Viewing entries in
reviews & praise

Reviews & Praise for William Arkin's "American Coup"

Reviews & Praise for William Arkin's "American Coup"

William Arkin talked about his book, American Coup: How a Terrified Government is Destroying the Constitution, on BookTV (C-SPAN), October 23, 2013.

His first work of fiction, History in One Act: A Novel of 9/11, will be out in 2021. Here are some reviews & praise for William Arkin’s American Coup…

“A systematic discussion that provides a well-documented basis for assessing future developments.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Bill Arkin has a knack for stirring our national pot on uncomfortable issues that must be addressed. Today’s world demands unconventional views on unconventional security challenges facing the United States. Bill asks tough questions of our security institutions, and the right answers demand a delicate balance between national-security preparedness and constitutional protections afforded to our citizens.”
— General Victor E. Renuart, Jr., USAF (Ret), commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command
“If anybody else had written this book, I would urge caution. But Bill Arkin has explored every nook and cranny of American national-security policy for decades, from nuclear-weapons targeting to war plans for the invasion of Iraq, and his reputation for sober accuracy is rock solid.”
— Thomas Powers, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda

Reviews & Praise for William Arkin's "Divining Victory"

Reviews & Praise for William Arkin's "Divining Victory"

William Arkin’s book, Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War, examines why the Israel-Hezbollah War may well be a paradigm for 21st century warfare. The technically-sophisticated Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were confronted by a much smaller, but well-armed and highly unconventional, "state within a state" opponent. Israel launched an intensive 34-minute air assault designed to essentially disarm Hezbollah; it did not. Hezbollah's interspersion within the civilian population presented major targeting problems for the IDF, setting up condemnation of Israel's "over-reaction" in the international press. Airpower became the big loser in the press and after-action reports.

His first work of fiction, History in One Act: A Novel of 9/11, will be out in 2021. Here are some reviews & praise for William Arkin’s Divining Victory…

“William Arkin, the well-known independent military analyst, explodes both myths in his new book... meticulous documentation”
— Air and Space Power Journal (US Air Force)
“William Arkin’s book has an extremely valuable role to play. It has certainly succeeded inasmuch as it is one of the few recent books on air power to rate a review—and a positive one at that—from the pages of The New York Times.”
— RAF Journal (UK)

Reviews & Praise for William Arkin's "Top Secret America"

Reviews & Praise for William Arkin's "Top Secret America"

Co-authored by Dana Priest and William Arkin in 2010, Top Secret America was a series of investigative articles published by the the Washington Post on the post-9/11 growth of the United States Intelligence Community. In 2011, Priest and Arkin published the book, Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State, and in 2013, Frontline aired the film Top Secret America—9/11 to the Boston Bombings on PBS.

His first work of fiction, History in One Act: A Novel of 9/11, will be out in 2021. Here are some reviews & praise for William Arkin’s Top Secret America…

“… a breathtaking investigative account of America’s vast new secret world. … An invaluable book.”
— Bob Drogin, for the Los Angeles Times
“One of the many strengths of Top Secret America is that Priest and Arkin take nothing for granted. They ask basic, even faux- naïve questions about the purpose, accountability, and effectiveness of the acronym soup of covert programs, companies, and Pentagon commands created or expanded after September 11. Their analysis is neither naïve about the threat posed by al-Qaeda and similar groups, nor credulous about the generals, spies, and bureaucrats who have so dramatically expanded the country’s defenses in response to September 11.”
— Steve Coll, for the New York Review of Books
“Priest and Arkin, columnists for the Washington Post and other media outlets, won the 2010 George Polk Award for their exposé of the surveillance state. Here, they blow the whistle on how, since 9/11 and the adoption of the Patriot Act, the government and its contractors use classification and security screens to conceal expenditures that have failed to enhance national security. … Overall, this is an important book that should receive greater attention.”
— Publishers Weekly
“A former Army intelligence analyst in West Berlin in the 1970s, Arkin, according to his Post biography, later did stints at Greenpeace International and Human Rights Watch—activist associations that might not pass the classic standard of journalistic objectivity that has been much debated in the wake of Post blogger David Weigel’s resignation from the Post. Arkin’s background was almost immediately cited by right-leaning blogs Monday as undermining the credibility of the series…

’The digital part of it could not have been done without him and without his kind of brain,’ [Dana Priest] said. ‘That’s not necessarily a blogger brain. That’s the research phenomenon that he is.’”
— Politico, July 2010
“IGC.org is a hard-left email address. If the guy’s a real Washington Post reporter, can’t the Washington Post manage to give him a Washington Post email address? And if he’s a real Washington Post reporter (since 1998?), what’s he doing advising the U.N.?

Hugh Hewitt had more at the Weekly Standard back in 2003, including: ‘Arkin’s own speech to an audience at the U.S. Naval War College on September 25, 2002. In this lengthy and vitriolic attack on the Bush administration, Arkin admitted to feeling “cynical about the fact that we are going to war to enhance the economic interests of the Enron class,” and declared that “the war against terrorism is overstated.”‘

Oh, and Mr. Arkin also writes for the Nation …

I’ve always believed you judge the journalism by the words not by the biography of the author, but this is really something. ”
— Ira Stoll, for FutureofCapitalism.com
“William Arkin has just dropped a stellar entry in the biggest asshole in America contest. I was stunned by the incredible amount of disgusting, deranged, disrespectful drivel the wanker was able to cobble together in one hearty F U to the troops.”
— BlackFive blog

Reviews & Praise for William Arkin's "Code Names"

Reviews & Praise for William Arkin's "Code Names"

William Arkin’s book, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World, was covered on the front page of the New York Times, and he talked about it on BookTV (C-SPAN), February 3, 2005.

His first work of fiction, History in One Act: A Novel of 9/11, will be out in 2021. Here are some reviews & praise for William Arkin’s Code Names…

“William Arkin makes amateurs of all of us who think we know something about America’s constantly expanding hidden world. ‘Code Names’ is quite simply a stunning array of secrets and super-secrets that Arkin has put together in a way that makes it easy for any citizen to comprehend—and decide for himself or herself whether such activities are consistent with democracy and good government.”
— Seymour Hersh
“Arkin’s solution: Fight fire with fire. A secret held, a secret disclosed. He offers many bomblets, each of which could make up a chapter of the 600-plus-page book.”
— The Washington Post
“Full of useful information not only for scholars and practitioners of intelligence, but for any serious newspaper reader.”
— Patrick Radden Keefe, for the New York Review of Books
“William Arkin, who successfully challenged a number of Air Force claims about its bombing results during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, is continuing his role of informed critic and irritant with the book Code Names. It is a gold mine...”
— Aviation Week and Space Technology
“Arkin, a military analyst with NBC News and an independent journalist with impressive credentials, has taken on this massive subject with a solitary vengeance stretched out over years … dedicated readers, including students of national security policies, will look for specific topics in small doses or cover sections of interest in a measured, incremental approach.”
— Air and Space Power Journal (U.S. Air Force)
“A detailed and comprehensive exposure of the American security system ... whether or not one agreed with Arkin’s logic and motivation for writing this book, the information contained inside Code Names makes for a fascinating read for any national security specialist.”
— Robert B. Killebrew, for Parameters (journal of the U.S. Army War College)
“Arkin lays out his version of patriotism, explains what ‘special access programs’ (SAPs) are, the differing levels of information security generate and how they get their names. Four sections follow: a ‘cast of characters,’ describing U.S. and foreign agencies, commands and other organizations involved in sensitive operations; a list of their ‘activities by country’; the ‘code names dictionary’ ... and a glossary of acronyms (‘MIO: maritime interdiction operation’) and other terms. Taken together, they offer a prismatic array of activities that come under the aegis of the war on terror, and provide a concrete means for further research and debate.”
— Publishers Weekly, in a starred review & PW Pick
“William Arkin’s ‘Code Names’ will rock the National Security Community. We do not agree on any issue, my problem when we argue is that unlike most of his ilk, he researches the facts thoroughly and has impeccable integrity. Code Names scares the hell out of me because Arkin dredged up so many secrets and turned them into a comprehensive tour of our national security efforts around the globe. This book lays out for the reader what China, Israel, France and Russia probably spent billions trying to find out. It will become the basic reference book for those who study our foreign affairs, unfortunately that includes every spy agency around the world. This book shows the dysfunctional aspects of our all too frequent over-classification process that blocks our agencies from working together, hides waste and stifles debate of important issues. Most of all it proves we need to rethink how we protect our secrets in the information 
age.”
— Gen. Charles A. Horner, General, USAF; commander of coalition air forces in Operation Desert Storm, and former commander, U.S. Space Command