{"id":88,"date":"2009-02-09T22:23:35","date_gmt":"2009-02-10T03:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/?p=88"},"modified":"2009-04-06T18:12:21","modified_gmt":"2009-04-07T01:12:21","slug":"ghost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/?p=88","title":{"rendered":"Ghost"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A friend from Nuevo Laredo recommended Fred Burton&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1400065690?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=relaxandhavef-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1400065690\">Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=relaxandhavef-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1400065690\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/> last fall, then a neighbor lent it to me last week.\u00a0 I started it yesterday afternoon and finished it tonight after work.\u00a0 This was an interesting, if melodramatic, look at the creation of the State Department&#8217;s Diplomatic Security Service&#8217;s (DSS) Counterterrorism division.\u00a0 It covers the period from Agent Burton&#8217;s entrance into the division (of three employees at the time) in 1986 through 1995.\u00a0 Lots of very bad terrorist acts were committed during that timeframe and Agent Burton was either on the scene or behind the scene shortly after most of them.\u00a0 The book was an intriguing history of DSS and how it interacts with the other intelligence and security agencies.\u00a0 Agent Burton&#8217;s writing style was a bit over-the-top, and I quickly tired of the incredible number of references to his trusty <a title=\"The Jacket\" href=\"http:\/\/www.barbour.com\/index.cfm?fuseaction=products.view&amp;ProductID=11296&amp;PSubCategoryID=19&amp;SearchTerm=beaufort\" target=\"_blank\">Barbour Beaufort<\/a> jacket.\u00a0 Aside from that, it was a fun read and gave me some insight into the DSS CT division.\u00a0 Here are two slightly lengthier reviews from <a title=\"Duffbert review\" href=\"http:\/\/www.duffbert.com\/duffbert\/blog.nsf\/d6plinks\/TDUF-7GGNSA\" target=\"_blank\">Duffbert <\/a>and <a title=\"SWJ review\" href=\"http:\/\/smallwarsjournal.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/ghost-confessions-of-a-counter\/\" target=\"_blank\">SWJ<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A friend from Nuevo Laredo recommended Fred Burton&#8217;s Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent last fall, then a neighbor lent it to me last week. I started it yesterday afternoon and finished it tonight after work. This was an interesting, if melodramatic, look at the creation of the State Department&#8217;s Diplomatic Security Service&#8217;s (DSS) Counterterrorism [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[33,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235,"href":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relaxandhavefun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}