It's bad to wage war on drug dealers in South America?!?!?!?!?
I wish Tom Clancy would do us all a big favor and keep his silly Libertarian views to himself.

A good read to a good book, I just wish that they had an unabridged version of it.

Clear and Present Danger is your prototypical Tom Clancy Jack Ryan novel. This one gets a sort of slow start and contains a lot of extra stuff that seemed unnecessary. The book was really longer than it needed to be an lost my attention in some spots. Minus that, the story and basic plot is one of the best around. The movie, as usual, completely butchered the story. I would recommend this book to anyone who doesn't mind a long read

This is my favorite novel by Clancy! This is a good balance of action and political intrigue that I crave. I wish more would create such intrigue as Clancy did in this book.

I like politics and I like it alot when an author shows how corrupt politics can get and the scheme that they can create.

This novel gives a good insight into what possibly might happen, when politics and personal vendetta get out of hand and how the consequences of that action, especially by the President of the United States, can go terribly wrong.

This novel is Tom Clancy. I would recommend that everyone who has never read him start with this book! Clancy is at his best and his story is brilliant.

In Clear and Present Danger, we get an insiders look at the danger of acting against national security threats outside the traditional channels of military use. We also get a sense of the danger of inaction against such dangerous targets. In this case, the danger is the war on drugs, specifically cocaine. A covert strike team is dispatched to Colombia which is still in the throes of left-wing terrorists who take kickbacks from the narcoterrorists and help protect drug dealers. The book deals with the famous John Clark, a legendary (in Clancy's books) black ops operator. Clark sets up the team which deals blows to the narcoterrorists but has repercussions for the civilians who get caught in the way. But at some point, Ritter (who set up the covert ops) has to cut them loose for deniability. Jack Ryan jumps into the fray. He won't let American troops hang out on a limb. Ryan was promoted to CIA DDI and can't let them die on the vine. He heads down to South America to rescue them with the help of John Clark. Ryan is trying to do what is both morally right and legally - not always a fine line. So the book intersects law, politics and morality. In addition, we get the continuity of the great characters that Clancyites enjoy - Admiral Greer and John Clark. This book is where Clark and Chavez meet - and become an inseparable black ops team for future books.