Book Review: The Looming Towers
I’ve written and re-written this post several times, only to delete it and start again. I’ve reached the point to where I will just write it as it comes.
A couple of months ago Fouad Alfarhan recommended to his facebook friends a book called The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
While reading the book I would get flashbacks of images of my life, the day Abdullah Azzam was killed I was still in high school, and I remember one of the teachers blaming the Soviets for it… turns out it was one of the first of many mafia style killings of those who call themselves Muslims against each other in their struggle for power and command.
I grew up in that era, during the gulf war many in my school volunteered in the Saudi army, none that I knew went to join the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, a few teachers did, and came back with stories that had us school boys wide eyed and in awe of their heroics (most if not all were BS, which were things I discovered later on in life).
It is not a secret that when the mujahedeen were fighting America’s proxy war against the soviets many in the Muslim world were encouraged to join in the “Jihad” and many governments (including the American government) financed that war with billions of dollars, weapons, machinery, and every other thing they needed… after all they were fighting the infidel atheist soviet army that wanted to wipe Islam and all other religions and then demote us all to the level of animals, as they told us of course. I never bought that load of crap, and still don’t.
I’ve had no doubt that if Osama was not from an affluent family he would’ve been killed or at least detained at the first hint of dissident… no one gets as many chances as he did to conform.
What I loved about the book is the approach it took, it was more like a novel than a series of events, and I am not even going to attempt to review the book because I won’t do it any justice.
However, if you read this book, you will learn a lot about the bureaucracy of government agencies, and how they did not share information with each other which lead to the unfortunate events… the event that changed the world as we know it for my generation, and probably for many generations to come.
As the memory of 9-11 is a few days away, I send my sympathies and prayers to all those who suffered directly or indirectly from that attack all over the world.
It was not easy to begin this post, and it is not easy to end it… but to sum it all up as I see it… there is a lot of money in the middle east, and whoever controls it gains tremendous power… and that is what it is all about… not religion, not God’s word, not the oppression of the weak or cleansing society from all that ails it… it is all about the money… not even about Gog and Magog, or bringing forth Armageddon or trying to make Jesus come down.
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Sep 08, 2009 @ 13:06:22
I know I’ve missed many parts that I could’ve included but as I said, I written and re-written this several times.
Sep 08, 2009 @ 13:43:33
I’ve ordered the book and will pick it up in the next weeks when we’re in the States. If you haven’t already seen it, I recommend Charlie Wilson’s War, which is about the American support of the Afghans against the Soviets. Even better than the Hollywood movie is the documentary. I think PBS did it, but if you’re interested I’ll look thru our video library and get you the details. 9/11 is a tough and touchy topic, one I’ve tried unsuccessfully to write about over the years as well – hehe and like you, more words end up in the delete box than on any page! Nice job tho, Qusay, thanks for tackling the topic.
Sep 08, 2009 @ 19:02:31
I can’t claim to remember much from the time, though I was in the Gulf.
Jihad, like other forms of religion has been abused by outside forces. Used by the US to fight a proxy war in the past, and now vilified by them when the same mujahideen lash back.
I need to get my hands on this book. You think they have it down in Jarir?
Sep 09, 2009 @ 03:48:31
An excellent post on a difficult topic! Thanks for sharing both the book and your personal experiences.
I remember that my first response to 9-11 was disbelief, and then the sincere hope that it was an inside job, like the Oklahoma bombings, nice home grown white nordic US terrorists, if it had to happen. I’ve never thought it was a conspiracy but rather a bungling on the part of the Bush administration so fixed on its OIL agenda that it jettisoned all previous, and ongoing intelligence, all competent people like Richard Clarke and all rational thought. Having a Cold War specialist with an oil tanker named after her and shares in the Carlysle Group didn’t help, or rather served the new purpose of taking over each Middle East country in turn to better control the oil and the access to it. This agenda was pre-set and so easily accelerated when 9-11 happened. The propaganda was so strong that even past the 2004 election the US populace believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11 and the attackers came through Canada to the US.
The impact on Canadian civil liberties, especially felt by Muslim men, but affecting all, the economy (punished economically by GWB for not going into Iraq), and everyday life for some who regularly cross the border for work, tourism, or shopping has been immense–again greatest for Muslim men, or brown looking people, of what ever nationality (including Canadian), ethnicity, race, religion or political persuasion.
So much international goodwill was squandered by a knee jerk, biblical (in the worst sense not the best sense) response of good and evil, black and white, and revenge thinking, fuelled by OIL covetousness.
I will look for the reference to an excellent short book from an insider on the 7 countries in succession plan and the gift that was 9-11 to this enterprise. A woman named Diane Kwiatkowski blogged (anonymously) on her experience in the Pentagon at the time to keep her sanity, but finally had to quit. Will find that too.
Meanwhile, I’m planning my visit to Jarir, and a stroll down the revelant aisles mentioned. LOL
Sep 09, 2009 @ 04:48:40
Thanks so much Qusay for sharing this. I’m so glad you liked the book. I still recommend it whenever the chance comes in during my conversations online & offline.
I was in Oklahoma City when the bombing took place. Actually, I was living in a small apartment not that far from the building. I’ve had a nightmare experience when I went to the college that day. All news were claiming middle-eastern did it. I felt so sorry for the victims, their families and that calm town.
It’s all about money and power my brother. Agree.
Sep 09, 2009 @ 06:48:56
Fouad–I’m sure it was awful to be on campus after the Oklahoma bombings. Would you agree that Clinton handled the media hysteria better than Bush later did? I remember him saying immediately not to jump to conclusions about who had done it, and reassuring that it would be investigated. A quick answer seemed to curtail the anti-Muslim response, but you would have a better sense of that than I.
To me the money and the power is underground, ie in the OIL, and Afghanistan too has the misfortune to sit on the route of a major oil pipeline. In the “good old days” when the CIA was sent around the world to assassinate nuisance leaders, ie one’s the US didn’t like for interfering with revenue, eg. Mossadegh, Allende etc., and foment, arm, train, and finance the opposition, many countries had their regime changed for them without a declaration of war. As Clinton has said, as President he was hampered by new laws disallowing the use of the CIA this way ie as a political assassination squad in his efforts to get bin Laden. 8 years on it would seem that rewriting the CIA mandate for bin Laden and Al-Qaeda would have been a better response to 9/11 than 2 unending wars. This is especially true as the Afghanis agreed to hand bin Laden over on condition he was tried in the International Criminal Court, a condition GWB refused, either because the US hasn’t signed on to the ICC (to protect Kissinger among others) or because that wouldn’t get them the oil passageway, or both.
Sep 09, 2009 @ 22:48:29
Sounds like a book I need to read! Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll put it on my list of books to get *before* I visit Jarir.
Sep 09, 2009 @ 23:02:12
sounds interesting i have to read it. sadly it is all about money and power..and its the poor people and masses who get duped into thinking its about religion or freedom or any other idea. thanks for recommending it.
ohh and ps. who says osama hasn’t already been killed? haha :p
Sep 15, 2009 @ 10:30:30
These 2 articles by senior Pakistani-Canadian journalist Haroon Siddiqui have interesting comments on the errors induced by 9/11 hysteria; and how little Obama has done to restore human rights that were “curtailed” by the Bush administration:
Historic errors made in 9/11 aftermath
http://www.thestar.com/article/693275
Obama not much better than Bush on rights
http://www.thestar.com/article/694586
A letter to the editor suggests that rather than errors there was a deliberate plan to capitalize on 9/11 hysteria:
U.S. was just waiting for right moment
http://www.thestar.com/article/694553
Sep 16, 2009 @ 03:49:27
Shokran!
Bin Laden Dead | Qusay
May 07, 2011 @ 11:38:38
[...] do wonder about the truth of it all, 9-11, Al-Qaeda, George W. Bush, The War on Iraq, WMDs, Abu Ghuraib, the atrocities of Black Water… [...]
Sep 08, 2009 @ 18:13:28
SGIME, you mean you did not switch to ebooks and got a kindle or kindel or whatever it is? Neither have I
I’ve seen the Charlie Wilson war and almost all the 9-11 documentaries, but until I read this book I thought it was all a conspiracy.
Thanks for your kind words, I do not think I’ve done the subject any justus… But please let me know about the documentary.
Sep 08, 2009 @ 21:18:11
Yes I am sure jarir will have that book, right next to the books about erotic positions and brewing your own beer
Sep 09, 2009 @ 22:10:26
I really appreciate all the info you share here Chiara…
Oklahoma, I better save my experience for another post.
Can’t wait to get your references.
Sep 09, 2009 @ 22:12:39
Fouad, sorry you had to go through that, I had a few brushes with the KKK, and they just hated me cause they thought I was black… but that is another post… Coming very soon I hope.
Thanks for stopping by, and recommending the book.
Sep 10, 2009 @ 05:23:18
Thank you, and thank you for the inspiration. I’m looking forward to your Oklahoma post! My reactions to it are in a “to be turned into a poem so I don’t get fired” file.
Karen (not Diane) Kwiatkowski , Lt Colonel (ret) US Air Force, MA (Government, Harvard) MS (Management Science, University of Alaska), PhD (World Politics, Catholic University of America), lifetime Republican, formerly of the Defense Department wrote an excellent summary of her experience here:
The new Pentagon papers
A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war.
http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=2764&paper=2782
Huffington Post did a nice “selection of her thoughts” here:
Karen Kwiatkowski: The Soldier Who Spoke Out
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/karen-kwiatkowski-the-sol_n_92237.html
The Anonymous postings she did at a military friend’s blog site while still employed at the Department of Defense are collected here:
Deep Throat Returns: Insider Notes from The Pentagon
http://www.hackworth.com/dt_archive.html
Her Wiki entry with additional references including to later Anonymous postings is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Kwiatkowski
My person favourite is the story of the difference between receiving Arab country ambassadors (polite, respectful, made to wait, IDs ascertained, escorted) and those from Israel (demanding, know their way around, walk unescorted straight into Rumsfeld’s office while he is in a meeting). The post-its from Rumsfeld, and Cheney as the deus ex machina are good too. Chalabi comes off…not so good.
On the fiasco that was/is the Iraq war I also really liked “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, which won the 2007 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, as well as an award from the New York Times, and is being made into a film.
http://www.rajivc.com/
I haven’t read it but based on the preview this one looks good for comic relief from reality (or maybe just a comic look at reality):
Clueless George Goes to War (Paperback) by Pat Bagley
The now complete blog Baghdad Burning by Riverbend (a Baghdadi Iraqi woman IT specialist in her 20′s) reads like a journal of life in Baghdad from the US intervention to her family’s emigration to Syria–extremely well-written and an eye-opener
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
The little white brilliant book on the neocon plan to conquer the Middle East in sequence, and the change in sequencing with 9/11 and the jump into Iraq before Hans Blix could prove there were no WMDs will be found shortly!
Sep 10, 2009 @ 22:00:38
LOL
that’s a good one
Sep 15, 2009 @ 08:26:03
Hah! One reliable book source for the neocon plan “7 countries in 5 years” and the gift that was 9/11 to its commencement is:
General(ret’d) Wesley Clark’s 2007 memoir “A Time to Lead”
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Lead-Duty-Honor-Country/dp/1403984743/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252966229&sr=1-1
Relevent(short and humorous) clip from his interview on Democracy Now:
The Democracy Now site with the full interview and the transcript:
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/3/2/gen_wesley_clark_weighs_presidential_bid
NB from the transcript:
About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”
So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs”—meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office—“today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”
Salon article on the biography and the theory
“Seven countries in five years”: Wesley Clark’s new memoir casts more light on the Bush administration’s secret strategies for regime change in Iran and elsewhere. By Joe Conason
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/10/12/wesley_clark/
Sep 15, 2009 @ 08:51:20
Now that hurts… new books on the list to read. Thank Chiara, thank u very much
Sep 15, 2009 @ 12:12:28
Chiara… U R a gem!!!
Sep 16, 2009 @ 03:48:51
Afwan!