I just finished this book for class and I must say it is an excellent read. I have never been terribly interested in studying the Middle East or learning more about those responsible for 9/11, but Lawrence made the subject interested and I couldn't put the book down. Even though I remember the exact moment I watched the Twin Towers fall, it never truly effected me consciously. The last few chapters of Wright's book made me want to cry with frustration and anger. This book definitely makes you question and despise the CIA for blocking all efforts to try and prevent 9/11. That is one thing I could critique about the book - it is very bent against the CIA, ad while it can be said that they really were responsible for a lot of important information not going where it needed to be, it's sure to infuriate those who potentially see more subjectivity than objectivity.
In any event, I recommend that everyone should read this book - it's eye-opening. ( )

The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright is a multi-award winning account of the people and events behind the September 11, 2001 hijackings and attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The book lives up to its publicity and deserves the awards. It's one of the best pieces of recent history I've read.

While thoroughly researched, The Looming Tower is written in straightforward prose that reads almost like a spy thriller--if only it were simply that. Mr. Wright has interviewed just about everyone with any connection to the terrorists and the government agents who hunted them and he has read all there is to read about them as well. The result of his research is a fascinating, page turning, in-depth account that will add to the understanding of all but the most expert readers. Take, for instance, this paragraph explaining why so many young Muslim men were willing to become martyrs:

The lure of an illustrious and meaningful death was especially powerful in cases where the pleasures and rewards of life were crushed by government oppression and economic deprivation. From Iraq to Morrocco, Arab governments had stifled freedom and signally failed to create wealth at the very time when democracy and personal income were sharply climbing in virtually all other parts of the globe. Saudi Arabia, the richest of the lot, was such a notoriously unproductive country that the extraordinary abundance of petroleum had failed to generate any other significant source of income; indeed, if one subtract the oil revenue of the Gulf countries, 260 million Arabs exported less than the 5 million Finns. Radicalism usually prospers in the gap between rising expectation and declining opportunities. This is especaily true where the population is young, idle, and bored; where the art is impoverished; where entertainment--movies, theatre, music--is policed or absent altogether; and where young men are set apart from the consoling and socializing presence of women. Adult illiteracy remained the norm in many Arab countries. Unemployment was among the highest in the developing world. Anger, resentment, and humiliation spurred young Arabs to search for dramatic remedies.

This situation led many young people to actively seek the "glorious death" martyrdom promised. This desire only increased after the crack-downs which followed early attacks in Egypt, such as the assassination of Anwar Sadat. The men charged and imprisoned for this crime were severely tortured by the Egyptian government which only served to radicalise them and their followers even further and led to increased growth of fundamentalist terror movements in Egypt. One of these men was Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri the leader of al-Jihad movement in Egypt and later the ideological leader of al-Queda. At one point the Egyptian government forced two young boys, both sons of members of the al-Jihad movement, to turn against their fathers and attempt to plant a bomb in the home of Dr. Zawahiri. (That this was done by photographing the boys while raping them and then threatening to show the photographs to their fathers indicts both the government of Egypt and fundamentalist Islam which would subject the boys to the death penalty for their "crime.") The plot failed and the boys were executed but Zawahiri's movement was left in shambles.

Zawahiri had few resources remaining other than bin Laden's backing. He was determined to strike back quickly against the Egyptian authorities in order to redeem his reputation and keep the remnants of his organization intact. His views had undergone a powerful shift from those of the young man who spurned revolution because it was too bloody. He now believed that only violence changed history. In striking the enemy, he would create a new reality. His strategy was to force the Egyptian regime to become even more repressive, to make the people hate it. In this he succeeded. But the Egyptian people did not turn to him or to his movement. They only became more miserable, more disenchanted, frightened, and despairing. In the game Zawahiri had begun, however, revenge was essential, it was the game itself.

And the focus of the attacks shifted from the government to people in general. The goal soon became to kills as many as possible with no real regard to who the victems were. It is no coincidence that many of the 9/11 hijackers came from Egypt. Mr. Wright does an excellent job of clearly explaining the roots of al-Qaeda, beginning with revolutionary intellectual movements in Egypt in the 1950's.

Mr. Wright presents a comprehensive biography of the key players in al-Qaeda, namely Zawahiri and bin Laden. Whle Mr. Wright makes no effort to paint these men as monsters, as the book progresses they become them, at least as far as I'm concerned. The form of Islam that they embrace is so extreme one wonders how anyone could be attracted to it. Then they themselves begin to make it even more extreme by finding in it the justification for killing innocent people including families and children, even fellow Muslims. I was reminded of the justifications Christians came up with during the 4th crusade to make it acceptable for them to attack and kill other Christians. There is, unfortunately, nothing new under the sun.

While most of The Looming Tower is about the development of al-Qaeda and bin Laden, Mr. Wright does present the law enforcement side of the story. The F.B.I and the C.I.A. were both very late to the party. Fundamentalist Islamic terrorists didn't make it onto the radar screens of either group until rather late in the game and not enough people at either agency took al-Qaeda seriously enough until September 12, 2001. One man who did was John O'Neill at the F.B.I. Mr. O'Neill and a handful of other agents doggedly pursued anti-terror investigations only to be thwarted by the C.I.A. which withheld information they wanted kept secret as a means of gaining further intelligence. Mr. Wright lays out the details here and makes a good case for the argument that had these two agencies cooperated, namely had the C.I.A. given the F.B.I. the information they requested, the 9/11 attacks could very likely have been prevented. Mr. O'Neill retired in early September 2001 and began a new job with security at the World Trade Center. He was killed when the towers collapsed.

The Looming Tower ends with the September 11 attacks which makes for an oddly unsatisfactory finish. I wanted to know more. Mr. Wright explains how al-Qaeda and bin Laden ended up in Afghanistan under the Taliban but he does not develop this material enough to explain why the United States felt justified invading that country. These events happened afterwards, true, and are therefore material for another day, but it remained a nagging question in a book that provided so many answers. I do not know if Mr. Wright is planning a second volume. If he is, it will certainly find a place on my TBR shelf. ( )

I guess this is stuff I should know, but I'm reluctant to know it. Certainly it helps me understand Muslim extremism. It does not help me to love my extremeist Muslim brothers, though . . . far from it. Exhaustively researched, well written, can't-put-it-down reading . . . but you want to join the Crusades afterward. ( )

In the early 1980s, a Palestinian ideologue named Abdullah Azzam was coordinating the jihad from Peshawar, near the Afghanistan border.

Azzam’s Peshawar center was known as the Afghan Bureau. His deputy and financier was a Saudi named Osama bin Laden.

Was the idealistic 19- or 20-year-old Barack Obama inquiring about the Afghanistan jihad?

Lawrence Wright, a regular contributor to The New Yorker, provides an immensely instructive history of the development of al-Qaeda. The book begins with a fascinating chapter on Sayyid Qutb, I daresay not a name on the tip of most American tongues, but a man whose writing provided the basis for the future Islamist movement.

Wright focuses mainly on providing the factual context and he has some stunning material. The book has about 40 pages of endnotes, a lengthy bibliography, and a list of hundreds of interview subjects. He got an amazing array of people to talk openly about pretty sensitive stuff.

According to Wright, Bin Laden was never as wealthy as he is often portrayed (it measured in the millions not hundreds of millions) and was essentially destitute by the time he was booted out of the Sudan. Bin Laden created a myth that blew out of all proportion his role and the role of the so-called Arab Afghans in the Afghan war against the Soviets.

Regarding the 'why', while this question is not Wright's focus, a picture emerges that while they don't quite 'hate us because of our freedom' the radical Islamists do indeed despise Western materialism and cultural modernity. They have declared jihad (and I don't mean in the self-improving sense of jihad) on non-Muslims. Their arrogance even extends to declaring 'takfir' on other Muslims as 'kafir' - basically drumming these other Muslims out of the religion and declaring them apostates. More specifically, Bin Laden was also driven nearly mad by the presence of US forces in the sacred lands of Islam.

Roughly the last third of the book concentrates on US intelligence efforts particularly John O'Neill, the flawed one-time leader of the FBI's counter-terrorism unit. (O'Neill retired in August 2001 and became security director at the World Trade Center - he died on 9/11).

Could 9/11 have been prevented by providing more resources to counter-terrosim, by better cooperation and less personal and institutional antagonism between the CIA and FBI? Wright suggests that this may indeed have been the case. However, he also makes it clear that bin Laden was intent on provoking a violent response that would drag the US into an extended war in the Middle East (he had Afghanistan in mind). Bin Laden was disappointed when the attacks on the US Embassies in Africa and then the attack on the USS Cole did not bring the anticipated war. As long as his organization functioned he was going to attempt greater and greater attacks on the US.

Absolutely the highest recommendation. ( )