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About Jesus Steve Sweetman
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A
Time To Betray
This is one book I suggest every one to read.
It is up to date, ate least as of 2010.
It's a true story on an Iranian boy who grows up and works for both the
Revolutionary Guard in
Iran
and the CIA. It has adventure and
intrigue. It will make you angry at
the Iranian government since the revolution is 1979.
It will probably make you mad and upset with much of the western response
to the middle east, especially in Iran.
This book produced a lot of emotion within me.
I listened to it on audio CD – 12 cd's.
I couldn't stop listening. Around
16 hours of listening in two days.
The
following is the Amazon description of the book.
A true story as exhilarating as a great spy thriller, as turbulent as today’s
headlines from the Middle East, 2010 National Best Books Award-winning A
Time to Betray reveals what no other previous CIA operative’s memoir
possibly could: the inner workings of the notorious Revolutionary Guards of
Iran, as witnessed by an Iranian man inside their ranks who spied for the
American government. It is a human story, a chronicle of family and friendships
torn apart by a terror-mongering regime, and how the adult choices of three
childhood mates during the Islamic Republic yielded divisive and tragic fates.
And it is the stunningly courageous account of one man’s decades-long
commitment to lead a shocking double life informing on the beloved country of
his birth, a place that once offered the promise of freedom and
enlightenment—but instead ruled by murderous violence and spirit-crushing
oppression.
Reza Kahlili grew up in Tehran surrounded by his close-knit family and two
spirited boyhood friends. The Iran of his youth allowed Reza to think and act
freely, and even indulge a penchant for rebellious pranks in the face of the
local mullahs. His political and personal freedoms flourished while he studied
computer science at the University of Southern California in the 1970s. But his
carefree time in America was cut short with the sudden death of his father, and
Reza returned home to find a country on the cusp of change. The revolution of
1979 plunged Iran into a dark age of religious fundamentalism under the
Ayatollah Khomeini, and Reza, clinging to the hope of a Persian Renaissance,
joined the Revolutionary Guards, an elite force at the beck and call of the
Ayatollah. But as Khomeini’s tyrannies unfolded, as his fellow countrymen
turned on each other, and after the horror he witnessed inside Evin Prison, a
shattered and disillusioned Reza returned to America to dangerously become
“Wally,” a spy for the CIA.
In the wake of an Iranian election that sparked global outrage, at a time when
Iran’s nuclear program holds the world’s anxious attention, the revelations
inside A Time to Betray could not be more powerful or timely. Now
resigned from his secretive life to reclaim precious time with his loved ones,
Reza Kahlili documents scenes from history with heart-wrenching clarity, as he
supplies vital information from the Iran-Iraq War, the Marine barracks bombings
in Beirut, the catastrophes of Pan Am Flight 103, the scandal of the Iran-Contra
affair, and more . . . a chain of incredible events that culminates in a
nation’s fight for freedom that continues to this very day.
A TIME TO BETRAY was the winner of The National Best Books 2010 Awards for
Non-Fiction Narrative. It was also honored as the “Finalist” in the
“Autobiography/Memoirs” category. It is now part of JCITA’s
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