Well, I finally found my notes and got this review finished - long overdue.

For all the energy, lives and treasure we have devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s important to remember that they had nothing to do with 9/11 which became the excuse for our actions rather than the proximate rationale. We are now in a war that would appear to have literally no end, this “war of terror,” one that any sane person who recently traveled on an airplane can see the terrorists have won as we meekly surrender our civil rights to government agencies who now can tap phones, examine library records, collect data, cavity search, etc., in the name of some illusionary sense of safety, a theater of the absurd. In addition they convinced us , this tiny group of delusionary men (no women), to send thousands of troops to a hostile land and environment where they could be more easily picked off.

Wright traces the rise of anti-semitism in the MIddle East to the influence of Naziism during WW II and especially afterwards when many Nazis fled to Egypt for sanctuary from the victorious allies. For centuries Jews had lived quite peacefully with their Muslim neighbors, but several events fueled a return to a fundamentalist, Islamicist view. The Six-Day war was used by these in a rather tortured logic to validate their position, i.e. that God had favored the Jews because Muslims had wandered away from the true Islam and the Caliphate. (This kind of perverted thinking is not unique to Islamists. It’s rampant among fundamentalist Christian groups such as the Westboro Baptists who insist that US military deaths are caused by God’s displeasure with current U.S. policies with regard to homosexuality. Other examples abound.) The war, which an overwhelming victory for Israel, humiliated Egypt, where, following Nassar’s death, Sadat needed to appeal to the fundamentalists to strengthen his government; so he released many who had been jailed from prison. Not a smart move.

The actions of the Egyptians, following the assassination of Sadat, solidified a diverse, incoherent movement. He flatly states that 9/11 was born in the torture chambers of the Egyptian government which created an appetite for revenge and turned moderates into extremists, not to mention destroyed any notion that western society actually practiced the ideals of freedom and human rights they espoused. Communism, Zionism, and Imperialism were all lumped together as the great western enemy of Islam and the only solution was to use violence to try to create an Islamic theocracy. By throwing all of the anti-government groups together in prison, many individuals and groups which had been unaware of the other’s existence were now thrown together and molded into a more coherent movement. Torture was an instrument of humiliation, revenge and punishment as well as information gathering and Ayman Zawahiri emerged as the new leader of the group.

I was astonished how intertwined the Bin Laden family, wealthy beyond measure from lucrative construction contracts, was with Saudi government and culture. That said, Osama comes across as a pathetic little man whom, for some bizarre reason, we have inflated to mythic proportions. He left a long trail of words that Wright has used effectively to build a comprehensive picture of the man that Afghans, in the fight against the Russians, thought was rather pathetic, but who was adopted by the United States and supported. Another example of how certain actions taken for a variety of reasons can have long-range negative effects. How one might ever develop the perspicuity to avoid making such mistakes remains a mystery to me.

If there are any heroes in this book, it’s the field officers of the FBI and one John O’Neill (who tragically died in the World Trade Center.) They had been concerned that the Islamic fundamentalists would try something spectacular but got little support from Washington. One Minneapolis supervisor, admonished for his reports and concerns, simply said back to the bosses in DC that he was simply “ “trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center.” This in August of 2001

Wright has done a magnificent job of melding detail and the broader picture to present a better understanding of why we are where we are today.The title, drawn from the Koran is ironic in light of Osama’s killing by American troops: ““Wherever you are, death will find you, Even in the looming tower,” a quote from one of Osama’s many videos.

After-note: Read a couple of the one-star reviews on Amazon to get a feel for psychotic thinking.



Previously written: "Therefore when you induce others to construct a formation while you yourself are formless, then you are concentrated while the opponent is divided... Therefore the consummation of forming an army is to arrive at formlessness. When you have no form, undercover espionage cannot find out anything, intelligence cannot form a strategy." Sun Tzu, 500 B.C.

For some reason, I failed to get very far into this book and was reminded of it when I read an excellent column recently at Salon (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/201...) regarding the costs of our obsessiveness with regard to airline security. I was reminded that Wright discussed Al Qaeda strategy at some length. It was quite simple. Bin Laden knew he couldn't maintain an attack on U.S. soil so he needed to get us to come to him. And he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. We send troops and treasure over to him to be whittled away at. His first attempt to draw us in was the U.S.S. Cole; Clinton failed to fall into the trap as did Reagan after the 200 Marines were killed in Lebanon. Bush swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker. Iraq and Afghanistan have cost more than a trillion dollars of borroweded money in the first unfunded war in our history. And we spend more hundreds of billions searching for the latest object in someone's crotch for the illusion of security. Wait till someone detonates a small bomb in a TSA security line or at a McDonald's. We will then lose all our freedoms in the name of maintaining an empire we cannot afford.

يندر أن تجد مؤلفا صحفيا يكتب بهذا اﻷسلوب الجميل والرشيق الذي يشدك إليه، وأيضًا للترجمة دورها فقد كانت رائعة.
الكتاب أشبه بالرواية في أسلوبه ويعتمد على الشخصيات فيبدأ بسيد قطب ويخصص له فصلاً كاملاً يغطي أهم أحداث حياته وكذلك بن لادن والظواهري بل ووالد بن لادن وتأسيسه لشركة بن لادن وكذلك جون أونيل العميل المسؤول عن التحقيق في قضية القاعدة وتتبع أسامة، ويكتب عن حياتهم الشخصية من الطفولة ويتعمق في تفاصيل لا داعي لها مثل شرابه المفضل ومسلسله ولبسه وغيرها.
المؤلف قابل ما يقرب من 600 شخصية لجمع مادة الكتاب واستعان بعدد كبير جداً من المراجع وزار دولا كثيرة وتعلم اللغة العربية في سبيل إخراج هذا الكتاب، وقارب حتى أخذ آكد اﻷقول وأصحها لكنه لا يقدم أسرارا مخفية أو يكشف جديداً لم يكشفه أحد من قبله، لكن تسلسله مميز ومعلوماته واسعة تعطيك صورة واضحة لتنظيم القاعدة وأشهر أعضاء التنظيم. ولم يتكلم عن تفجيرات سبتمبر باستفاضة كما هو متوقع لكن عنوان الكتاب الفرعي يقول: القاعدة والطريق إلى 11 سبتمبر. أي أنه وضح أنه سيتحدث عن نشأة القاعدة والطريق إلى 11 سبتمبر وليست أحداث سبتمبر نفسها.
بالنسبة لي فلم تكن اﻷحداث بأهمية حياة الشخصيات، وﻷنه كان يتكلم عن الشخصيات من الطفولة والنشأة فكانت فرصة تأمل عظيمة، تأملت فيها كيف تتغير حياة الإنسان وكيف تؤثر اﻷحداث ببعضها وكيف ظهور شخص في حياة أحدهم قد يجعل حياته تتخذ مساراً مغايرا لما كان يسير إليه، إن البدايات لا تشي بالنهايات أبداً!

Compelling narrative but a painful read, particularly when it comes to the failure of US intelligence agencies to act on the information they had leading up to 9/11. Bureaucratic red tape and intelligence failures are one thing, but Wright draws harsh causal lines between ego-driven refusals to provide information and god I can't even think about it. The CIA comes off with especially unclean hands; there’s a palpable scene on 9/12 where Soufan (the only Arabic-speaking FBI agent in the late 90s, which alone is bonkers) finally gets the information he’d been hounding the CIA for, namely that the CIA had long known two of the hijackers were in the U.S., and he has to run to the bathroom to throw up.

The biographical studies are interesting, bin Laden most of all. It’s jarring that he comes off as a dreamer with a modest celebrity cache, but who was also manipulated out of his wealth, shuffled around into the custody of whichever country would take him, and not a strategos by any means. There’s even an element of naiveté there, particularly in his belief that bringing down the towers would cause the United States literally to end. On the other hand, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed gets minimal treatment in the book, which is sort of surprising but also not, given bin Laden's mythology in the U.S.

It’s also interesting to look at our own pre-9/11 naiveté again. I can’t imagine un-knowing something like that, but we can wish something didn’t happen without wishing ourselves back into that kind of vulnerability.

4.75 Stars - This is Lawrence Wright at his absolute best. Having red this prior to ’End of October’ & that fiction was almost as brilliant but it’s foreshadowing is a large part of my admiration for it, this is just pure unadulterated filthy nonfiction greatness.

As all LW, the research is stunning & akin to Caro in its thoroughness & the ability of the writer to tell the story in the most concise yet chilling way possible.

The content is that which is close to all our hearts I’m sure, and a times it’s challenging not to rage-quit such is the detail given into some of the mistakes made by govt officials and agencies. But the book has a way of drawing your attention even when it’s on the table, it’s allure I found intoxicating at times much like 2020’s ‘Say Nothing’ by Patrick Radeon Keefe.

Excellent read, a real gem & one that’ll likely live on as a great of modern literature.

Another great narrative non-fiction book. Wright really gets to the heart of Al-Qaeda, specifically its leaders and predecessors. The most suprising thing, to me, about these radical Muslim leaders, is that their hatred for the West, according to Wright, stems more from a moral indignation than politics. I always shuddered when I heard the neocons say that "They hurt us because they hate the way we live." It turns out that may have more truth to it than I thought.

"The Looming Tower" begins with an account of Sayyid Qutb's brief stay in the US in the 50s. Qutb, an Egyptian Muslim intellectual - who attended college and mingled freely with American intellectual - felt that the American way was sinful to such a point that it inspired him to write of the damnation of the West and the need to restore the old Muslim hegemony of the Caliphate. Zawahiri and bin-Laden are much indebted to Qutb for bringing many ancient radical Muslim practices - that allow the slaughter of other Muslims and innocents - into the modern world.

Needless to say Al-Qaeda's story is interesting and terrifying. Wright weaves in the story of John O'Neill, the FBI agent most aware of Al-Qaeda's threat to the US before 9/11.

Wright brings drama and tension to the narrative without overdoing it, and that is quite an accomplishment.

This is the book I chose for the 2016 world literature challenge. February - Middle East.

5 stars

Very interesting book. Al-Queda is really messed up. Quite scary too. The people who the author talked about in the book were very interesting to learn about. Good to know the history of this organization and what lead to 9/11. RIP September 11 victims.

I had appetite for exactly one book on Al-Qaeda for now, and call it serendipity, or obvious choice, I picked this one. Wright treats this incident as a testament to prove butterfly effect, and starts the book right with Sayyid Qutb, one of the earliest nutjobs. And then his ardent follower Azzam, his nephew Zawahiri, Laden family, Saudi royals, Sudani nutjobs, then Talibani nutjobs, Al-Jihad and Al-Qaeda merger, and suicidal nutjobs in the west, to the final deed, which couldn't have happened if any of the mentioned events hadn't happened.

A gripping thriller and a rigorous and enthralling piece of journalism. One of the best reads of this, or any other year.

Super fascinating and thorough. Read it after hearing Rukmini Callimachi mention it as an influence for her podcast series "Caliphate" (which you should listen to if you haven't already, because it is amazing and also the best). Sometimes the history felt a little constructed & artificial, because the nature of the story sort of required him to structure a particular narrative leading to one "climatic" event, which has the effect of making it seem like this was somehow some fated thing that was just building and building to that one inevitable outcome....and generally I think it was a little murkier and messier than that. But that's sort of how this type of history/reporting goes, and I generally enjoyed it. Highly recommended.

This was a fascinating, riveting account that crosses five decades and several countries to tell the story of "the growth of Islamic Fundamentalism, the rise of Al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated" in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I first ran across this title when reading a column by a conservative, Hugh Hewitt, praising it as a "good and important book." What particularly intrigued me is that the writer, Lawrence Wright, was described as a liberal. When you have a book that crosses political divides like that, I pay attention. Looking the book up I learned it was both a popular bestseller and critically praised--a Pulitzer Prize winner. And that Wright had personally spent time in the Middle East, including "two years teaching at the American University in Cairo, Egypt." At the back of the book there are not only extensive notes and a bibliography, but a list of over five hundred people Wright personally interviewed for the book.

I thought I knew this story, but this had lots of details I didn't know and drew connections and included insights that after all I've read still seemed fresh. For instance, I had never heard of Sayyid Qutb, whose manifesto, Milestones, Wright compares to Lenin's "What Is To Be Done?" in terms of its influence on Islamic Fundamentalism. Qutb was one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt we've been hearing so much about since the Arab Spring. He spent years in the United States--which he hated for its modernity, its freedom. Almost as much as he hated the newly established Israel. His definition of religious freedom? It would come when Sharia (Islamic law) was imposed worldwide because as Wright put it then "there would be no compulsion in religion because there would be only one choice: Islam." Those are threads that run and again and again through this book. Egypt also produced Ayman al-Zawari who together with Osama bin Ladin of Saudi Arabia founded Al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia is a country with a monarchy that ties their regime to the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect and allows muttawas (religious police) to patrol the streets with the power to flog women who show a strand of hair peeking out from their head scarf. Wright claims the "vector of these two forces, one Egyptian and one Saudi" would result in Al-Qaeda.

Another factor in the rise of Al-Qaeda according to Wright was the use of torture, particularly by the Egyptians. The key to torture, Wright wrote, is humiliation--a humiliation which breeds rage, radicalized the victims and filled them with a passion for revenge. And well before 9/11, America would use surrogates such as Egypt to conduct such illicit interrogations while they kept their hands clean. Wright further noted that "The usual object of terror is to draw one's opponent into repressive blunders." Bin Laden wanted the 9/11 attacks to result in the invasion of Afghanistan--he hoped it would draw us into a war that would destroy our international power--even our country--in the same way it had destroyed the Soviets. Not that it turned out the way he planed--nor do I feel we had much choice with the Taliban harboring the man responsible for thousands of American deaths. But those are sobering aspects of this tale when we consider that in invading Afghanistan and Iraq, cracking down on civil liberties at home and using torture, America has fallen precisely into the trap Bin Laden laid for us. I was also struck anew by the colossal waste of life and talent caused by groups such as Al-Qaeda--not simply from the 9/11 attacks, but all the damage it has done right in Muslim countries and toll its taken in Muslim lives. Hewitt is right--this is a good and important book anyone wanting to come to grips with Islamic Fundamentalism and terrorism and the world 9/11 created should read.

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright weaves together the lives of four important figures, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri who formed what became al-Quaeda, John O'Neill Chief of the FBI's Counterterrorism effort, and Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Intelligence. The author analyzed how their lives progressed and intersected on 09/11/2001 in New York based on research and interviews he performed over a period of five years in at least ten different countries. He explores how bin Laden and al-Zawahiri became radicalized and evolved into an Islamic terrorist organization waging war against the West and particularly the US and Israel. He exposes the many failed or intercepted plots as well as the successes including the American Embassy bombings, the attack on the USS Cole, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 9/11 attacks that brought them down. The missed opportunities by the US and its allies that could have prevented some or all of these attacks are highlighted and explained. You know what happened, now learn how they happened. Hopefully the lessons learned from these attacks are being applied to prevent future terrorist attacks

I read Wright's book on Scientology earlier this year and was impressed. This Pulitzer Prize winning book examines the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1950s, and how this eventually led to the founding of Al-Qaeda and their terrorist attacks around the world culminating in the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. The author conducted hundreds of interviews, and with other documented sources crafts a written history that reads like an espionage thriller. Part of the tragedy is that it could have possibly been prevented with the sharing of information by our government agencies that are supposed to be working to protect us. Wright includes a supplemental section giving info on the principle characters--just in case the reader gets confused with some of the Arabic names and aliases. A must read for anyone wishing to understand how Islam became hijacked by fundamentalists willing to kill their own people while trying to destroy the U.S.