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Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone (2015)

de Scott Shane

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    Objective Troy tells the gripping and unsettling story of Anwar al-Awlaki, the once-celebrated American imam who called for moderation after 9/11, a man who ultimately directed his outsized talents to the mass murder of his fellow citizens. It follows Barack Obama's campaign against the excesses of the Bush counterterrorism programs and his eventual embrace of the targeted killing of suspected militants. And it recounts how the president directed the mammoth machinery of spy agencies to hunt Awlaki down in a frantic, multi-million-dollar pursuit that would end with the death of Awlaki by a bizarre, robotic technology that is changing warfare--the drone.       Scott Shane, who has covered terrorism for The New York Times over the last decade, weaves the clash between president and terrorist into both a riveting narrative and a deeply human account of the defining conflict of our era. Awlaki, who directed a plot that almost derailed Obama's presidency, and then taunted him from his desert hideouts, will go down in history as the first United States citizen deliberately hunted and assassinated by his own government without trial. But his eloquent calls to jihad, amplified by YouTube, continue to lure young Westerners into terrorism--resulting in tragedies from the Boston marathon bombing to the murder of cartoonists at a Paris weekly. Awlaki's life and death show how profoundly America has been changed by the threat of terrorism and by our own fears.       Illuminating and provocative, and based on years of in depth reporting, Objective Troy is a brilliant reckoning with the moral challenge of terrorism and a masterful chronicle of our times.… (més)
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Ressenya escrita per a Crítics Matiners de LibraryThing .
The author of Objective Troy is Scott Shane who has written about terrorism and national security for many years. In Objective Troy, Shane addresses the age of drones and their ability to hunt down and kill terrorists. This is also a well done biography of Anwar al-Awlaki, an Islamic imam who started out as a peaceful man and ended up the number 2 terrorist in the world, behind Osama bin Laden. This is also a fascinating look at President Obama and the legal and moral issues of outright killing an American citizen (al Awlaki) without the due process of the law. It's an interesting and important read, well written. ( )
  HighCountry | Oct 26, 2022 |
"Objective Troy" provides a good biography of Anwar al-Awlaki, discussing his transition from an apparent moderate preacher in the U.S. to a major al Qaeda recruiter of English speaking jihadists after moving to Yemen. It was revealing to see how many terror strikes against the West, attempted or accomplished, were tied to back al-Awlaki.

The author discusses the subsequent difficult decision to target al-Awlaki with a drone, and describes the legal decision, which appears on the surface, to run counter to the U.S. Constitution, e.g., killing a U.S. citizen without a hearing, a trial, or the ability to provide a defense. Shane discussed the premise of the legal rationale for targeting al-Awlaki, which was something I hadn't seen previously. ( )
  rsutto22 | Jul 15, 2021 |
It has been a week of more random shootings, "terrorism" in all its guises and the myriad responses of sorrow, lunacy, apathy, belligerence. I am reading the book Objective Troy, by Shane Scott, and it has been illuminating and riveting. It tells the story of Anwar al Awlaki, an American citizen targeted by the Obama administration for extra-judicial killing by drone. Al Awlaki began as a religious but moderate muslim, acting as Imam at mosques in California and D.C. But over time, he developed much harder and more radical views and eventually left the US for Yemen, where he pursued his career as thinker and apologist for the jihadis. In the end, his view was that every muslim had the obligation to attack and kill the unbelievers who attack Islam. For him, there is no talk of People of the Book, nor any distinction between governments and the people who pay taxes to that government (nor even their children). It is a heartless view and I cannot say I understand how it has come to be. But humiliation and disregard and stupid intervention on the part of Western governments, most notably the US, seems to be at the root of it. At one point in the book, Scott describes a village that was targeted by an early drone effort (presumably there has been some refinement of the process). His vivid description of the couple Al Queda members, amidst 21 children and a dozen women, who were all killed gave me a glimpse and the frisson of the fury and hatred this sort of attack fuels. But Scott also describes Obama's calculations in developing the drone program and how he and his administration defend these killings. I could see it--a little. The author says that people, especially liberals, mistake Obama by failing to appreciate that he is not an ideologue but a pragmatist and can engage in practical calculations that aim to respond to the world we have, rather than being guided by ideological/moral/idealistic concerns. This is probably a relevant skill set for a president and, as always, I admire Obama's ability to think things through, however ugly the realities.

But if I come back to myself, I cannot agree that drone strikes are acceptable, that government assassination is a viable strategy. I think often that there are worse things than death. One of those things is to lose one's soul. Killing one's enemies puts the soul at risk. I don't oppose all war, but squandering our moral foundations for nativist delusions, for our standard of living, for our fear is, I think, a way merely to put off our defeat even if in the short run there is a victory.

In this regard, I read another article this week: An Invitation to Collective Suicide: From ISIS to World War IV, by Andrew Bacevich (published by Common Dreams). As you can see from the title, this is a strongly worded article, that paints a dire picture that I, unfortunately, find convincing. Among the things the article points out is the degree to which the US is the creator of ISIS by having gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 and, as he says, making a hash of it. No doubt. I knew that way back when. For those who think force is the only way to go, one caveat is that if the West is to fight, they must go big. And that reminds me, that in the midst of the Iraq war, we were soon nudging up against the limit of human loss Americans would tolerate. Iraq might lose hundreds of thousands of people, but when our losses nudged up to 4,000 we were getting close to done. The article says the American dead in the end were about 7,000. It also points out that we lost 58,000 in Viet Nam. So Bacevich goes through an estimate of costs--in lives, in time, in money. It is nothing that can be accomplished cheaply in any dimension. I don't know that he says precisely this, but even bombing the entire Middle East back to the Stone Ages, will leave bitter survivors dreaming of revenge. He also points out that in the event, our current volunteer army will not work and a draft will be needed. I have sometimes thought that we should have had a draft from 2001 and that might have put a curb on our adventures abroad. But the darker thought also occurs: The army just approved women for all combat roles. It might seem a little paranoid, but then again... Is that what the Pentagon is envisioning?

I think our days are much darker than we allow to surface in consciousness. Maybe it is just that I am getting old and lacking the buoyancy of youth. ( )
  jdukuray | Jun 23, 2021 |
Ressenya escrita per a Crítics Matiners de LibraryThing .
This was an interesting look into the Obama administrations perspective on drone usage. Details highlighted in this book brings fresh perspective on the two terms lead by President Obama and the many decisions made by the administration. This author delivers clarity on many foreign policy issues that national news diluted. Parallels to assassination and targeting of U.S. citizens are eye opening constitutional topics highlighted within. Great refresher for those that followed the OBJ Troy mission.
  gslim96 | Feb 10, 2017 |
Ressenya escrita per a Crítics Matiners de LibraryThing .
This book is extremely interesting. Scott Shane draws connections succinctly between the three parts of his work: the terrorist, the president, and the drone. These parts are interweaved throughout to form a fascinating narrative that serves as a record of the past and a prologue to our present time. The drama is intensely human, and better for being entirely real. The reporting is top-notch, the writing captivating, and Shane asks all the right questions in Objective Troy.
  leBleuCheese | Dec 20, 2016 |
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The Prophet beckoned with his hand toward Yemen and said, "Belief is there."
- Hadith
(saying of the Prophet Muhammad) No. 5670,
narrated by Abu Masud, seventh century
But what is one to say to an act of destructive ferocity so absurd as to be incomprehensible, inexplicable, almost unthinkable; in fact, mad?
- Joseph Conrad, 
The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale , 1907
Perfection of means and confusion of aims seem, in my opinion, to characterize our age.
- Albert Einstein, 1941
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(Prologue) In the summer of 1984, Nasser al-Awlaki spotted a chance to take his growing family from Yemen on an extended visit to the United States, where he had spent nearly a dozen memorable years as a student and young professor.
Sheikh Anwar had instructed him to make sure the airliner was over American soil when he pushed the plunger on the syringe.
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    Objective Troy tells the gripping and unsettling story of Anwar al-Awlaki, the once-celebrated American imam who called for moderation after 9/11, a man who ultimately directed his outsized talents to the mass murder of his fellow citizens. It follows Barack Obama's campaign against the excesses of the Bush counterterrorism programs and his eventual embrace of the targeted killing of suspected militants. And it recounts how the president directed the mammoth machinery of spy agencies to hunt Awlaki down in a frantic, multi-million-dollar pursuit that would end with the death of Awlaki by a bizarre, robotic technology that is changing warfare--the drone.       Scott Shane, who has covered terrorism for The New York Times over the last decade, weaves the clash between president and terrorist into both a riveting narrative and a deeply human account of the defining conflict of our era. Awlaki, who directed a plot that almost derailed Obama's presidency, and then taunted him from his desert hideouts, will go down in history as the first United States citizen deliberately hunted and assassinated by his own government without trial. But his eloquent calls to jihad, amplified by YouTube, continue to lure young Westerners into terrorism--resulting in tragedies from the Boston marathon bombing to the murder of cartoonists at a Paris weekly. Awlaki's life and death show how profoundly America has been changed by the threat of terrorism and by our own fears.       Illuminating and provocative, and based on years of in depth reporting, Objective Troy is a brilliant reckoning with the moral challenge of terrorism and a masterful chronicle of our times.

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