The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's War Against America [Paperback]

 

 

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The first half of this book I found very informative and interesting. The authors discuss the historical basis behind what bin Laden and those that agree with him believe and just why they claim to have a religous backing to their beliefs. It is not an indictment of Islam or a witch hunt, but a very informative discussion of the various interpretations of Islam over the thousands of years of its history. In particular, the authors discussion of Wahhabisim and why countries such as Saudi Arabia allow its existance, and even to some extent support it in order to legitimize their own repressive regimes.
The first half of the book is also very good in substantiating how long the US government has known about bin Laden and tracked his movement and his hatred of the United States, including prior attempts to organize terrorist attacks against US interests which culminated in the bombings of US embassies in Africa. Also very interesting is the authors discussion of the problems of institutional culture which permiated the FBI before September 11th and how it contributed to the lack of needed available information given to those in the CIA and in the Executive branch that were in a position to analyze it and act on it to stop attacks in America and against Americans abroad.
Unfortunately, the book suffers from major faults. Either through the lack of available documentation, or simple failure by the authors, much of their information is not documented other than by quotes from those in the Clinton adminstration, most notibly Sandy Berger. However, its left to the reader to simply believe these quotes and the information included in them, and support provided by the authors, is true.
The second half of the book while plausable, is problematic and ideologically driven. The authors, again using unsubstantiated quotes from Berger and others in the second Clinton administration, attempt to assert that the Bush administration did not take their repeated warnings about terrorism seriously, and therefore are at least in part responsible for allowing the September 11th attacks. Due to the fact that both of these authors, as well as the people they quote, were out of government, their assertions about what the Bush team did or did not do concerning terrorism and bin Laden in particular are dubious. The authors then go off the deep end, accusing the media and the US population of focusing too much on the scandles and lies of Bill Clinton and not what was important, terrorism. This part of the book makes one's eyes roll, it's totally unsubstantiated and reads like a political ideologically driven diatribe, not good solid scholarship that should be expected of these authors.
This book would have been much better had it simply been concluded with the end of the Clinton administration and their efforts to track bin Laden and supposed, undocumented, attempts to bring him to justice. While believable, and plausable, these assertions ultimately also fail due to lack of available documentation and evidence. Evidence which may or may not ever be available, and certainly won't be available for many years to come.

No doubt spot-on scholarship from the perspective of antiseptic academia, which spends many man-hours, among other issues, considering the "social movement theory" and its relationship to extremism. And, yes, these notable academics have much access to the elites in the West and the Near and Middle East; however, their clinical portrait in no way benefits from, nor had apparent access to, the real-world rank & file of the overwhelmingly self-volunteered who think of themselves as the "warriors against the enemies of Islam" and their motivations of behavior--from the horses' mouths, as it were.

Also does not consider that these marginal, though fortunately-occasionally lethal, nihilist-cultists got off one of the modern era's greatest sucker punches, or, beyond that, with their utter lack of broad support or propositions for betterment, will peter out regardles, or often in spite of, what the civilized world thinks it should do.

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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5.0 out of 5 stars Chickens coming home to roost...
Still the best book I've read yet on fundimentalist Islamic terror. Note that Richard Clarke is a main character in the story, much admired by the authors for his intellegence and... Read more

Published on Mar 26 2004 by Michael A. Gurbada

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended
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... Read more

Published on Mar 23 2004 by posidn

4.0 out of 5 stars solid facts, no specific ideas
The book offers a good, even if partisan, account of the American anti-terrorist activity. However, it leaves a different impression from what the authors probably attempted to... Read more

Published on Mar 11 2004 by Vadim Cherny

5.0 out of 5 stars Good account of Islamic Extremism
This a well written book that traces some of roots as well as consequences of Islamic Extremism. It is rather long, but reads easily. Read more

Published on Mar 8 2004 by greeshulik

4.0 out of 5 stars Why Character Matters
This is a fairly good book that gives the Clinton Administrations view of Americas struggle with Islamic terrorism in the late 90's. Read more

Published on Jan 2 2004 by Jim Symes

5.0 out of 5 stars an authoritative point of view on Islamist terrorism
Bejamin and Simon were former policy directors in the White House and seem to know of what they speak. They trace the rise of the "new" (ie. Read more

Published on Dec 23 2003 by H.S. Cross

3.0 out of 5 stars First Half Good - Second Half Not so Good
I would give the first half of the book a much higher rating than the second. The first half gives an interesting history of the ideological movement of which today's... Read more

Published on July 22 2003

3.0 out of 5 stars Read it, but be aware that it is badly biased
Book is a good insiders' account of factors that made 9/11 possible. But be aware that it is authored by a pair of ex-Clinton administration anti-terrorism officials who would... Read more

Published on Jun 22 2003

3.0 out of 5 stars Read it, but be aware that it is badly biased
Book is a good insiders' account of factors that made 9/11 possible. But be aware that it is authored by a pair of ex-Clinton administration anti-terrorism officials who would... Read more

Published on Jun 22 2003

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, though somewhat Biased regarding Clinton Years
Daniel Benjamin and Steve Simon have written an excellent book that truly adds something worthwhile to the growing body of post 9/11 literature on Islamicist inspired terror, much... Read more

Published on May 3 2003

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