Agent Storm: My Life inside the Al Qaeda and the CIA by Morten Storm and two CNN Reporters Paul Cruikshank and Tim Lister is a pretty wild book.

Morten Storm is a Dane who had troubles growing up. A rough and tumble household led to him being involved in gangs and drugs and lots of fights and even more chaos. As he tells it, he happened upon a book about the prophet Mohammed and liked what he found. He jumped into this with both feet and got involved in the growing Danish Muslim community and converted and then sent to Yemen for further study.

He tells about his growing radicalism and brings up many of the things that I’ve heard over the years but you hardly hear anything about in the USA. The resentment that many Muslims have over the US military being on Saudi Arabian soil is chief among them. Radical Muslims have a world view, according to Storm, that is totally alien to western views. Democracy for example is a big no no because that is man acting like Allah. Storm become more and more radicalized after he returns to Europe and then of course we have the attacks on the American Homeland on 9/11.

He is repulsed at first by the huge loss in innocent lives in direct contradiction of the Koran but is slowly brought about by the viewpoints of the radical mullahs who now say killing innocent people is God’s will. All during this time he is traveling throughout the Mideast and Europe meeting with various terrorists and raising money to support them. He has increasing doubts however about the killing of innocent civilians and then later has religious doubts about Islam, especially their concept of predestination and realizes that he can’t believe in a religion that predestined the murders of so many thousands of people.

He ends up offering his services to the Danish version of the CIA, the PET who get him involved him with the two British versions of the CIA (MI5 for internal affairs, and MI6 for overseas threats) and eventually the American CIA. His disclosures about these various agencies is hardly flattering to them. He talks about the briefings and debriefings done a very expensive hotels by these agencies and the debauchery of the PET in particular. The British agencies get a little break because they are very ethical and very reluctant to put innocent civilians in harms way.

The CIA he portrays as having very sophisticated technology but are very arrogant and also very willing to kill innocent people if necessary. He spent a lot of time with the CIA and feels that screwed him out of some major cash for tracking down some major bad guys but not paying him. Where he decides to leave his life as a double agent is when he is helping track down an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, and is tipped by somebody else that he doesn’t want to be sitting by him ever because the Americans will fire off their hellfire missiles from drones or helicopters whenever they are sure of his exact position and don’t really care who else may be around at the time.

So he gets out and goes rogue, writes a book, and gets interviews on 60 Minutes. The book reads like a spy thriller but seems very believable. Storm has had an adventurous life meeting with many of the middle eastern bad guys and even finding a third wife for Anwar al-Awlaki on facebook and taking her to him in Yemen.

The book is a great read and I highly recommend it. Not only does he tell a heck of story about his life as a double agent but he also talks about the grievances that many Muslims have against the US and many of the countries in the Arab world that are seen as lackeys to America. Couter terrorism is a messy business. Our enemies are very smart and adaptable and are very committed. What struck me is the ease that terrorists can move around the world. They fight in Yemen, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Chechnya, and then go home and spend some time with the family in England or Denmark or wherever until they decide to go and fight somewhere else. It is also remarkable how dogged and determined the US and allied military and intelligence agencies are going after the bad guys.

This is a heck of read. I’ve been trying to figure out if Storm is legitimate or not. Who knows with a double agent. I hadn’t seen much in the way of people discrediting him besides the usual conspiracy lovers who point out things that don’t really matter. So sure he is gaming us a little bit but a lot of what he claims rings true.

Here is a 60 Minutes segment featuring Morten Storm and his claims.

Hey, I bought my book in the Kindle format on Amazon for about $3. I have put my Goodreads list on my Amazon wish list and check it regularly. Every now and then Amazon will cut the price of a book drastically for a short while. So I check my wish list regularly and grab books when they get cheap. The price for the book is back up around $10. I also download books for free from library but in these tea party crazed days, libraries here in Oklahoma have less and less money available.