Current Affairs Audiobooks | Politics

Sabotage: America's Enemies within the CIA

Rowan Scarborough (Author), Tom Weiner (Narrator)

Audiobook

The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression

James Mann (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader

No one knows more about Osama bin Laden than Peter Bergen. In 1997, well before the West suddenly became aware of the world's most sought-after terrorist, Bergen met with him and has followed his activities ever since. Today, years after President Bush swore to get him dead or alive and despite haunting the popular imagination since September 11, 2001, bin Laden remains shrouded in mystery and obscured by a barrage of facts, details and myths. With numerous never-before-published interviews, The Osama Bin Laden I Know provides unprecedented insight into bin Laden's life and character drawing on the experiences of his most intimate acquaintances. This timely and important work gives readers their first true, enduring look at the man who has declared the West his greatest enemy.

Peter L. Bergen (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)

You think you know about Islam, but did you know that Islam teaches that Muslims must wage war to impose Islamic law on non-Muslim states? Or that American Muslim groups are engaged in a huge cover-up of Islamic doctrine? These and other "politically incorrect" facts are revealed by Robert Spencer in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Spencer traces the history of Islam, the teachings of the Qur'an, and the Crusades and reveals the myths and realities related to Islamic law, the treatment of women, and the continuing jihad. This is a fast-paced, politically incorrect tour that you will not hear about in school or on the evening news, but it will give you all the information you need to understand the true nature of the global conflict America faces today.

Robert Spencer (Author), Jeff Riggenbach (Narrator)

Audiobook

Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commande

In Jawbreaker Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA’s most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. With his unique mix of clandestine knowledge and paramilitary training, Berntsen represents the new face of counterterrorism. Recognized within the agency for his aggressiveness, Berntsen, when dispatched to Afghanistan, made annihilating the enemy his job description. As the CIA’s key commander coordinating the fight against the Taliban forces around Kabul, and the drive toward Tora Bora, Berntsen not only led dozens of CIA and Special Operations Forces, he also raised 2,000 Afghan fighters to aid in the hunt for bin Laden. In this first-person account of that incredible pursuit, which actually began years earlier in an East Africa bombing investigation, Berntsen describes being ferried by rickety helicopter over the towering peaks of Afghanistan, sitting by General Tommy Franks’s side as heated negotiations were conducted with Northern Alliance generals, bargaining relentlessly with treacherous Afghan warlords and Taliban traitors, plotting to save hostages about to be used as pawns, calling in B-52 strikes on dug-in enemy units, and deploying a dizzying array of Special Forces teams in the pursuit of the world’s most wanted terrorist. Most crucially, Berntsen tells of cornering bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains—and what happened when Berntsen begged Washington to block the al-Qaeda leader’s last avenue of escape. As disturbingly eye-opening as it is adrenaline-charged, Jawbreaker races from CIA war rooms to diplomatic offices to mountaintop redoubts to paint a vivid portrait of a new kind of warfare, showing what can and should be done to deal a death blow to freedom’s enemies. CIA Commander Gary Berntsen on… His eyebrow-raising style: “Most CIA Case Officers advanced their careers by recruiting sources and producing intelligence, I took a more grab-them-by-the-neck approach…I operated on the principle that it was easier to seek forgiveness than ask for approval. Take risks, but make sure you’re successful. Success, not good intentions, would determine my fate.” Doing whatever it took: “I didn’t just want to survive: I wanted to annihilate the enemy. And I didn’t want to end up like one of my favorite historical characters—Alexander Burns…He was one of the first of more than 14,000 British soldiers to be wiped out by the Afghans in the First Afghan War. Like Burns before me, I was also an intelligence officer and spoke Persian. This was my second trip into Afghanistan, too. The difference, I told myself, was that Burns had been a gentleman and I would do whatever it took to win.” Dealing with a Taliban official who controlled American hostages: “Tell him that if he betrays me or loses the hostages I’ll spend every waking moment of my life hunting him down to kill him. Tell him I’m not like any American he has ever met.” The capabilities of his Tora Bora spotter team: “Working nonstop, the four men directed strike after strike by B-1s, B-2s, and F-14s onto the al-Qaeda encampment with incredible precision. Somehow through the massive bureaucracy, thousands of miles of distance [and] reams of red tape…the U.S. had managed to place four of the most skilled men in the world above the motherlode of al-Qaeda, with a laser designator and communications system linked to the most potent air power in history…As I listened over our encrypted radio network, one word kept pounding in my head: revenge.”

Gary Berntsen (Author), Ralph Pezzullo, Robertson Dean (Narrator)

Audiobook

American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman and the Shoot-Out That Stopped It

AMERICAN GUNFIGHT is the fast-paced, definitive, and breathtakingly suspenseful account of an extraordinary historical event, the attempted assassination of President Harry Truman in November of 1950 by two Puerto Rican Nationalists and the bloody shoot-out in the streets of Washington, D.C., that saved the president's life. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge, Jr., an experienced journalist and lawyer, AMERICAN GUNFIGHT is at once a groundbreaking work of meticulous historical research and the vivid and dramatically told story of an act of terrorism that almost succeeded. They have pieced together, at last, the story of the conspiracy that nearly doomed the president and how a few good mean, ordinary guys who were willing to risk their lives in the line of duty, stopped it. Hunter and Bainbridge are the first to report on the inner workings of this conspiracy; they examine the forces that led the perpetrators to conceive the plot. The authors also tell the story of men themselves, from their youth and the worlds in which they grew up to the women they loved and who loved them to the moment the gunfire erupted. Their telling commemorates heroism, the quiet commitment to duty that in some moments of crisis sees some people through an ordeal, even at the expense of their lives.

John Bainbridge, Stephen Hunter (Author), John H. Mayer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy

Prominent liberals support a whole litany of policies and principles: progressive taxes, affirmative action, greater regulation of corporations, raising the inheritance tax, strict environmental regulations, children's rights, consumer rights, and more. But do they actually live by these beliefs? Peter Schweizer decided to investigate the private lives of politicians like the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, the Kennedys, and Ralph Nader; commentators Michael Moore, Al Franken, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West; entertainers or philanthropists Barbra Streisand and George Soros. Using publicly-available real estate records, IRS returns, court depositions, and their own published statements, he sought to examine whether they lived by the principles they so forcefully advocate. What he found was a long list of contradictions. Many of these proponents of organized labor had developed various methods to sidestep paying union wages or avoid employing unions altogether. They were also adept at avoiding taxes; invested heavily in corporations they had denounced; took advantage of foreign tax credits to use non-American labor overseas; espoused environmental causes while opposing those that might affect their own property rights; hid their investments in trusts to avoid paying estate tax; denounced oil companies but quietly owned them. Schweizer's conclusion is simple: liberalism in the end forces its adherents to become hypocrites. They adopt one pose in public, but when it comes to what matters most in their own lives-their property, their privacy, and their children--they jettison their liberal principles and adopt conservative ones. If these ideas don't work for the very individuals who promote them, Schweizer asks, how can they work for the country?

Peter Schweizer (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

Audiobook

Civilization and Its Enemies

Civilization and Its Enemies is an extraordinary tour de force by America's reigning philosopher of 9/11, Lee Harris. In it, Harris focuses on the next great conflict: the war between the civilized world and the international terrorists who wish to destroy it. Harris's brilliant tour through the stages of civilization, from Sparta to the French Revolution to the present, demonstrates that civilization depends upon brute force, properly wielded by a sovereign. Today, only America can play the role of sovereign on the world stage, by the use of force when necessary. Lee Harris's articles have been hailed by thinkers from across the spectrum. His message is an enduring one that will change the way readers think, about the war with Iraq, about terrorism, and about our future.

Lee Harris (Author), Barrett Whitener (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Case for Democracy

In this brilliantly analytical yet personal book, non-democratic societies are put under a microscope to reveal the mechanics of tyranny that sustain them. In exposing the inner workings of a "fear society;" the authors explain why democracy is not beyond any nation's reach, why it is essential for our security and why there is much that can be done to promote it around the world.

Natan Sharanksy, Jr. (Author), Simon Vance, Simon Vance (Narrator)

Audiobook

Chatter

How does our government eavesdrop? Whom do they eavesdrop on? And is the interception of communication an effective means of predicting and preventing future attacks? These are some of the questions at the heart of Patrick Radden Keefe's brilliant new book, Chatter. In the late 1990s, when Keefe was a graduate student in England, he heard stories about an eavesdropping network led by the United States that spanned the planet. The system, known as Echelon, allowed America and its allies to intercept the private phone calls and e-mails of civilians and governments around the world. Taking the mystery of Echelon as his point of departure, Keefe explores the nature and context of communications interception, drawing together fascinating strands of history, fresh investigative reporting, and riveting, eye-opening anecdotes. The result is a bold and distinctive book, part detective story, part travel-writing, part essay on paranoia and secrecy in a digital age. Chatter starts out at Menwith Hill, a secret eavesdropping station covered in mysterious, gargantuan golf balls, in England's Yorkshire moors. From there, the narrative moves quickly to another American spy station hidden in the Australian outback; from the intelligence bureaucracy in Washington to the European Parliament in Brussels; from an abandoned National Security Agency base in the mountains of North Carolina to the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. As Keefe chases down the truth of contemporary surveillance by intelligence agencies, he unearths reams of little-known information and introduces us to a rogue's gallery of unforgettable characters. We meet a former British eavesdropper who now listens in on the United States Air Force for sport; an intelligence translator who risked prison to reveal an American operation to spy on the United Nations Security Council; a former member of the Senate committee on intelligence who says that oversight is so bad, a lot of senators only sit on the committee for the travel. Provocative, often funny, and alarming without being alarmist, Chatter is a journey through a bizarre and shadowy world with vast implications for our security as well as our privacy. It is also the debut of a major new voice in nonfiction. From the Hardcover edition.

Patrick Radden Keefe (Author), Robertson Dean (Narrator)

Audiobook

Right Turns: From Liberal Activist to Conservative Champion in 35 Unconventional Lessons

Nationally syndicated talk-radio host and noted film critic Michael Medved has taken an extraordinary journey from liberal activist to outspoken conservative. Along the way he has earned millions of admirers, and more than his share of enemies, by advancing controversial, often counterintuitive arguments, including: • Liberals love losing because it makes them feel virtuous• America isn't normal, it's bizarrely blessed• Hollywood has lost touch with America, and punishes people who point that out• Conservatives are both happier and nicer than liberals• Talk radio is a source of hope, not hatred• Business isn't exploitative, it's heroic • There is no such thing as 'planned parenthood'• A more Christian America is good for the Jews• Do-it-yourself conservatism provides the only cure for save-the-world liberalism In the candid, electrifying Right Turns, Medved chronicles the adventures that taught him these and many other lessons, the startling events that propelled him from Vietnam protest leader to optimistic promoter of American patriotism, from secularism to religion, from adventurous single guy to doting husband and father. In the process he skewers leftist orthodoxy, revealing why the Right is right and why his former colleagues on the Left remain hopelessly wrong on every cultural, political, and social issue. Medved enters today's ideological fray armed with experience as, among many other things, a campaign aide for radical Democrats, a minority recruiter for police departments, a Hollywood screenwriter, a Bobby Kennedy volunteer, a teacher at religious schools, a world-champion hitchhiker, an expert on bad movies, and a veteran TV host on PBS and a British network, who declines to own a TV himself. Medved relishes the contradictions behind the high-profile controversies in which he's played a leading role, as a prominent movie reviewer who attacked the film industry in a bestselling book, as an observant Jew whose radio show is a favorite with evangelical Christians, as a writer once designated the 'Bard of the Baby Boomers' who now expresses contempt for his generation's arrogant indulgence, and as a fearless battler who has sought advice from both Rush Limbaugh and Hillary Clinton and has given advice to both Mel Gibson and Barbra Streisand. Right Turns displays the slashing argument and disarming wit that have made Medved's radio program America's number one show on politics and pop culture.

Michael Medved (Author), Robertson Dean (Narrator)

Audiobook

Right Turns: Unconventional Lessons from a Controversial Life

Nationally syndicated talk-radio host and noted film critic Michael Medved has taken an extraordinary journey from liberal activist to outspoken conservative. Along the way he has earned millions of admirers—and more than his share of enemies—by advancing controversial, often counterintuitive arguments, including: • Liberals love losing because it makes them feel virtuous • America isn’t normal—it’s bizarrely blessed • Hollywood has lost touch with America—and punishes people who point that out • Conservatives are both happier and nicer than liberals • Talk radio is a source of hope, not hatred • Business isn’t exploitative—it’s heroic • There is no such thing as “planned parenthood” • A more Christian America is good for the Jews • Do-it-yourself conservatism provides the only cure for save-the-world liberalism In the candid, electrifying Right Turns, Medved chronicles the adventures that taught him these and many other lessons—the startling events that propelled him from Vietnam protest leader to optimistic promoter of American patriotism, from secularism to religion, from adventurous single guy to doting husband and father. In the process he skewers leftist orthodoxy, revealing why the Right is right and why his former colleagues on the Left remain hopelessly wrong on every cultural, political, and social issue. Medved enters today’s ideological fray armed with experience as, among many other things, a campaign aide for radical Democrats, a minority recruiter for police departments, a Hollywood screenwriter, a Bobby Kennedy volunteer, a teacher at religious schools, a world-champion hitchhiker, an expert on bad movies, and a veteran TV host on PBS and a British network—who declines to own a TV himself. Medved relishes the contradictions behind the high-profile controversies in which he’s played a leading role—as a prominent movie reviewer who attacked the film industry in a bestselling book, as an observant Jew whose radio show is a favorite with evangelical Christians, as a writer once designated the “Bard of the Baby Boomers” who now expresses contempt for his generation’s arrogant indulgence, and as a fearless battler who has sought advice from both Rush Limbaugh and Hillary Clinton and has given advice to both Mel Gibson and Barbra Streisand. Right Turns displays the slashing argument and disarming wit that have made Medved’s radio program America’s number one show on politics and pop culture.

Michael Medved (Author), Michael Medved (Narrator)

Audiobook

Current Affairs Audiobooks in Politics