Introduction:
Following the 9/11 attacks in the United States, millions of Americans for the first time discovered- or for those more politically attuned rediscovered - the Taliban, the notorious group that was responsible for harboring the man behind the terror attacks on American civilians.
On the flip side, many Muslims in the Middle East and the larger Muslim world seemed to scramble over a coherent sentiment towards a vague entity they themselves hardly understood.
Nevertheless and expectedly so, the two groups reacted differently. On one side you had the embroiled and revengeful Americans who demonized the Taliban and on the other side you had the stubbornly skeptical but defensive Muslims (in the US and abroad) who always found the US and particularly the CIA to blame for the Taliban's actions.
Both seemed to be misinformed. While the general American public relied too heavily on the limited media coverage of the Taliban, my experience with American Muslims and in Palestine was their automatic dismissal of the 'American profiling of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
As an American Muslim, it became confusing to keep up with two polarized views of the same group of people. What struck me most, however, was that neither side seemed to bother researching or studying the Taliban on an academic level and instead relied on whatever comfortable sources were at their disposal.
It became very frustrating to engage in any kind of conversation on this topic as both sides were adamant that their claims were factual even as they both could only refer to either a 'program' they saw on TV or just repeat what they had heard a friend/family member say.
All of this became especially clear as I spent the last two years reading about the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the life of Osama bin Laden.
So I would like to offer a summary of some of the works I read on the subject by American and Pakistani journalists who have covered the Taliban and Afghanistan for 20+ years,
The first of these books was Ghost Wars by Steven Col, a former editor of the Washington Post. The second is the NYT Best-seller and pulitzer prize winner, The Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright. And finally, Ahmad Rashid's Taliban.
Disclaimer: I believe that a better informed world is a better world. So if you learned just one thing from my contribution to the subject, I would feel extremely delighted.
Lawrence Wright
The Looming Tower
Chapter One, “The Martyr”
The book begins with a chapter introducing a personality that fathers modern day “Islamist”: Syed Qutb. The entire chapter is dedicated to this Egyptian intellectual who slowly transforms from a curious and humble man not untypical of most middle class Egyptians to radicalized conspirer to overthrow the Egyptian government. Wright chooses to focus Qutb’s biography during his stay in the United States, and how radicalization started there, as Qutb observes the streets of New York, Washington DC, Colorado, and California. American ‘obsession’ with materialism was what drove Qutb to angrily demonize his host-country.
Making modest references to the Muslim Brotherhood which was flourishing back in Egypt, Wright points out Qutb’s appreciation as well contrasting views with them, regrettably with nebulous explanation except that Qutb was more concerned with preventing ‘modern values’ like secularism, democracy, mixing of the sexes, and materialism. All that changed when the founder and spiritual leader of the brotherhood, Hassan Al-Bannah, got killed, ensuing Qutb’s pledge to the Brotherhood, which sought to gradually turn Egypt into a political sharia-based Islamic entity.
After spending a few more months in the states, Qutb returns to Egypt more radical than ever and at a time when Egyptians were experiencing an elevated dismay towards its government. A young army colonel, Jamal Abdel Nasser, sacked the former king, backed by the British (who were unofficially ruling Egypt). The British occupation officially ended during Nasser’s authority. By then, Qutb had published some controversial literature and Nasser countered this growing “Islamist” threat by appointing Qutb and his colleagues to important positions. Eventually, their ideological differences landed Qutb and many of his sympathizers in jail, where they endured torture that upon his release, Qutb exposed in an eight-volume commentary, “In the Shades of the Quran.” Stories of Qutb’s suffering in prison also formed a kind of passion play for Islamic “fundamentalists”. (I actually remember some of these stories growing up) Qutb seemed to have come out even more radicalized (there doesn’t seem to be an end to radicalization) and he actively conspired to overthrow the government and plotted to assassinate government officials including Abdel-Nasser. It becomes unclear if he was still considered a member of the Brotherhood or if he had established a following in his own right. As Qutb’s support-group grew, so did room for informers – which led to the capture of Qutb and 42 of his followers. The trial of all 43 men was held on April 19, 1966 and Qutb was hanged after dawn prayers four months later.
Out of all his literature and political intellectual achievements, Syed Qutb’s most influential and “dangerous” piece of work would be Milestones. He introduced an important label, takfir, which means someone who had fallen out of Islam and become an infidel or supporter/sympathizer of an infidel. In Qutb and his predecessor’s understanding of this term was that anyone who falls under ‘takfir’ should be excommunicated in the lightest and viable to put to death at the worst.
To understand takfir is vital in understanding “Islamic Terrorism” since delegitimizing a Muslim’s faith (in the ‘Islamist’ view) is equivalent to dehumanizing – a term often used by counterterrorist’s in explaining terrorists immunity to enemy civilian casualties. The life of someone labeled with takfir is not precious therefore the rules of Islam that forbid killing does not apply. Later on, Wright labels a group of jihadists separate from the other ones as takfiri’s and they are viewed more extreme since they start to label just about anyone they regard as a nuisance as a takfiri and therefore a legitimate target for terror.
Chapter Two, “The Sporting Club”
Ayman al Zawahiri would lead Qutb’s vanguard. Unlike with Qutb, Wright elaborates on Zawahiri’s childhood, pointing out the possible influence he had from some of his relatives about Qutb’s ‘admirable’ stature as he endured torment in prison. Another important event that further influenced Zawahiri’s young mind was the defeat of the Arabs against the Israelis in the 1967 war. This was professed to be a sign from God that God preferred to side with the Jews, and God had turned his back from Muslims because Muslims have turned their back on Islam. (I actually have heard this explanation as a child too) Just like his predecessor, the primary target for Zawahiri, more than ever before, was Nasser’s secular regime. Equipped with Qutb’s angry literature of the ‘monstrous’ American culture and modernization, Zawahiri also sought to restore the Islamic Caliphate system and in a distant future, saw a possible confrontation with the West, particularly Israel and the United States.
Nasser died from a heart attack in 1970, leading way for Anwar al-Sadat as Egypt’s new leader who had previously “proved” to be a friend of the Brotherhood proclaiming to be the ‘first man of Islam.’ He offered the Muslim Brotherhood a deal: in return for support against the Nasserites (supporters of Nasser who were hostile to Sadat), Sadat would give the Brothers freedom of speech as long as they renounce violence. Wright did not make it clear whether an official agreement was made, but Sadat went ahead and emptied his prisons of “Islamists” – something that would later backfire on him. Meanwhile, Zawahiri, who is a medical doctor, regularly visits refugee and relief sites in Peshwar, Pakistan during the Afghan-Soviet offensive. Upon his return to Egypt, motivated by the success of the Islamic revolution in Iran coupled with Sadat’s peace agreement with Israel, Zawahiri sought to unite the disparate Islamic factions. In response, Sadat suppressed his opposition, which would ultimately lead to his assassination by “Islamist” groups (not Zawahiri’s) on October 6, 1981. At this point, the government did not consider Zawahiri as dangerous, but after his name surfaced during the trials of prospective conspirators against the Egyptian regime under the new president Husni Mubarak, Zawahiri would be imprisoned. The traumatic experiences suffered in prison by Zawahiri would transform a relatively moderate man into a violent extremist.
Chapter Three, “The Founder”
In this chapter, Wright opens in Saudi Arabia, penetrating into the family of Mohammad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s father. An immigrant from Yemen, Mohammad bin Laden sought opportunity in Saudi Arabia and successfully built a construction company – the Bin Laden Group – earning the royal family’s respect and reliance on all the major construction, from building mosques to infrastructure and roads -connecting the disparate cities. Mohammad bin Laden bailed out the government following the financial crisis after years of reckless spending during the 1980’s, and the royal family was forever indebted to the bin Laden’s. Wright continues to follow Osama bin Laden’s early years up to his college-education, friendships, and married life.
It is in this chapter in which Wright mentions some Islamic reference used as justification for violence on page 80, with the instance when Prophet Mohammad gave permission to use a catapult to breach a city despite the fact that women and children could be harmed. I found this interesting because this is the first time I’ve ever seen this reference used.
Chapter Four, “Change”
This chapter continues to take place in Saudi Arabia, under the reign of King Faisal but focuses on the life of Turki bin Faisal – a figure who plays a vital role during the Afghan-Soviet war and specifically the U.S covert role in the conflict. While Prince Turki was abroad in the United States, he was summoned back to Saudi Arabia upon hearing news on the infamous siege of the Holy Mosque in Mecca on November 20, 1979. The insurgents, whom at the time were considered radical minded and cult-oriented, had successfully resisted the Saudi government for four days. Prince Turki, with the aid of the bin Laden group (they were the constructors of the renovation of the mosque), was able to minimize casualties of the civilian worshippers caught in the ceasefire and captured what remained of the insurgents. On January 1980, all 63 insurgents were beheaded. This event would forever change Saudi Arabia, as the first act of defiance and chaos eclipsed a vulnerable society that had proved it’s transition from poor Bedouins that relied on the sales of dates and the annual pilgrimage as the main source of income to a sudden wealth matched by only a few around the world. At around the same time, the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan – leading many Arabs – whom according to Wright were individuals problematic to their own countries including Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri – to fly to Pakistan. A major figure that would motivate this new cause in Afghanistan was a Palestinian man and future cofounder of Hamas– Abdullah Azzam.
Chapter Five, “The Miracles” and Chapter Six, “The Base”
These chapters take place in Afghanistan during the war, and concentrate heavily on Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden’s partnership with the establishment of the Services Office–a humanitarian organization to assist Afghan refugees. Azzam didn’t try to penetrate what would later be known as Arab Afghan’s into the actual combat as they had failed miserably to prove worthy of such combat. Pages and pages continue to paint this unnecessary humiliating Arab presence, dragging the reader into one failed skirmish after another.The most important insight this chapter provides is the gradual split in the understanding of jihad. He provides several excerpts of the Quran that he claims is what drives these jihadists against the newfound target against the West. Someone with a general understanding of Islam would be able to distinguish these excerpts as merely interpretations, but for everyone else, it would only reinforce generalizations.
Abdullah Azzam increasingly became an isolated figure because of his reluctances to the more radical views held by Osama and Al-Zawahiri, though Wright conveniently neglects to point out. Instead, he focuses on the accusations perpetrated by Azaam’s rivals of being an informer of the CIA which I have to say I was shocked to read. (It is true that Arabs tend to accuse all their enemies as CIA informers but to accuse Azzam as one made me laugh) Azzam was mysteriously assassinated soon after. The most interesting part of this chapter on page 162 is the jihadi ‘health-care plan and buyout option’ and the requirements to join a jihadi training camp was 7 years of jihad experience and preferably a college degree. I wonder if there is a handbook to Jihadi camp?
Chapter Seven, “Return of the Hero”
As Osama bin Laden’s mockery and ridicule spills over into this chapter, he additionally becomes desperate and pathetic in this one. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the pressured invitation of the United States to Saudi soil was perhaps the turning point for Osama bin Laden, as Wright demonstrates vividly. As he failed to ignite action in Yemen and Somalia just years before, the U.S presence in the holy lands of Muslims, which also happen to be his homeland, was intolerable to him. What drove bin Laden mad was the country’s religious body’s reluctance to publicly oppose this infiltration, as the government pressures its religious leaders to issue a fatwa or religious decree on it’s politically motivated decisions. Wright does a good job explaining the dynamic of Saudi Arabia’s relationship between the relatively secular royal family and its deeply religious and conservative population. The creation of the religious body to overlook the population as well as its powerful positions in government gave the religious leaders little courage to challenge its government’s decision no matter how much they actually opposed it. Money and power was what was holding back these so-called religious leaders, Bin Laden concluded, and lost hope for his own countrymen. After he negotiates the return of his previous revoked passport, bin Laden moves to Pakistan where he later runs into his old Arab Afghan mujahedeen pals and attempts to ease what was becoming a civil war between the Afghani’s.
Wright provides useful insight in some of Saudi Arabia’s evolutionary laws particularly the ban on female drivers. When a cultural taboo is broken or challenged, the religious clerics would simply declare a religious decree, or fatwa, to make a cultural taboo a religious violation. He also shows us how many of these women support their own repressive states.
Chapter Eight, “Paradise”
Hasan al-Turabi of Sudan is introduced as a relatively moderate figure who has his own unique plans for the Muslim world. He cordially invites Muslims indiscriminately, including Osama bin Laden, to Sudan hoping they would assist in bringing his idea to life. Osama bin Laden disagreed with Turabi on many fronts, but Osama’s wealth was always what led to compromises between him and all his rivals. While Osama enjoyed his stay in Sudan, as the chapter title ‘paradise’ reflects, his family increasingly resented the move. His fourth wife eventually would divorce him and she moves back to Saudi Arabia with their children. Wright mentions how the world was witnessing the rise in ‘indigenous salafist (wahabi) movements’ that was rising spontaneously around the Arab world. He includes two of the Egyptian groups that have been referenced regularly from the beginning, Ayman al Zawahiri’s ‘Al-Jihad’ and Omar Abdul-Rahman (or the blind shaikh’s) Islamic Group along with Palestinian Hamas and the Abu Nidal Organization. It is here where Wright deliberately wanted to mislead the reader in thinking that the Abu-Nidal organization (more violent than Hamas or Hezbollah) was a salafist religious movement when it is in fact a secular organization that predated Hamas. He also fails to distinguish the unique national (not salafist) grievances for the Palestinian groups that up to that point have never hurt Americans or declare ‘jihad’ against them from the more radical ones whom have in one way or the other called to target Americans and the United States. This irresponsible inclusion of all these groups under the umbrella of ‘salafist’ movements was the most disappointing because it is either a mistake or a deliberate attempt to mislead readers. (Or he just wants everyone to hate Hamas or Palestinian resistant groups for the wrong reasons!) –see page 196.
Chapter Nine, “Silicon Valley” and Chapter Ten, “Paradise Lost”
The most important point this chapter makes is Ayman al Zawahiri’s desperate (due to financial reasons) attempts to keep his Al-Jihad group alive. He decides that the only way to do this was to merge with his rival’s group, Al-Qaeda. The fundamental difference between the two groups lay in prioritizing which jihad to embark first. Ayman and his Egyptian followers wanted to bring down the secular and repressive Egyptian regime while Osama was thinking bigger, global, and with more sophisticated weapons. Zawahiri is said to have introduced suicide bombing to bin Laden leading way to what would later become the Al-Qaeda’s “martyrdom operations.” However, Zawahiri’s followers were reluctant to this merge and voted against it.
Meanwhile, bin Laden lures various nationalist groups under his umbrella by offering weapons and training. At the end of 1993, rumors of a Sudanese general who acquired uranium enticed Osama to strike a deal with him. This turned out false, and bin Laden wasted over $1.5 million dollars over it. Bin Laden creates some Muslim enemies who’ve attempted to assassinate him, diminishing the short-lived paradise in Sudan.
In the meantime, back home, bin Laden’s family publically condemn bin Laden and assassination plots were considered on behalf of the Saudi government. Things continued to look gloomy, as money had started to dwindle since he was vulnerable to the monthly stipend from his family’s company back in Saudi Arabia. One Al-Qaeda member got caught stealing and after bin Laden reprimanded him, the thief left and became an informer to the Israeli’s. A Saudi journalist and family friend came to bin Laden and asked him to renounce violence, as that would be the one condition if he wished to return home. Bin Laden ignored him.
Chapter Eleven, “The Prince of Darkness”
This chapter introduces the reader to the other side of the story – the American agencies that are countering these terrorist threats. Most notable of these characters is an FBI agent by the name of John O’Neill. Wright also explores the FBI bureaucracy noting three important elements; Irish and Italian Catholic men ran it and they were intensely patriotic, and were trained from childhood not to question the hierarchy. These agents were used to confronting the Mafia, an organization created by people from similar backgrounds thus these men were equipped with the familiarity and expertise in fighting the enemy. However, just as very few Americans knew about Islam or any grievances that had already given rise to the attack to the World Trade Center, many in American law enforcement or FBI were deeply uninformed about the new threat. Wright briefly explains the distrust between the FBI and CIA, particularly CIA’s reluctance to share ‘sensitive’ information that would be used as public evidence had the FBI got a hold of it thus undermining the CIA’s covert materials. A good example was when two suspected Al-Qaeda members were in the United States (therefore in FBI jurisdiction) the FBI was never informed and the photos of these men were never disclosed until it was too late.
The first official attack to be considered as bin Laden’s making occurred on November 13 1995 in Saudi Arabia outside a three-story building leaving five Americans dead.
Chapter 12, “Boy Spies”
An assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak created a wave of counterterrorism tactics that repressed the Egyptian people even further and the enemies to dismantle. Mubarak’s security forces went to the slums of Cairo and dragged mothers of suspected Islamist to the streets, stripping them naked and threatening their children of rape if the suspect was not home on their next visit. Another tactic was to lure the sons of suspects into apartments, drug them, sodomize them, and take photos, which would be confronted to them as soon as they awaken. This threat of exposing the photos to the boy’s families was used as blackmail as to force cooperation with the agents. These boys eventually got caught by Zawahiri’s men and were shot. Zawahiri had hoped that this repression by the Egyptian government would get the masses to turn against the Egyptian government and support his efforts– an assumption that did not fall through, instead, the population became more miserable, more disenchanted, and despairing.
The assassination plot was partially blamed on the Sudanese government leading to UN sanctions imposed on the country. The sanctions were fully effective by April 1996, and with it the pressures to expel bin Laden. At this time though, there was no evidence with the Clinton administration that bin Laden had committed any attacks on Americans so this pressure was as far as they were willing to go. He was viewed mainly as a wealthy nuisance that was aiding the actual terrorists one way or another. The one person that was able to pressure bin Laden to leave was the one that invited him in the first place, Hasan Al-Turabi. The only destination that would take him: Afghanistan. By then, bin Laden was broke and disenfranchised.
Chapter 13, “Hijira”
Afghanistan was bin Laden’s only choice of destination because the Taliban owed much to Saudi Arabia that had ensured its power against the Northern Alliance and civil war in Afghanistan. Prince Turki asked the Taliban to keep bin Laden, “to hold him and keep him quiet.” Mullah Omar – Taliban leader – was also aware of the pledge he had given (backed by millions of Saudi riyals) to keep bin laden silent and out of trouble. Wright suggests here that the main reason the Taliban agreed to look after this guest was bin Laden’s reputation of wealthy philanthropist considering his generous flow to the Sudanese infrastructure. They hoped to use his money and expertise to rebuild their shattered country. At this point, you can’t help but feel bad for bin Laden. His alliances were all based on his money and most of the time he gets screwed over – nevertheless he continues to blindly shower his money no matter how deteriorating.
Chapter 15, “Bread and Water”
On July 1997, Zawahiri was still at this point just rivals with bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda. He had gone to Afghanistan but has heard that developments in Egypt were stalemate. Zawahiri’s decision of shooting the little boys created an outrage even among his followers. The Egyptian government’s increased repression got many of his followers to give up their efforts to challenge the government. With only a few loyal following, mostly those in exile, Zawahiri decided to attack tourists. By this time, Zawahiri’s al-Jihad combined forces with the blind shaikh’s “The Islamic group” and thus this plot was their first as one group under the name Islamic Group. The attack took place on November 17, 1997 and was greeted with anger by the Egyptian people. The population decisively turned against the Islamists who interestingly denied the whole ordeal by blaming it on Israel or Egyptian police.
Seeing that the attack was a catastrophe and desperate in trying to unite what was left of his followers, Zawahiri began writing a draft of a formal declaration that would unite all of the different mujahideen groups that had gathered in Afghanistan under a single banner. It would turn the movement away from regional conflicts and toward a global Islamic jihad against America. The three grievances that were cited in this declaration:
1- the continuing presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia
2- U.S intention to destroy Iraq
3- Supporting Israel by continuing to weaken Arab states
All this mounted to a ‘war on god and his messenger and all the Muslims’ therefore issuing a fatwa (religious decree) that ‘the ruling to kill the Americans and their allies – civilian and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim…”
Chapter 16, “Now it Begins”
This fatwa brought a lot of excitement and with it new recruits to the new cause and united Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, who was low on money witnessed new sources of donations as Wright puts it, “publicity was the currency bin Laden was spending, replacing his wealth with fame, and it repaid him with recruits and donations.” Bin Laden also goes on a media frenzy interviewing with ABC News and various Arabic and Pakistani satellite channels. The publicity gave al-Qaeda and bin Laden the perception that they were bigger than they actually were (like a blowfish, Wright says) There seems to be some but insignificant tension between Mullah Omar and bin Laden during this media rampage. Wright also goes to mention that these interviews took a toll on bin Laden’s voice and health.
The famous embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam came soon after the interviews. Wright mentions here that the Quran specially forbids killing women and children though in an earlier chapter, he suggests that there is room for interpretation where he brings up a hadith or instance where the Prophet Mohammad OK’d a mission that would knowingly harm civilians (chapter 3) which I find a little contradictory. Wright also mentions that Muslims all over the world greeted the bombings with horror and dismay especially since the majority of those killed were African Muslims. Somehow, Wright mentions Hamas as a possible suspect that was later dismissed – this only makes me wonder if he just holds a grudge against Hamas? They clearly have nothing to do with any of this yet its name keeps coming up occasionally!
When a suspect is questioned, he mentions that a ‘big attack was coming’ and this is not the first time this sort of reference is made. It is hard to believe that any plot about 9/11 would be mentioned to the entire Al-Qaeda members, especially since it’s a hierarchical network. This was probably just a bluff but Wright definitely wants the reader to connect the dots. Even the term ‘looming tower’ is derived from a verse in the Quran as if to show Muslims prefer to target towers.
The U.S retaliated by attacking the largest pharmaceutical that was reported to have been producing chemical weapons in Khartoum, Sudan and by dropping U.S cruise missiles toward two camps around Khost, Afghanistan near the Pakistani border. The pharmaceutical plane turned out to have only been making medicines and not chemical weapons. The two camps were destroyed but bin Laden survived igniting his popularity even to those that opposed his alleged bombings in Africa. Wright says, “Even in Kenya and Tanzania, the two countries that had suffered the most from Al-Qaeda’s attacks, children would be spotted wearing bin Laden T-shirts’. At this point, the reader needs to know why this support is still there and it is also at this point where Wright fails to even question let alone answer. It is unfortunate because this is probably the most difficult fact to tackle. With all of Wright’s experience and as he notes to having more than a thousand interviews, Wright fails to confront this very problem: the sympathy of modern or even secular Muslims to terrorists. As long as there is sympathy even without direct support, it will be impossible to erase terrorists away completely.
Chapter 18, “Boom”
Wright attempts to explore what makes a person turn to terrorism and what makes a terrorist ‘tick’. Several generalizations are made – many of them notable but some I think are irrelevant. On page 344, Wright says, “What the recruits tended to have in common – besides their urbanity, their cosmopolitan backgrounds, their education, their facility with languages, and their computer skills – was displacement.” Wright continues to say that these loners were in a strange land (U.S or France) and away from family and often turned to a local mosque where they found companionship and consolation of Islam. Islam in turn provided the element of commonality and identity. Some of these mosques and imams were, Wright explains, funded by Saudi Arabia and staffed by Wahabi fundamentalists – “many of whom were preaching the glories of jihad’ of both the jihad in Afghanistan and possibly 9/11.
I find this conclusion very troubling. If this were the case, if this is what truly drove these men to this fate, then what about the thousands and thousands of immigrants that fall under the same category (including my father for example) not resort to violence as their answer for self-fulfillment? Many Islamic Centers both mosques and schools are funded by Saudi Arabia (even in Japan) that doesn’t mean that the ‘wahabi’ interpretation of Islam is automatically enforced or taught. Even if some traces of wahabism is evident, Zawahiri and bin Laden have proven to be far beyond Wahabists (as Saudi Arabia, a wahabi country would not welcome Al-Qaeda members nor host it) and have become takfiri’s – something even beyond an extreme wahabi radical.
The chapter continues as it unfolds the attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen. The Clinton administration was reluctant to respond because the country was in the middle of a presidential election and Clinton was trying to burnish his legacy by securing some sort of peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. I found it interesting that Wright was not critical of this what-so-ever. Wright suggests that the idle response angered bin Laden, who hoped that the USS Cole attack would lure the Americans into Afghanistan and finally its defeat (since Afghanistan is known to be the graveyard of empires)
The end of this chapter explains how bin Laden is the reason why Al-Qaeda has gotten this far. Wright connects all the characters, from Syed Qutb, Abdullah Azzam, Ayman Al Zawahiri, and the Taliban together. Wright says, “At a time when there were many Islamist movements, all of them concentrated on nationalist goals, it was bin Laden’s vision to create an international jihad corps…”
Other critique
Overall, I enjoyed reading The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 though I will say that I had higher expectations. However, I can’t help but somewhat question the validity of his information considering his lack of intelligence experience (or a clearance for that matter). After reading Steven Coll’s Ghost Wars, I have to say that I think I prefer Col’s approach than Wright’s especially because Coll bothers to put all his first-hand sources throughout his book including letters, documents, treaties, phone messages, etc whereas for Wright, the reader has to just assume that the information is accurate. While he gives the reader the most comprehensive view of Bin Laden's inner circle and personal mindset, the book really makes al Qaeda and al Jihad seem like a bunch of incompetent nincompoops. One finishes it thinking they got "lucky" on 9/11 and wondering: how could America seriously feel threatened by this band of misfits?
On the al-Qaeda side of the story, Wright begins with the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb and very clearly traces the evolution of militant Islam all the way up to bin Laden and Zawahiri. Wright also provides a detailed account of bin Laden's history, from his days in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Sudan.
Wright does a good job of pointing out that the horrific responses to counter terrorists only radicalized them further, beginning with Qutb in Egypt and the legal rendition methods by the United States. Included in this account that I thought were very interesting (but not necessarily relavent) was when Wright reveals that at one point, bin Laden actually suggested an alliance with Shi'ite Muslims to fight the Soviets. Another interesting bit of information found in the book is the meetings between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda during the late 1990s, and the Iraqi offer to relocate al-Qaeda to Iraq. Wright failed to do something most authors that tackle this subject do: define Islamist, fundamentalists, and radical Islamists. He uses these terms interchangeably without giving each the unique understanding they have. For example, the term ‘Islamist’ was given to Muslims by the French during their colonization of Algeria when they didn’t know how to label them except by using their ‘religion’ thus Islami(ist). Fundamentalist is always my least favorite because when we were younger, my teachers at the Islamic school (that was in no way radical) used to tell us that good Muslims must follow the fundamentals of Islam therefore we should all be fundamentalists (challenging the term that has been associated with terrorists). Radical, of course, is always used relatively speaking.
Wright also explains 9/11 from the American failure to stop it. This story primarily involves the lack of communication among the CIA, FBI, and NSA. It's no less than chilling to see just how many times 9/11 might have been prevented had it not been for the turf wars between these agencies. Even though I consider myself well read on the subject, I had never heard of O’Neill before. He spent the last decade of his career trying to get bin Laden, and then tragically died trying to rescue people from the World Trade Center. I didn’t get into detail since the many examples dedicated to this pretty much painting the same picture: distrust and selfishness among the CIA, FBA, and NSA.
O’Neill could have been depicted as a hero if not for his tremendous flaws Wright likes to repeat throughout the pages, especially his affairs. I really liked the comparison Wright makes between O’Neill and bin Laden, especially in their love for women. At one point, Wright says that had O’Neill lived in a culture that allowed polygamy, O’Neill would have a harem of women.
While I had small issues with the book, the biggest concern I had was similar to the concern I had with Col is to explain why sympathy for terrorism exists even among those that verbally oppose it in the Muslim world and what can be done to confront it. One final critique is that it shows JERUSALEM and not Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel on the map of this book. As nobody recognizes that but Israelis, for the map to show this seems willfully political. (This supports my theory on Wright’s anti-Hamas resentment!)
