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Summary: The TV version renders the book redundant
Review: Bergen's account is good, if a little rushed. It outlines the history of bin Laden and Al Queda. It's also easy to read and relatively short, compared to some of the other bin Laden biographies. At times I found myself lost in a sea of foreign names, but the storyline was easy to follow.
Sadly, Bergen rendered his book largely redundant when he did the National Geographic Explorer Special, also entitled Holy War, Inc. I saw this special when I was half way through the book and found it difficult to finish the book because I'd already seen the movie. If you don't have much time, Id recommend the TV version-in two hours you get the bulk of what the book has to offer.
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Summary: The quintessential book on bin Laden
Review: Bergen cuts through the volumes of myth, legend, rumor and just plain lies to get at the truth of the story behind Osama bin Laden and his network. 'Holy War, Inc.' was submitted to the publisher in late August and a few short weeks later became one of the most timely books ever written. Even with a publishing process measured in weeks rather than years the book is extremely well documented and footnoted. Even so. it is still fast paced and very readable. If you only have time to read one book on bin Laden while he's still alive, this is the one.
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Summary: Terrorist Foundation is Flawed...
Review: Holy War, Inc. is a look into 21st century terrorism and how terrorists utilize the technology of the "infidels" in their quest for a pre-7th century Mohammed society. Osama's quest is flawed at its foundation though. Anyone who uses 21st century technology, with plans to aquire weapons of mass destruction and vow to continue to murder innocent civilians, cannot possibly believe that he will be able to return his society to the "Stone Age". Once the glass is broken, it can never be put back up. Peter Bergen does an outstanding job of creating this visual image in your mind. It is one I can never forget.
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Summary: A Book for All News Junkies
Review: If you surf the TV news, from CNN to FOX to MSNBC back to CNN, this book fills in the blanks on Bin Laden. His horrific life history and development as an International Terrorist is well documented and authenticated. Perhaps Bin Laden's modis operandi can be read in his biography. Both his father and his oldest brother were killed in plane crashes. Because of his deep family ties in the construction industry, Bin Laden is also known to look at a picture of a building and cite exactly where an incendiary device should be placed to level the structure. Plane crashes, building construction (or destruction)- Bin Laden knows these topics. His connection to September 11 is uncanny.
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Summary: Accurate portrayal of the terrorist mindset
Review: Peter Bergen who has evolved as one of the world's top terrorist experts in the journalistic realm, now accurately portrays in his new book the terrorist mindset ... the motives behind their actions, their cultic zeal, their crazy religious fervor, their vicious ambitions, and so forth. This book will help understand a lot about terrorism, especially its motivation and why they do what they do. Excellent book! Another book that I've recently read and I highly recommend as it takes us behind the scenes of the realistic threat of global nuclear terrorism is Alec Donzi's THE CONSULTANT.
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Summary: ESSENTIAL READING! And a gripping tale...
Review: Read it on an airplane last night and can recommend it highly as an unputdownable book as well as the best single source of information on the war situation. I heard the author on Terry Gross's Fresh Air program and was very impressed with the depth of knowledge he displayed about Bin Laden and the way things get done in the Mideast, esp. in Saudi Arabia, as well as in Afghanistan. It was reassuring to know that the Palestinian leaders were unimpressed with his conversion to their cause and that most Afghanis did not appreciate the Arab help during the war and certainly not after. What had been a mass of details suddenly gelled into an understandable situation. You will wonder why we do keep those troops in Saudi Arabia, what were we doing trusting the Pakistani secret service with $3 billion of U.S. taxpayer's money, and why wasn't our well-paid intelligence system able to eliminate Bin Laden earlier. You will also wonder why we let those training camps continue in Afghanistan after the war. The book's detailed descriptions of Bin Laden's career in terrorism also make you see he's not such a big wig and that his luck is sure to run out sooner rather than later...but then what will happen? A very perceptive book that makes mincemeat of other superifical bestsellers about the subject. Highly recommended!
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Summary: Holy War, Inc.: Inside The Secret World of Osama Bin Laden
Review: An engaging account, and Bergen has sound and persuasive views, but it is really a stretched out magazine article that was rushed into print after September 11 and before it was quite ready. There is no index in the book--you have to go to a web address for it--and no tables or diagrams that would have been very helpful. In fact, there is not much analysis. It's kind of a terrorism travelogue, well told by a brave and enterprising reporter, but still a travelogue.
Rating:
Summary: Factual, informative
Review: The biggest advantage of this book is that the author is a journalist, the information is based on his journeys and interviews. Bergen manages to keep his writings from a journalist's point of view so the book is not biased and anyone can read it regardless of their political views. It is very informative and it is relatively easy to read. You will better understand the Bin Laden network, how it operates, the CIA - Pakistan connection, and the roots of Bin Ladens actions. Everyone should read it.
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Summary: al Qaeda, the big picture: well worth the time and $
Review: Pretty good, though Ahmad Rashid's is better Bergen's account is eminently readable, well informed, and occasionally insightful. About bin Laden I learned as much as anywhere: he has two full sisters, his parents divorced, and his father died when he was ten. This last seems to have made him seek the influence of religiously radical older men, currently Ayman al-Zawahiri. The primary topic, however, is Holy War and the leading organization advocating it: al-Qaeda. "Holy War" contains a bit of colloquial humor ('sell-by date' and 'full Clinton,'), and a bit more travelogue: "Afghanistan... the very word is an incantation. I never get over the thrill of seeing the country... It promises mystery, a movement back in time of medieval chivalry and medieval cruelty, an absence of the modern world that is both thrilling and disturbing, a place of extraordinary natural beauty that opens up the mind to contemplation." Bergen seems sufficiently well versed in Islam, Islamic societies, and the region's history not to make any egregious mistakes. He correctly dates the relative decline of Muslim power to Napolean's invasion of Egypt in 1798. "There is nothing inherently 'antidemocratic' in Islam, and there are Muslim concepts, such as SHURA -- that fit rather neatly into a democratic framework." My biggest disagreement with him is in the prologue, where he considers bin Laden's criticism of the New World Order (NWO) as ironic and that the NWO is facilitative. Bergen's argument rests on modernization and on the new post-Cold War states, whose existences are irrelevant to the Islamic character of its people. "[T]he restoration of the Khalifa had about as much chance as the Holy Roman Empire suddenly reappearing in Europe," he says. Since the NWO resembles the post-Napoleanic Concert of Europe, a better parallel would be to the likelihood of the appearance of a 21st century Muslim version of Bismarck. The author compares press coverage of war in Afghanistan and in Vietnam: "[F]or those covering the Afghan war the risks were orders of magnitude higher, and the interest of news editors orders of magnitude lower, since no American soldiers' lives were at stake." He also compares Arab-Afghans to the Spanish Civil War's International Brigade; the Taliban to the Khmer Rouge; bin Laden's 1996 Afghanistan return to Lenin's Russian return; Dar-al-Islam to Christendom; and al Qaeda to the 12th century Assassins. Egyptians, Saudis, Yemenis, and Algerians provided the lion's share of the "Arab Afghans," who "in the grand scheme of things [they] were no more than extras in the Afghan holy war. It was the lessons they learned from the jihad, rather than their contribution to it, that proved significant." American involvement and knowledge was almost completely by proxy (Pakistan's ISI). In the mid-'80s, there were only six CIA officials in Pakistan at any given time, and they were simply administrators [for American funding] who made up the ENTIRE Agency operation in the country." The ISI favored the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan, as part of what Bergen calls their military-religious complex. The CIA used Saudi and American funds to purchase weapons from China and Egypt so that no support could be traced to the US, preserving plausible deniablility. "By 1985... 'deniability was no longer relevant... the US should have put pressure on the Pakistanis to distribute American aid in a manner that better reflected the interests of the United States." For instance, the ineffective and genocidal zealot Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was favored over the effective and Sufi late Ahmad Masoud. "The grafting of entirely modern sensibilities and techniques to the most radical interpretation of holy war is the hallmark of bin Laden's network," he says, though at the end of the same paragraph "a pre-modern message was delivered by postmodern means." Better to say "a non-Western message was delivered by Modern means." Later he says "Holy War, Inc. thus represents a privatization of terrorism that parallels the movement by many countries in the past decade to convert their state-supported industries to privately-held companies." But "[i]t is bin Laden's ability to attract recruits willing to martyr themselves that is the priceless commodity in his holy war." The US embassy bombing; Yemen and the attack on the US Cole; and other terrorist acts, successful and unsuccessful, are chronicled. An interesting chapter covers some US recruits, including one who taught at the US Army's Special Warfare Center and in Afghanistan. Mistakes in US policy are identified, in all administrations: Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Clinton. US officials seemed to welcome the Taliban to Kabul in 1996, because although they had little idea who the Taliban were, the Taliban would take a hard line on drugs and might bring a degree of stability that would facilitate Unocal's multi-billion dollar pipeline deal. Policy changed because of their treatment of women, not terrorism. The 1998 cruise missile attacks are critiqued for not intimidating bin Laden but turning him from a marginal figure into global celebrity.
Al Qaeda's ties to Egypt are so close that "[w]hile bin Laden is now the public face and moneybags of al Qaeda, ALL its key members are Egyptian and ALL its strategy and tactics are based on Egyptian models. The argument can be made that a group of Egyptian jihadists took over bin Laden's organization rather than the other way around." There follows more information on al-Zawahiri that I've ever seen before. In bin Laden's public record "are some significant omissions: he does not rail against the pernicious effects of Hollywood movies... pornography... the drug and alcohol culture of the West, or its tolerance for homosexuals. He leaves that kind of material to Jerry Falwell." "What he condemns the United States for is... the continued US military presence in Saudi Arabia; US support for Israel; its continued bombing of Iraq; and its support for regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia the bin Laden regards as apostates from Islam." But bin Laden also thinks Saddam Hussein is apostate, too. Al Qaeda also has yet to attack an Israeli or Jewish target. Apostate regimes beware.
Rating:
Summary: Keep your cool
Review: This is the ticket if you want reality. But it shows us how evil the terrorist is, how unconscious! These terrorists come to life in this book in that it shows you how they actually do believe in their cause. I now am convinced Laden thinks he is doing gods will, but how he became that way is beyond me. I cannot go into all the details here but you need to read this to understand how the situation came about, there are many facts here, including CIA and USA policies I would never of guessed that left me aware. I want to also recommend another good book like this but also predicted the WTC events and the Bio war and a few other events that have come to pass as well as more predictions. Karl Mark Maddox's SB 1 or God
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