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Title: The Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel Benjamin, Steven Simon ISBN: 0-375-50859-7 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.26 (31 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Terror warnings from experts
Comment: Benjamin and Simon bring to the table substantial experience in counterterrorism and the roots of terrorism in the Middle East. This book was timely after September 11th, and is even more so now that we are engaged in war in Iraq. Realizing that the typical reader has only limited experience with Islam, and with the Middle East, they start off exploring the ideological foundation built by Ibn Taymiyya. From this Islamic fundamentalist, others through the years have picked up the torch of activism and hatred of the west. The most striking recent example is Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. They write how bin Laden's hatred towards the west comes from his views of Islam, and many of the terrorists who participate are motivated by religion. And because of this their writings have been controversial.
Much of the danger of terrorism today comes from Islamic fundamentalists, it is not Islam that is the root of the problem, it is the way it is used by these terrorists as justification of activity. This fanaticism is not limited to the Islamic world. One has to only look at the domestic news of Christian fundamentalists murdering doctors and blowing up abortion clinics in the name of God. And once we get past this view we can look at the historical development of anti-American terror, and realize that this is just the beginning. The authors demonstrate that al-Qaeda is a master of taking the attacks steps further than in the past, showing coordinated timing and planning of attacks as demonstrated with the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania. This book presents a clear eyed view of the terrorist dangers that appear in the world today and how the ideology driving terror has shifted to fulfilling the "will of God (Allah)."
Rating: 5
Summary: Highly recommended
Comment: I found this book quite enlightening in more areas than I originally considered possible. First and foremost, the authors provide an extremely insightful understanding of the terrorist threat we face in Al Qaeda. It goes far beyond the simplistic perceptions we see in both the press and those provided by "commentators". The direct experiences of Mr. Simon and Benjamin in the counter-terrorism arena have provided them a unique and profound understanding of the nature of our enemy. The book is reasonably well written and develops our own perceptions by carrying us through numerous individual terrorist events, showing remarkable details which are unquestionable the result of extensive investigations and study by the authors, who at the time were directly responsible for national counter-terrorism at the NSA level. That level of insight can not be so simply discarded without understanding that our own biases may be overpowering our ability to look at their arguments dispassionately. Mr. Simon and Benjamin do seem to have their own biases, as other reviewers have mentioned. But one does not stand in the shoes they have had to fill without gaining some immeasurable insights. The excerpts on various Islamic terrorist, and on our new arch-enemy, Osama bin Laden, are superb. Perhaps they should be required reading for all Americans to really comprehend the depths of this new threat, and even more importantly how terrorism really works. The arguments of the authors are intriguing, and in an unusual way insightful about the power of bias, and how it can cause a deadly menace to slip through the cracks, and be almost unnoticed until it suddenly becomes the focus of the whole world. Having studied and taught about Terrorism and Guerrilla Warfare in the military, I would suggest such a factor is a rare opportunity for any enemy who would wished to deal in that type of warfare. The seemingly tangential information concerning other religious extremism struck me, at first, as a little out of place with the heavy focus of the rest of the book on Islamic terrorists. None-the-less, this was hardly at odds with the title, and clearly as disconcerting as the principle targets of interest. The use of terrorism and extremists go hand in hand, and I would assume the authors had good reason to raise the spector of other fronts to our attention. It is wise to consider all threats. By far the portion of the book most demanding our interest in these difficult times, of course, is that large and enlightening portion which details in extraordinary shades of blood red the nature of an unexpected and ruthless enemy which has come to threaten us in our own homeland, and thus became a force to be reckoned with on the world scene. The book is timely, reasonably well written and worth a read, whether you agree with the authors' bias or not.
Rating: 5
Summary: Everything we needed to know, and could have
Comment: The Age of Sacred Terror tells us everything we needed to know about Al Qaeda immediately after 9/11. Which is, of course, everything we needed to know *before* 9/11. And it then turns out that we could have known just these facts before 9/11, that the authors and others were trying to tell us what this new threat was, and where it came from, and how it should change our international policy priorities and our domestic security aims. Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Simon were ideally placed in the Clinton administration's counterterrorism structure to acquire most of the knowledge the US government had about Al Qaeda and its ancestor organizations in the Middle East. They also have a thoroughly scholarly bent, and are able to summarize admirably the origins of a particular interpretation of one of the Five Pillars of Islam in the 12th century. It is this interpretation of what constitutes Jihad that informs Usama bin Laden's thought, and enables him to convert disaffected Muslims to his cause and to inspire them to dedicated and often successful acts of terror against civilian populations, which may include other Muslims. The history Simon and Benjamin tell is detailed, insightful, and fascinating. For those who had the acumen to look for patterns in the strategies of the organizations that preceded bin Laden's, it seems almost obvious what we should have expected from Al Qaeda at any time after the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, and certainly after the embassy bombings in 1998. But it only seems obvious because Simon and Benjamin expose the pattern superbly. Although the authors maintain a scholarly and balanced tone of voice throughout, they are never dry and they are often insightful.
The authors move on, after describing Al Qaeda's first incursion onto American soil, and their succeeding, always more ambitious plots, to a thorough history of the efforts of the Clinton administration to deal with a threat they perceived remarkably well, considering they were working on the problem at least six years before the towers fell. Each of the organizations with major roles in the catastrophic failure of intelligence that was 9/11 is analyzed, and its successes and failures noted. The major personalities of the heads of these organizations are sketched insightfully, and both the powers they had and the constraints they worked under are scrutinized. Among the conclusions I drew is that America is paying an awful lot of money to enable our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to misprioritize their work and noncommunicate with each other.
And Al Qaeda is still out there. This war has just begun, and all of us are soldiers in it, because we are civilians. Stateless terrorism knows it doesn't have to fight our armies to defeat us. If we missed the first announcement of the war, there is no longer any excuse to avoid meeting our enemy, and this book is an excellent place to start. It is impossible for me to imagine a better place to start.
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Title: Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror by Rohan Gunaratna ISBN: 0425191141 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror by Bernard Lewis ISBN: 0679642811 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Terror in the Name of God : Why Religious Militants Kill by Jessica Stern ISBN: 006050532X Publisher: Ecco Pub. Date: 14 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Inside Terrorism by Bruce Hoffman ISBN: 0231114699 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll ISBN: 1594200076 Publisher: The Penguin Press Pub. Date: 23 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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