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Summary: Great Book.
Review: Great book. Especially if the author edit and update the information again after a year or two with more accurate evidences. Great analysis.
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Summary: An Alarmist spins a mythic web of global conspiracy
Review: The research seems thorough; the protagonists are evil enough; and the American victim is unsuspecting and unprepared. Yet, Bodansky's web of global conspiracy hinges on untested assumptions and unverified claims stitched together by an Islamic-phobia that belongs in a previous century. Bodansky shows his analytical weakness by lumping together every so-called Islamist from the Maghreb to Mindanao in a mythical anti-Western crusade. Bodansky falls within a long line of so-called policy analysts who have invented the clash of civilizations thesis by promoting fear and demonizing the other. Osama Bin Laden is a terrorist, yet he is hardly the face nor mastermind of a world wide Islamist militant movement. He is an extremist, isolated by his theological and violent beliefs, with marginal support among the mainstream Muslim intelligentsia, professional groups, and working classes, dangerous to the West and the Muslim world equally.
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Summary: Definately will hold your interest--Worth the wait!
Review: I thought this book was very well written and documented. Mr Bodansky did a suberb job of revealing key elements of Islamic terrorist activities throughout the world and the states that are backing these extremists. A good read for anyone interested in what's going on behind many of the movements in today's headlines!
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Summary: Possibly information, probably manipulation
Review: After the disappointingly stereotypical "us vs. them" introduction and technical notes clearly assuming Arabs and muslims are strange and hate "our Western way of life," I was happily suprised by the sober character of the writing and the many supposed facts about the behavior of a large number of foreign politicians and militants. However, just as I was close to being receptive to some of the ideas put forth, the clearly unsubstantiated claim that TWA 800 downing was a terrorist act was stated with the very same sobriety and confidence. In the interests of truth I can only apply the same standards of validity to all other "facts" offered and suggest that what the book gives us is not fully reliable.In the end, my common-sense kicked in to remind me that there are alot of reasons why someone in the author's position would want to convince the public of the existence of an international conspiracy threatening us all. Why? To justify the allocation of billions of dollars to neo-colonialist activities like occupation, that have annoyed religious people from the Middle East enough for them to express their anger public and to talk big. Of course there were bombings of embassies, but the author never seriously considers the morality of running proxy wars in Africa from offices in downtowns of African cities either. The adjectives "spectacular" and "audacious" were used to describe "terrorist operations" so freely that they became meaningless a quarter way through the book. In the end, the book is just a more sophisticated manner of manipulating the public. However, it is surprising that, contrary to many official governmental pronouncements the expert author portrays the actors, like bin Laden, supposedly involved in these terrorist actions as anything but cowards.
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Summary: Superb
Review: Bodansky again proves he is the master of the word and a superb researcher, with encyclopedic knowledge of his topics. That along with credible sources, well detailed, has enabled Bodansky to profile a radical, Islamic plot, between Islamic tyrants, to attack western democracies, all western democracies. The book is certain to annoy fundamentalist Muslims with its clear truths and unassailable documentation that prudently exposes Bin Laden as the instrument of militant Islam.
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Summary: A chilling expose of the world's most dangerous terrorist.
Review: Bodansky has exposed Usama bin Laden as the arch enemy of western democracies, with a detailed expose that leaves nothing for speculation. Bin Laden is revealed as a willing and eager tool for radical Islam in a chilling and carefully researched book that should be on the top reading list of the CIA and the FBI. Bodansky reveals fundamentalist Islam in all aspects, and brings together most Islamic terror regimes in their conspiracy to destroy the West. This book must be read and considered "the primer" in this existential battle for survival.
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Summary: Hard to separate fact from conspiracy theory fiction
Review: I waited a long time for this book to come out. But I was saddened to discover that it makes a number of statements that are very hard to credit. 1. Iran and Bin Laden work together: Really? My readings tell me that Shi'a (Iran) and Sunni (Bin Laden) traditions tend to disdain each other (if not outright hate each other --Sunnis consider Shi'as heretics). Bin Laden's hosts, the Taliban are extreme Sunnis and the Iranians have almost gone to war with them over their treatment of Shi'as in Afghanistan. Therefore, I kinda sorta doubt that they'd be working together. 2. TWA 800: Bodansky stubbornly clings to the view that TWA 800 was destroyed by Islamist terrorists. This is despite the conclusions by the NTSB and FBI that it was an accident. Bodansky implies that the terrorist attack was deliberately covered up. Why? Why would we do that and why would the terrorists not directly claim the attack? People interested in this topic should wait a little while longer for a more serious book to appear.
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Summary: Very Important Book
Review: I am fairly well educated (Master's degree) and read a lot (3 newspapers a day and 5-6 books a month), but this is the most important book I have ever read. While it does have some errors (mostly about bin Laden's early life and family), overall it is the most complete history and description of the Islamist movement that I have seen. To be honest, I did not understand what the Islamist movement was before reading this book. Nothing in newspapers or on television has explained this movement as clearly and comprehensively as Bodansky has with this book. Essentially, it is a totalitarian political movement cloaked by Islam. It has many similarities to communism - a utopian view that their philosophy will make life/the world perfect, lack of civil rights, no free press, no freedom of religion, only the Islamic movement makes it especially bad for women. Examples of this type of government can be seen in Iran, Sudan and Taliban-era Afghanistan. Its religious cover makes it attractive to many devout Muslims, some of whom seem to believe the whole world should be either Muslim or dead. Many of the leaders of the Islamsist movement have said that the ultimate goal of the Islamist movement is world domination. And that seems to be how they are behaving.
The most shocking thing about this book is that it was written before 9/11 and predicted some sort of "spectacular" and "devastating" attack on the US, either in New York or Washington, DC. I was disappointed to read about the US/Clinton Administration's response to attacks prior to 9/11 (this book was written long before 9/11 and ends in 1999). While the Clinton Administration did attempt some retaliation, it was, from the terrorists' standpoint, laughable and accomplished nothing more than making the US look ridiculous. This seems to be mostly due to the incredible naivete of that administration with regard to the growing threat of the Islamist movement. I feel as though this book has allowed me to read the news about the Middle East now with some comprehension of what specific events really mean. I understand the difficult situation we are in and expect that it will probably last for many more years. This is not an easy book - it is detailed and complicated to read and contains information that is hard to digest. Still, it was the most important book I have ever read.
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Summary: blitzkrieg rained and the fire raged, pleased to meet you
Review: "Won't you get my name; what's quite puzzling you is the nature of my game". I guess we now know that the game is a jihad-a holy war against America as the antithesis of Islam's fundamentalist values; that's what this book is about. Writing from his perspective as director of Florida congressman Bill McCollum's Congressional Task Force on Terrorism, Bodansky knows of which he speaks. Bodansky posits how Bin Laden has become a hero to scores of radical Muslim youth. He recounts the litany of his terrorist attacks on American embassies in Africa and his attacks on India while in league with the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service. Sponsorship of Islamic terrorist movements has become a part of Paki national security policy and Bin Laden plays no small part in this exercise. The role of Pakistan in recruiting and soliciting radical Islamic militants is a chilling forecast of things to come. The Taliban has now taken its religious views to the extreme and has "taken its show on the road... This book will provide the interested reader with a lot of the history of what has made up and what has gone into the resistance by Bin Laden to the UN forces in Somalia and elsewhere . It will also provide an in depth view of the operations of terrorist networks as they have become spread across that section of the world that borders the southern and eastern Mediterranean. Read this book...
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Summary: Prophetic Account of a Chilling Subject
Review: As might be imagined, "Bid Laden, The Man Who Declared War on America" is an alarming book. And the fact that it was written two years before 9/11/01 makes it more so, since the narrative puts the events of that day into the context of an unfolding political reality that has been too long in the making to be resolved any time soon. The title is somewhat misleading, and I picked the book up thinking it was going to be a biography of sorts. However, other than some perfunctory material on Bid Laden's youth, the study isn't really about Bid Laden himself so much as it is about the violent political movement, of which he is a leader, that has evolved from Islamic eschatology. Bodansky takes his readers on a trip through the snake pit of Middle Eastern and radical Islamic politics, which he portrays as a world where wealth, self-interest, violence, religious doctrine, and state policy are intertwined inextricably. It's also a world where loyalties or even strategic alliances don't seem to exist much beyond ephemeral alignments around tactical objectives that shift with the political wind. In this light, Bodansky - who is a consultant to the U.S. government - reveals much about our supposed friends in the region. He describes Pakistan as one of the primary architects behind the terrorist infrastructure managed by Bid Laden and other leading Islamists. He portrays the Saudi government as a craven and tottering regime which continues to provide lavish funding to this infrastructure as a kind of protection money to keep it's activities away from Saudi soil. Bodansky, of course, turns his cynical eye on the U.S. too, reminding us that we ourselves collaborated in birthing this movement, nurturing its spectacularly successful war against our one-time enemy, the Soviet Union. As for the Islamists, they see themselves now as simply continuing to fight the same war, having destroyed one "superpower" and now taking aim at the other in their campaign to overturn the prevailing world order. Bodansky depicts them as dedicated to a eschatological vision in which all secular states are overthrown by whatever means necessary and replaced by a kind of global Islamic government, which will usher in heavenly peace and glory. The parallels between this vision and that of messianic communism are as striking as they are ironic, since both justify political violence as a tool necessary for achieving a glorious albeit it ill-defined future. Of the two visions, the Islamic seems more dangerous in the nuclear age, since doctrinaire communists, being atheists, were made cautious by their belief that they had to achieve their heaven on earth. Bodansky quotes extensively from Bid Laden and others, and their words make clear that they believe that in a global conflagration they would be sending themselves to heaven and their enemies to hell, not inhibiting themselves with much of a disincentive. Bodansky seems to know almost too much about some things, leading one to question the extent to which he might be interjecting his own supposition into this narrative as ostensibly factual material. For example, he states unequivocally the Bid Laden already possesses nuclear weapons, although not necessary the means to deliver them. While this may be true, Bodanksy doesn't provide much basis for his startling conclusion, nor for many of the other observations he makes about the private relationships said to exist between various terrorist factions and governments. In his introduction, he addresses the problem of the credibility of his material by saying that elucidating his sources would compromise their security. While on one level this seems entirely fair, it has the unfortunate effect of relieving the author of a burden which all academic writers should have to bear of drawing a crisp line between conjecture and well-grounded reporting. Despite these limitations, the big picture Bodansky draws clearly has the force of much knowledge behind it, and it is acquires a prophetic aura now in light of the events occurring after the book was written. Most Americans - myself included - are dangerously ignorant about Islam in all its manifestations, both good and bad. While this book, focussing as it does on a violent fringe, probably should be read alongside more balanced treatments of Islamic culture, I recommend it to anyone trying to make sense of the new geo-political environment in which we have suddenly found ourselves.
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