Selected Product:
| Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
Paperback
Author: Robert Baer
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release Date: 2004-05-25
ISBN-10: 1400052688
ISBN-13: 9781400052684
List Price: $13.95
Average Customer Rating:
  | |
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
ISBN-10: 0143034669
ISBN-13: 9780143034667
List Price:$18.00
The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower
ISBN-10: 0307408647
ISBN-13: 9780307408648
List Price:$25.95
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
ISBN-10: 140004684X
ISBN-13: 9781400046843
List Price:$14.95
Blow the House Down: A Novel
ISBN-10: 140009836X
ISBN-13: 9781400098361
List Price:$14.95
Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times
ISBN-10: 0802143415
ISBN-13: 9780802143419
List Price:$14.95
|
To use our price comparison to get the cheapest price, please click on the "Find the Cheapest Price" button located above for Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude by Robert Baer (ISBN-10: 1400052688, ISBN-13: 9781400052684).
At this time we have not yet written a review for Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude by Robert Baer (ISBN-10: 1400052688, ISBN-13: 9781400052684). Please continue to keep checking back to this page as we are constantly adding reviews.
Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
“Saudi Arabia is more and more an irrational state—a place that spawns global terrorism even as it succumbs to an ancient and deeply seated isolationism, a kingdom led by a royal family that can’t get out of the way of its own greed. Is this the fulcrum we want the global economy to balance on?”
In his explosive New York Times bestseller, See No Evil, former CIA operative Robert Baer exposed how Washington politics drastically compromised the CIA’s efforts to fight global terrorism. Now in his powerful new book, Sleeping with the Devil, Baer turns his attention to Saudi Arabia, revealing how our government’s cynical relationship with our Middle Eastern ally and America’s dependence on Saudi oil make us increasingly vulnerable to economic disaster and put us at risk for further acts of terrorism.
For decades, the United States and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a “harmony of interests.” America counted on the Saudis for cheap oil, political stability in the Middle East, and lucrative business relationships for the United States, while providing a voracious market for the kingdom’s vast oil reserves. With money and oil flowing freely between Washington and Riyadh, the United States has felt secure in its relationship with the Saudis and the ruling Al Sa’ud family. But the rot at the core of our “friendship” with the Saudis was dramatically revealed when it became apparent that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers proved to be Saudi citizens.
In Sleeping with the Devil, Baer documents with chilling clarity how our addiction to cheap oil and Saudi petrodollars caused us to turn a blind eye to the Al Sa’ud’s culture of bribery, its abysmal human rights record, and its financial support of fundamentalist Islamic groups that have been directly linked to international acts of terror, including those against the United States. Drawing on his experience as a field operative who was on the ground in the Middle East for much of his twenty years with the agency, as well as the large network of sources he has cultivated in the region and in the U.S. intelligence community, Baer vividly portrays our decades-old relationship with the increasingly dysfunctional and corrupt Al Sa’ud family, the fierce anti-Western sentiment that is sweeping the kingdom, and the desperate link between the two. In hopes of saving its own neck, the royal family has been shoveling money as fast as it can to mosque schools that preach hatred of America and to militant fundamentalist groups—an end game just waiting to play out.
Baer not only reveals the outrageous excesses of a Saudi royal family completely out of touch with the people of its kingdom, he also takes readers on a highly personal search for the deeper roots of modern terrorism, a journey that returns time again and again to Saudi Arabia: to the Wahhabis, the powerful Islamic sect that rules the Saudi street; to the Taliban and al Qaeda, both of which Saudi Arabia helped to underwrite; and to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most active and effective terrorist groups in existence, which the Al Sa’ud have sheltered and funded. The money and arms that we send to Saudi Arabia are, in effect, being used to cut our own throat, Baer writes, but America might have only itself to blame. So long as we continue to encourage the highly volatile Saudi state to bank our oil under its sand—and so long as we continue to grab at the Al Sa’ud’s money—we are laying the groundwork for a potential global economic catastrophe.
From the Hardcover edition.
Book Review
| Customer Rating:  | | The author has written a well thought out account of his experiences being employed with the CIA while stationed in the Middle East. Even though this book was written 5 years ago, it still translates well and is applicable for today's reader. I personally was shocked and dismayed to discover how our country's leaders are so embedded with the Saudi Royal Family. More importantly, I am dismayed to read how entrenched our leaders of today are entrenched with the Royal Family who has fueled and funded the very men and women who are trying to destroy our country. Mr. Baer does an outstanding job detailing how respected citizens, such as Colin Powell, are paid salaries associated with companies who are affiliated with the Royal Family; how the CIA missed vital clues to 9/11 and because of politics how the very people who are elected to be protecting our country have indeed sold our country to the highest bidder. No longer can I remain naieve and idealistic and I am looking forward to reading his other books with trepidation but knowing I will again learn something about how our country is truly run. |
Another shocker from Robert Baer.
| Customer Rating: | | If you want a great insight into the problems this country has with the Middle East and crude oil pick up this book. This man knows his stuff and has written it down for you to read. This book will open your eyes and clarify a lot of things that you watch on TV and read in the media. Educate yourselves and become better citizens. Let Mr. Baer help you. |
Probably the best argument to by a Hybrid...
| Customer Rating: | ... and one more reason to be angry an the gas pump. This book was much better. or should I say revealing than I thought it was going to be. Mr. Baer's knowledge of the subjects and the way he weaves the reader through this tangled web of money. oil. backroom deals, blind eyes turned against the actions of our so-called "allies", and the way Washington politics works is a true wake-up call. The book is jammed with information and is kind of like a tell-all, revealing many of our leaders as just more powerful people who are looking out for their own interests while everyone else is getting bent over. The book would probably need to be read a couple of times to truly understand all the information.
I am giving it 5 stars even though the book really pissed me off. What I don't know is what I am most angry at? That part of my gas money will find its way over to the Middle East, or that we Americans are truly trapped by our dependence on foriegn oil, or that just about every politician who is someone (and many of the high ranking employees of the government) are in the pockets of the Saudi's and/or Big Oil, or that other than a few cars sold, many manufacturers still refuse to develop cars with better mpg. Hey Ford, GMC and Chevy, you know why you keep having losses year after year and are losing out to Toyota? It is because you have not designed a dependable, efficient fleet of cars most people want.
Back to the book. Everyone interested in Washington politics, the energy crisis, etc. should read this book. It may just make you mad, but getting mad may just be the first step to action. By the way, I just sold my gas guzzling SUV. |
Good with one flaw
| Customer Rating: | I really enjoyed this book. It gave a really honest view of the us-Saudi relationship. My only problem was the third chapter, the background, which was pretty useless in affecting the rest of the book.
I like how this books was non-partisan. Much better than "house of bush, house of saud." i would recommend this book. Though it could of been a little longer. |
Sleeping with the Devil
| Customer Rating: | | This book so fasinated me that as I was finishing the last chapter, I was already on my way to pick up Baer's previous book, "See no Evil". I found Baer's story ringing true throughout and neither Republican or Democrate slanted. Moreover, if any negative is to be gleaned, it would likely be the reality of what has come with the need for fuel oil. See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism |
|
