The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (edition 2007)

"Wherever you are, death will find you, even in the looming tower."
-The Qu'ran, Sura 4:78

Hiraba (حفEرابة), the Arabic word for terror, piracy, or unlawful warfare. To be punished with the strictest penalties.

SEE the young men in their white tunics go out, and charge from the trenches against Soviet tanks, and the suited FBI and CIA men squabble on matters of 'jurisdiction' and 'sensitive information', and self-appointed holy men and saviors meditate in caves on how to save the words of prophets, and their followers drink in action movies and dream of being holy ( )

I would need to read this twice to let everything really sink in; to Americans, this book presents the same problem with names that Crime and Punishment does. More so, because of all the aliases.



It contains a quick history of al Qaeda that places it in its context of 60 years of radical Islamic fundamentalist thought, from World War II up to the days immediately after the September 11 attacks. Thoroughly researched and footnoted, this is an essential reference to understanding the nightly news.



This book also explains, much more clearly than the 9/11 Commission Report did, exactly how the United States law enforcement and intelligence communities missed all the signs that an attack was coming. We had people in the FBI who were motivated and capable of stopping the attack, but they didn't have crucial information at a critical time -- information that the CIA had. but wouldn't share because of bureaucratic infighting and misinterpreted rules. Infuriating. ( )

The Looming Tower (2006) has won so many awards it appears to be the defacto account of the events that lead to 9/11. The sequence of events is complex and I probably won't remember much of it over time, but I did learn a little about the Islamist movement and how they see the world, a rejection of modernity, extreme reactionaries. Wright places a ton of blame with the CIA however I understand there have been more recent books that tell a different story, so who to blame (if anyone) is still being worked out. Like most people, I was moved by the story of John O’Neill, the foil of bin Laden and the martyr for America's sin of too much bureaucracy. I also have a better understanding of Ayman al-Zawari, the tortured doctor from Cairo who is still alive and operating; and Sayyid Qutb, whose manifesto, Milestones, is what motivated so many to take up arms against the west. ( )

Well-paced, well-told story of some of the key players and events leading up to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Excellent reporting and a great example of why journalism is the "first draft" of History. The book also confirmed my long ago notion that the entire leadership of the United States' intelligence apparatus ought to have tendered their resignations within days due to their catastrophic failures, esp. CIA director Tenet and FBI director Freeh. ( )

This was a fascinating, riveting account that crosses five decades and several countries to tell the story of "the growth of Islamic Fundamentalism, the rise of Al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated" in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I first ran across this title when reading a column by a conservative, Hugh Hewitt, praising it as a "good and important book." What particularly intrigued me is that the writer, Lawrence Wright, was described as a liberal. When you have a book that crosses political divides like that, I pay attention. Looking the book up I learned it was both a popular bestseller and critically praised--a Pulitzer Prize winner. And that Wright had personally spent time in the Middle East, including "two years teaching at the American University in Cairo, Egypt." At the back of the book there are not only extensive notes and a bibliography, but a list of over five hundred people Wright personally interviewed for the book.

I thought I knew this story, but this had lots of details I didn't know and drew connections and included insights that after all I've read still seemed fresh. For instance, I had never heard of Sayyid Qutb, whose manifesto, Milestones, Wright compares to Lenin's "What Is To Be Done?" in terms of its influence on Islamic Fundamentalism. Qutb was one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt we've been hearing so much about since the Arab Spring. He spent years in the United States--which he hated for its modernity, its freedom. Almost as much as he hated the newly established Israel. His definition of religious freedom? It would come when Sharia (Islamic law) was imposed worldwide because as Wright put it then "there would be no compulsion in religion because there would be only one choice: Islam." Those are threads that run and again and again through this book. Egypt also produced Ayman al-Zawari who together with Osama bin Ladin of Saudi Arabia founded Al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia is a country with a monarchy that ties their regime to the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect and allows muttawas (religious police) to patrol the streets with the power to flog women who show a strand of hair peeking out from their head scarf. Wright claims the "vector of these two forces, one Egyptian and one Saudi" would result in Al-Qaeda.

Another factor in the rise of Al-Qaeda according to Wright was the use of torture, particularly by the Egyptians. The key to torture, Wright wrote, is humiliation--a humiliation which breeds rage, radicalized the victims and filled them with a passion for revenge. And well before 9/11, America would use surrogates such as Egypt to conduct such illicit interrogations while they kept their hands clean. Wright further noted that "The usual object of terror is to draw one's opponent into repressive blunders." Bin Laden wanted the 9/11 attacks to result in the invasion of Afghanistan--he hoped it would draw us into a war that would destroy our international power--even our country--in the same way it had destroyed the Soviets. Not that it turned out the way he planed--nor do I feel we had much choice with the Taliban harboring the man responsible for thousands of American deaths. But those are sobering aspects of this tale when we consider that in invading Afghanistan and Iraq, cracking down on civil liberties at home and using torture, America has fallen precisely into the trap Bin Laden laid for us. I was also struck anew by the colossal waste of life and talent caused by groups such as Al-Qaeda--not simply from the 9/11 attacks, but all the damage it has done right in Muslim countries and toll its taken in Muslim lives. Hewitt is right--this is a good and important book anyone wanting to come to grips with Islamic Fundamentalism and terrorism and the world 9/11 created should read. ( )