Left of Boom Quotes

“severe depression as well as depersonalization disorder, which is to say he no longer felt in control of his feelings, emotions, or behaviors. He was aware of his actions, but felt he was watching them from a third-person perspective. I recommended he take corrective action to reduce the depression and anxiety he was experiencing.”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan. —CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“We are content with discord; we are content with alarms; we are content with blood; but we will never be content with a master. —A PASHTUN LEADER TO BRITISH MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM EPHINSTONE”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“GB officers constituted the main force at Stone and were selected from among the baddest-ass military units—SEALs, Marine Force Recon, Air Force Parajumpers, and the Army’s Combat Applications Group (formerly know as Delta Force). They wore civilian clothes and were equipped with the most advanced light weaponry on the planet.3”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“Afghanistan is more than the “graveyard of empires.” It’s the mother of vicious circles. —MAUREEN DOWD”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“Fear runs deep throughout the Agency and inhabits every fiber of its soul. I started to see and sense that the first time I passed through the door. I saw it in the type of people they recruited, and the ideas that were drilled in our heads. It created a culture of risk aversion, which proved to be a huge impediment in the field. It doesn’t help that the Agency has become a media kick toy. One day you’ll see some so-called expert calling us inhumane torturers on CNN, and the next some congressman who can’t find Afghanistan on a map ranting about how we are incompetent. Conversely, conspiracy theorists worldwide talk about us as though we have omnipotent power. We’re blamed for constantly screwing up, and for planning and carrying out the most complex and nefarious plots imaginable. It makes everyone inside defensive.”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“They exit the womb in survival mode and continue to struggle that way until they die.”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“They were hard and fearless, and had to be enterprising and manipulative in order to survive. Espionage to them was a means to a better life. There was no ideology, morality, or religious belief involved.”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“In terms of religious beliefs, Pashtuns are Sunni Muslims and follow a nonwritten ethical code called Pashtunwali. Its main principles include Melmastia (hospitality and respect for all visitors regardless of race, religion, nationality, or financial status), Nanawatai (offering asylum or protection from one’s enemies), Badal (the practice of taking revenge against a wrongdoer), and Turah (bravery).”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“We haven’t been in Afghanistan for ten years. We’ve been in Afghanistan one year, ten times.”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“Never underestimate the power of the State to act out its own massive fantasies. —DON DELILLO”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“Taliban and an allied billion-dollar opium cultivation and trafficking network controlled the entire southeast border of the country. From there opium was smuggled west to the Balkans, via Iran and Turkey, or shipped out of Karachi to the Gulf states and Africa.4 The drug trade had helped fund the CIA-supported mujahideen war against the Soviets in the 1980s. After the Soviets left Afghanistan, opium production increased fourteenfold, from 500 tons in the mid-eighties to 6,900 tons a year. The United States had made some efforts to curb its production a few years earlier and failed. Now it flourished, aided by the Taliban, local tribesmen working for the Haqqani network led by warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, and corrupt officials in the Karzai government.”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“Some of the attendees protested. One guy said, “We have jobs. We can’t keep making up excuses to miss work.” “If you can’t lie to your boss, how are going to succeed at this?” the presenter responded.”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“she had lived through wars, death, marriages, and every other human travail and”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“The untold want by life and land ne’er granted, Now, Voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find. —WALT WHITMAN”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

“happening in my highly distressed state of mind. A psychiatrist later explained that in order for someone to perform sexually, their sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems have to be operating at the same time, which isn’t possible when your brain is on operational overdrive.”
― Ralph Pezzullo, Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda