the American elite, the "deep state," targeting not only the president, but also the rest of the country.
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Nunes is a national treasure.
- By Chip Atkinson on 01-30-20
By: Lee Smith
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Killing the Deep State
- The Fight to Save President Trump
- By: Jerome R. Corsi PhD
- Narrated by: Dan Crue
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Well-funded hard-left extremists, the mainstream media, Obama/Clinton holdovers in the government bureaucracy, and clandestine forces within the US intelligence apparatus have a strategy to ensure that Trump will not serve out his term as the 45th President of the United States. Investigative journalist and conspiracy expert Jerome Corsi goes into shocking detail about how this Deep State, or Shadow Government, secretly wields power in Washington and why it is dangerous.
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Banning the Bestseller: Amazon's Childish Decision
- By JONATHAN KIMBRIEL on 04-05-18
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Black Site
- The CIA in the Post-9/11 World
- By: Philip Mudd
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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When the towers fell on September 11, 2001, nowhere were the reverberations more powerfully felt than at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Almost overnight, the intelligence organization evolved into a warfighting intelligence service, constructing what was known internally as "the Program": a web of top-secret detention facilities intended to help prevent future attacks on American soil and around the world. With Black Site, former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center Philip Mudd presents a full, never-before-told story of this now-controversial program.
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A lot of insight and context
- By Syrus Tam on 05-16-22
By: Philip Mudd
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Power Grab
- The Liberal Scheme to Undermine Trump, the GOP, and Our Republic
- By: Jason Chaffetz
- Narrated by: Jason Chaffetz
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In Power Grab, Chaffetz pulls back the curtain on the world of hypocrisy, political intrigue, and procedural malfeasance that is Washington, DC. With stories you won't hear anywhere else, he shows how the left weaves false narratives, drums up investigations in search of a crime, and refuses to direct congressional oversight towards its appropriate target: the government. Democrats weaponize nonprofit advocacy groups and monetize partisan anger to line the pockets of their political allies.
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Power Grab
- By Margaret on 10-01-19
By: Jason Chaffetz
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Nemesis
- The Last Days of the American Republic
- By: Chalmers Johnson
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing comparisons to empires past, Johnson explores in vivid detail the likely consequences of US dependence on a permanent war economy, and what it will mean when the globe's sole "hyperpower" is no longer capable of paying for the vaulting ambitions of its leaders - and becomes the greatest hyper-debtor of all time. In his stunning conclusion, Johnson suggests that the crisis of a financial breakdown could ultimately prove to be the only path to a renewed nation.
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The Book Bill O'Rielly Doesn't Want You To Read!
- By Joe on 04-04-07
By: Chalmers Johnson
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The Deep State
- The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government
- By: Mike Lofgren
- Narrated by: Brian O'Neill
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Mike Lofgren is back with a book perfectly pitched for the frenzied circus of the primaries. His argument this time is that for all of the backstabbing and money grubbing of the campaign season, the politicians we elect have as little ability to shift policy as Communist party apparatchiks. Welcome to Mike Lofgren's Washington, DC - a This Town where the political theater that is endlessly tweeted and blogged about has nothing to do with actual decision making.
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Almost good, but profoundly misunderstands economics and very biased towards Democrats
- By Nina Prevot on 04-08-16
By: Mike Lofgren
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The Next Red Wave
- How Conservatives Can Beat Leftist Aggression, RINO Betrayal & Deep State Subversion
- By: Jordan Sekulow, Matthew Clark - contributor, Benjamin Sisney - contributor
- Narrated by: Jordan Sekulow
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The next red wave is coming: November 3, 2020. We face battles on many fronts. The Deep State bureaucracy will stop at nothing to undermine the conservative agenda, even when that's the agenda chosen by the American voter. The liberal bureaucracy will continue to work alongside former liberal government officials from, yes, the Obama Administration and Team Clinton. In this election, the Left's prized goal - exclusively - will be defeating President Donald Trump by whatever means necessary.
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FABULOUS AND TIMELY
- By Michael Niebuhr on 09-26-19
By: Jordan Sekulow, and others
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The Button
- The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump
- By: William J. Perry, Tom Z. Collina
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Written in an accessible and authoritative voice, The Button reveals the shocking tales and sobering facts of nuclear executive authority throughout the atomic age, delivering a powerful condemnation against ever leaving explosive power this devastating under any one person's thumb.
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Garbage political tripe
- By Bryan Beaty on 03-15-21
By: William J. Perry, and others
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The Folly and the Glory
- America, Russia, and Political Warfare: 1945-2020
- By: Tim Weiner
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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From Tim Weiner, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, an urgent and gripping account of the 75-year battle between the US and Russia that led to the election and impeachment of an American president.
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Worst Narration Ever
- By Amy on 02-15-21
By: Tim Weiner
What listeners say about Insanity Defense
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Maiki
- 11-02-21
Not about Defense- self-aggrandizing political memoir
I bought this book because I thought it was about the defense department and ability to fight future wars. Instead, I got a political memoir from Jane about how great she was during her career, The importance of the congress, and how her judgment alone with prescient. I suffered through the entire book, and I’m no better for it.
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