Wyatt,

I agree with you regarding the hyperbole, which I found suffocating at points.

I would like to stress to the original poster that there is continuity between "US power being exerted through SOF and other "black ops" around the world" pre- and post-9/11, which is a meta-narrative not often captured in many works. I think a strong argument could be made that how the key players in the Bush administration, Cold Warriors themselves, responded to 9/11 was not necessarily derived from an objective analysis on how to conduct a "war on terrorism".