cover image THEY JUST DON'T GET IT: How Washington Is Still Compromising Your Safety—and What You Can Do About It

THEY JUST DON'T GET IT: How Washington Is Still Compromising Your Safety—and What You Can Do About It

David Hunt, . . Crown Forum, $25.95 (260pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-9741-8

"Hang onto your ball caps and hairpieces, this is going to be monkey-butt ugly." Indeed. Delivering an account of the U.S.'s failures in combatting terror, Hunt, a Fox TV News military analyst and retired army colonel, depicts a world of gutless politicians, bungling bureaucrats, deceitful allies and bleeding-heart liberals. His solution is to expand the armed forces and vastly contract bureaucracy, especially the many intelligence agencies, which he proposes be combined into one central bureau with a single, long-term director who is exempt from testifying before congressional committees. Hunt hates congressional committees and admires elite military teams like the SEALs and Delta Force; he wants them turned loose. Merged into the "TKA" (Terrorist Killing Agency), they would receive intelligence from the now competent intelligence bureau, proceed to wherever terrorists operate and (with or without the host country's permission) kill them. The author considers Israel an ideal model; its forces, he says, respond viciously to every attack. Legal niceties and public relations take a back seat. Assassination teams travel the world to murder Israel's enemies. (Thoughtful readers may wonder why, after decades of slugging it out, Israel remains wracked with terrorism.) No group escapes the author's venom—or his praise. (On sale Apr. 12)