Robert Baer is My New Hero

I listen to a lot of podcasts, one of my absolute favorites being SpyCast, the podcast of the International Spy Museum. In the past, they've talked to such legends of the intelligence world as Oleg Kalugin, former major general of the KGB, about what was going on in the USSR during the Cuban Missile Crisis; Bob Rayle, former case officer with the CIA who facilitated the defection of Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Josef Stalin; and Eric O'Niell, who was the FBI agent that went undercover to expose Robert Hanssen (as depicted in the movie Breach).

The latest one, though, was the tour de force for the podcast, as Peter Earnest (the museum's executive director and a former CIA case officer himself) interviewed Robert Baer, the 21-year veteran of the CIA whose primary beat was the Middle East and about whom the George Clooney character in Syriana was based.

Baer's discussion of the Middle East was absolutely fascinating, and I wish the podcast had gone on three or four times as long! Baer's take on the Middle East is disturbing and pessimistic, but truly an insider's look. He points out that Iran, via the Hezbollah uprising of a couple years ago in Lebanon, is the first Middle Eastern country to beat the Israelis in an armed conflict, and that this could put Iran on the fast train to superpower status. He discusses the techniques used to recruit suicide bombers, and gives his opinion of the value of torture as an interrogation and information-gathering technique. And he does all this without taking political sides, which is rare in this day and age.

The podcast is just about a must-listen for everyone. I plan on buying his two books See No Evil, about his experiences at ground level in the "War on Terror"; and Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude just as soon as I can get my grubby hands on them.

Listen to the podcast. It's a great look at the real dangers of the Middle East.