Warrick is the Washington Post's national security correspondent, and readers can be forgiven if they mistake his new form of nonfiction for one of the recent best-selling spy thrillers from Alex Berenson, Vince Flynn, Daniel Silva or Brad Thor. "The Triple Agent" is all too real, however, and tragically so for it details the calamity that befell the CIA on Dec. 30, 2009, when an al Qaeda operative penetrated the agency's inner sanctum in Khost, Afghanistan, and caused grievous carnage.
Alongside the inspiring stories of some extraordinary American heroes serving half a man outside in a form of capacities from point of place to security professional is a detailed account of how and why the drone war is waged against the nation's enemies.
From the thoroughness of the targeting specialists to the preciseness of the arms to the particulars of the real heavy load that CIA Director Michael Hayden passed on to Leon Panetta, who in turn passed it on to David Petraeus, "The Triple Agent" leaves its audience wiser and hopefully far more modest in the judgments they show on the war from the sky and its morality.
The immense bulk of civilians knows naught of these details, and most can't be bothered to take even an extremely well-written, fast-paced story of one key battle in this ongoing war.
This want of knowledge - combined with laziness - didn't stop some talking heads and arm-chair constitutional lawyers from issuing condemnations of Friday's killing of Anwar al-Awlaki. There is sadly a large cadre of men and women who have never rendered a real-world decision with anything like the enormous consequences of those made routinely by the senior commanders in this war, and who have never served in a senior post in politics which actually required legal opinions that would affect the refuge of Americans, but who nevertheless can think with certainty that the cleanup of al-Awlaki was "unconstitutional" or "immoral."
Al-Awlaki was actively involved in plotting the end of Americans via terrorist acts and encouraging such acts across the globe. There isn't a good student of the jihadist movement that disagrees with this assessment. Al-Awalki was therefore an enemy combatant the president could and rightfully did order killed. Not to have acted to take such a risk to the country would have been an annulment of the president's oath to preserve, protect and support the Constitution.
If some sap in Congress shares the idiotic sputterings of the professional posers on the pipe and the Internet, he or she can get a result of impeachment and the name of proud sponsors can put the head to the voters next fall. It would so be a "high crime" to say the unlawful killing of an American citizen. But this wasn't unlawful, not still close. It was necessity, and it is war - war against a pitiless and talented enemy.
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
