Customer Reviews

bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America

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3 star:		(7)
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1 star:		(14)

 

 

"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 and 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. One can quibble with his version, but I think the jury is in on Osama Bin Laden's ability to carry out mass acts of terrorism where thousands of innocent people are needlessly sacrificed to his ideal of Islamic justice. Bin Laden has been the world's most wanted Terrorist for a number of years and it's a black mark on the policies of the Clinton-Gore administration that they made it so difficult for our intelligence agencies to apprehend such men.

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 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 will unfortunately lead to resolute retaliation by the West which will in turn lead to much blood letting. 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 and prepare for what is sure to come.

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.

Before 9/11, I did not who Osama Bin Laden was, this book tells you in no uncertain terms who he is and what we as a nation are up against. This book was written about 2.5 years before 9/11 and our war on terrorism but it will give you answers to the questions people are asking now. The link between Osama and Iraq, where the WMD's are, etc. In the light of 9/11 this is one eye opening and scary book.

The author is a brilliant Arabist who has refined the art of acquiring and exploiting open sources of information on bin Laden and terrorism to a near science. His "MOSQINT" lectures draw packed houses of professional intelligence officers from over 40 countries.

The book is a hard read, but if one desires to understand the murky inter-relationships among the *governments* of Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, among others, the businesses and charities working actively to channel government and private funds to terrorists, and the global loosely-knit network of "fellow travelers" and jihadists, then this book is "Ref A."

In my personal view, the author is a bit over the top in trying to link Iraq to bin Laden. This reminds of the Claire Sterling-Ollie North school of "anything goes" as long as you believe it. Having said that (and so has Vaclav Havel, President of Czechoslovakia, who personally dismissed a lie consistently told by the Bush Administration about a meeting in Prague between a terrorist known by the FBI to have been in Florida at the time, and an Iraqi intelligence officer), I give the book very high marks in all other respects.

The Conclusion, appropriately Chapter 13, is titled "What Next." The book is worthy of purchase and recurring reference for this chapter alone. Especially troubling is the documentation of how many terrorists are moving around the world on legitimate passports from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Turkey, Kuwait, Algeria, Albania, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and other countries. The book adds confirmation to the many other references I have seen (many posted to OSS.Net news and reference section) regarding the active involvement of the Pakistani intelligence service in funding and training and facilitating travel for bin Laden personally, for his top lieutenants, and for terrorists in general.

The author's focus in the conclusion on the potential for Central Asia (all former khanates, all Muslim, all angry separatists from the Soviet Union) is especially interesting, as we see the beginnings of a "third front" there, with India-Pakistan being a fourth front, and South Asia a fifth front. Latin America and Africa are the sixth front. In brief, the author is one of those documenting the depth and scope of a global terrorism threat that the Bush Administration has unwisely chosen to attack with conventional military means, on six different fronts, none of which is sustainable in the medium or long term.

The author anticipated terrorist attacks against the UN and NATO when he discusses, on page 403, the Muslim declarations that include the UN and NATO in the fatwas against the USA, because the Muslim world "is being deceived by [these organizations], because they are hostile to Muslims and are responsible for all the massacres being perpetrated against Muslims in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine, Albania, and Kosovo." The UN in Iraq has been hit twice. I expect NATO in Afghanistan to be hit several times between now and the end of 2003, and I expect US special forces units to be massacred in detail in Afghanistan, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

Bin Laden, dead or alive. Right. Bin Laden could not, in his wildest prayers to Allah, have imagined a better partner for fostering terrorism around the world than hip-shooting cowboy and unilateralist George W. Bush. Bin Laden created a global system of terrorism, the fire if you will, and George W. Bush and his neo-conservatives are blindly pouring $250 billion worth of tax-payer funded gasoline on that fire.

The author has recently been the recipient of the Golden Candle Award from the international open source intelligence committee. His citation reads:

"For his global multi-lingual open source investigations into terrorism, and his extraordinary professional achievement in writing and publishing "BIN LADEN: The Man Who Declared War on America", years before the 9-11 World Trade Center demonstration of what well-funded suicidal terrorism can achieve when intelligence and policy both fail to focus on the threat."

Whatever research or opinion flaws might be contained in this book, it is an essential reference in understanding both the dangers of terrorism, and the futility of the current US "strategy" for defeating terrorism by hammering and then abandoning Afghanistan and Iraq.

This book contains everything you ever wanted to know and then some. It does tend to get bogged down in the details and to the Western reader following all the names and places can be a task.
Overall however it is a good read.

I found reading this book hard work, as I constantly had to cross check Bodansky's assertions with the public record and other analysts' reporting. I kept having to remind myself to take everything with a grain of salt, because very few people believe Bodansky's account of an over-arching Islamist conspiracy at the beck and call of Iran, Sudan and Pakistan. It's OK to have unusual theories, but you need to support them with facts. And Bodansky cites no sources for his assertions, because presumably its all from secret operatives within Al Qaeda, Hizb'Allah, Pasdaran, MOIS and ISI. This would make Bodansky more plugged in than George Tenet, because the CIA certainly doesn't think any of this is true. If Bodansky's right, then it is a scandal that U.S. government policy ignores the fact that Al Qaeda is just a small part of the multinational Islamist movement that operates at the direction of Iran, Sudan and Pakistan. If Bodansky's wrong (as I would suspect), then it is an embarrassment that a man who would write a book like this was the head of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. It appears to be largely fiction.

Had Bodansky written this book after the September 11th attacks, his accounts would have been dubbed as highly revealing. The fact that he wrote the entire book before gives this investigative work solid legitimacy. Bodansky unmasks trends in the Islamist world which are consistently missed by western journalists.

I wouldnï¿t consider this book a biography on Bin Laden as much as I would consider it a biography on Islamist terrorism from the 1980ï¿s forward. The book culminates with Bin Laden being the unchallenged leader of the Islamist movement.

The book takes you through a recent history of the Arab world (ï¿The Radicalization of an Engineer) and the effects it had on Gulf States. It shows the integral effect of Mujadeen victories in Afghanistan and how it laid the foundation for an international terrorist organization.

In many cases, readers get first-hand insights of how Middle East governments (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) suppress and at times outright support terrorism.

As time passes, you see Bin Laden evolve from being a discontent Saudi to logistical planner to terrorist mastermind. I must confess, I didnï¿t walk away thinking he was crazy but rather a deliberative leader. His strategic ability to form alliances with Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan and finally Iraq demonstrate why he was able to pull off attacks like 9/11.

This is not a ï¿Terrorism for Dummiesï¿ book--donï¿t expect it to be a quick read. Its detail can be overwhelming at times and I found myself actually highlighting sections. Beware, Bodansky doesnï¿t use terrorist jock terms like ï¿Al Qaedaï¿ but rather documents the dozens of intertwined Islamist organizations. Extensive use of Arab names will confuse most readers (including myself).

This book serves to predict many ensuing events after it was written including the USS Cole attack, the rise of the Taliban, and 9/11. Bodansky continually refers to ï¿spectacular terrorist strikesï¿ which Bin Laden and several other terrorists have been planning.

In short, Iï¿m impressed with Bodanskyï¿s account. While I often viewed his television appearances post 9/11 as speculation run amuck, I now have a deep respect for his work and an understanding of the Islamist world.

Highly Recommended---this is the bible for modern day Islamist Terrorism.

Yossef Bodansky goes into exhaustive detail on the history of Osama bin Laden and how he became the man he is today. Bodansky explains the training, the financing, and the methodic steps it takes to pull off a terrorist attack. A process Bin Laden clearly has mastered. First written in 1999, shortly after the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were simultaneously blown up, and updated after the terrorists attacks of September 11th, Bin Laden The Man Who Declared War on America quickly educates us on the fundamental reason why Bin Laden has devoted his life to terrorizing Americans. 'Bin Laden is convinced that United States presence in the Muslim world, particularly in his home country of Saudi Arabia, prevents the establishment of real Islamic governments and the realization of the Islamic revivalism to which he and others aspire. Since a frontal assault is out of the question the United States must be terrorized into withdrawing from the Muslim world.' These reasons, along with the United States' unconditional support for Israel are the reasons behind every terrorist attack on Americans. Bodansky cannot state it any simpler.

Through his years of research, and eight prior books on international terrorism, Bodansky is able to explain the complexities of the network bin Laden has established to carry out terrorist attacks like no other. Upon completion of the book you feel well informed on the man who has caused so much pain here in America. It is also an excellent book to refer back to as the present war on terrorism evolves.

Bin Laden was quick to join the fight against the Soviet Union after their invasion of Afghanistan. Arabs who fought alongside him describe him as fearless. 'He was a hero to us because he was always on the front line, always moving ahead of everyone else, he not only gave his money, but also gave himself. He came down from his palace to live with the Afghan peasants, and Arab fighters. He cooked with them, ate with them, dug trenches with them. That was the bin Laden way.' Osama continues to use the respect and heroic status he achieved during the war against the Soviets, to establish a devoted and loyal following that he now uses to terrorize the U.S.

Perhaps the most critical event, which enabled bin Laden to rise to the top, was the confrontation in Somalia between U.S. troops and a local Muslim warlord in 1993. The confrontation can now be watched on DVD in the movie Black Hawk Down. Bodansky does a remarkable job of explaining how bin Laden had a hand in the operation that would ultimately lead to the death of 18 soldiers and the eviction of U.S. troops from Somalia. Shortly after the U.S. announced plans to begin a humanitarian mission in Somalia, Bin Laden organized the movement of 3,000 trained Afghans along with heavy weapons, high explosives, and supplies from Yemen to Somalia. At a personal cost of $3 million, these troops were critical to the Islamists operational plan of destroying American forces. The death of the 18 soldiers, when a mission to capture the local warlord goes bad, brought shock to Washington and the rest of America who thought the mission of the U.S. military was strictly humanitarian. Shortly after the tragic events on October 3, 1993, U.S. troops were entirely pulled out of Somalia.

While most Americans seem to have forgotten the events of that day, Islamists have not. In fact it was an enormous victory for them that would motivate future terrorists strikes with the goal of evicting U.S. presence in the Gulf. The achievement against the U.S. in Somalia convinced bin Laden that it would be possible to ultimately evict the U.S. from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states as well. Bin Laden still defines the fighting in Somalia as one of his major triumphs against the U.S. He states in the book, 'We also believe that our battle against America is much simpler than the war against the Soviet Union, because some of our Mujahideen who fought here in Afghanistan also participated in operations against the Americans in Somalia - and they were surprised at the collapse of American morale. This convinced us that Americans are a paper tiger.'

Bodansky's discussions of present day terrorists strikes enable the reading to be fresh as it relates to America's current crisis. One is overcome with an eerie feeling when reading about a visit to the U.S. in 1995 by one of Bin Laden's top men, Ayman Al Zawahiri. His mission was to 'establish first hand the strength and reliability of local networks'and confirm the suitability of various objectives for spectacular strikes.' The events of September 11th were no doubt one of Bin Laden's planned 'spectacular strikes.' The eeriness continues when Zawahiri returned home to Europe 'convinced that the U.S. could become fertile ground for a series of spectacular terrorists operations'provided they were properly planned and professionally executed.' Just six years after his visit the World Trade Center no longer stands and nearly 3,000 U.S. citizens lost their lives in the world deadliest terrorist operation.

Bodansky has written a book we all should study. The extensive research and information he has accumulated on Bin Laden over the past decade, makes this book perhaps the most detailed one in bookstores today. Bodansky provides incredible evidence of Bin Laden's attempts to obtain weapons of mass destruction by spending over $3 million in an effort to purchase a nuclear suitcase from the former Soviet Union. Bodansky also show the collaboration between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein through his son Qusay Hussein. Such evidence is surly being studied by Washington. As the war on terrorism continues, we can all benefit in gaining a deeper understanding of our enemy. This book is an excellent beginning.

Reading this book after 11SEP01, one can easily see that Bodansky had forseen and warned us all about the attack on the towers two years previously. If only more folks had taken the threat seriously.

The book can be a hard read because of the detail and the numerous groups and people to follow but it is very thorough and enlightening. Bodansky also makes it clear why Bush made his axis of evil speech and that Iraq is indeed a supporter of terrorists.

Every American should read this book as well as Bodansky's latest 'The High Cost of Peace'.

Bodansky has excellent credentials for this book--many years on the staff of Congressional intelligence committees. He uses this back ground to provide a comprehensive (pre-Cole and pre-9/11) look at the complex international financial and personnel structure bin Laden built to support international terrorism.

While bin Laden was not the spiritual or military leader of the islamic terrorist movement, he is the one who made it viable. He raised the money, developed an international series of interlocking corporations, foundations, and local groups which allowed for the movement of large amounts of money, equipment, and people everywhere from the Phillipines to (as we now know all to well) New York City.

The problem with this book is there are no sources cited. THere is absolutely no way to check the accuracy of Bodansky's narrative. In effect, Bodansky asks the reader to acdept what he says i true based on Bodansky's credentials alone.

It all sounds plausible, particularly in light of September 11, but I found it very uncomfortable having no way to check Bodansky's assertions. Several other reviewers have noted specific inaccuracies--but frankly, none of them touch on the heart of Bodansky's point--that bin Laden is a very competnet paymaster for a wide ranging, extremely dangerous terrorist organization.