Why would anyone fly a plane into a building? (The Looming Tower, book review)

The question on every American's lips on Sept. 11, 2001 was "why?" Lawrence Wright's new book, "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" answers it better than just about anything written so far.

In what's destined to be one of the definitive early histories of the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks, Wright starts at what he says is the beginning of modern Islamic fundamentalism: the curious case of an Egyptian named Sayyid Qutb. Living in the U.S. in the late 1940s and '50s (including a stint in Greeley, of all places), the middle-aged Qutb formed an impression of America that influenced his writings on the need to reject the modern world in favor of the medieval one depicted in the Koran.

By the time Qutb was hanged in 1966 by Egyptian President Nasser, his writings had caught hold among Muslims still angry about the way the Arab world was divvied up after World War II, furious about the rise of Israel and uncertain of their place in the world. By far the most influential reader of Qutb's works was Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian who would later form a group called al -Jihadi that would, in turn, join with the al-Qaeda group of Osama bin Laden.

Reading about a lonely Egyptian man trying to make sense of America in the 1950s may seem a long way from the events of 9/11, but to answer that question of why young men would fly airplanes into buildings on suicide missions for no readily apparent reason, it's critical to understand the roots of Islamism. Wright, a staff writer for the New Yorker, interviewed scores of people for "The Looming Tower" (he lists each one of them in the book's appendices) and steers clear of the partisan politics that now frame the debate around 9/11 and its aftermath. Instead, he has crafted a work of history that reads almost like a thriller. Sure, we all know the ending, but Wright successfully gets inside the minds not only of the men responsible for 9/11, but also those trying to stop them.

Wright depicts Osama bin Laden as a sickly, uncertain trust-funder whose fundamentalist beliefs steer him into the role of terrorist leader. He identifies several crossroads in bin Laden's life where he may well have taken another, less-disastrous course, but fate and fundamentalism draw the Saudi millionaire inexorably into his ultimate destination as a man without a country who comes to truly believe that the solution to the Muslim world's ills is the destruction of America.

Among those on the other side is John O'Neill, the charismatic FBI leader who is among the first to recognize how dangerous al-Qaeda is and who fights an uphill battle to convince others of the threat. A tragic figure himself, Wright uses O'Neill's story to illustrate the calamitous failure of information sharing between the CIA and the FBI enabled 9/11 to occur. After failing to weaken al-Qaeda, Wright leaves the FBI to take a job managing security for the World Trade Center just weeks before the attacks. The rubble of the south tower would be his tomb.

The reader emerges from the pages of "The Looming Tower" both angry and saddened, not only by the failures of intelligence that might have prevented so many deaths, but by the ridiculous yet terrifying stances held by the bin Ladens and al Zawahiris of the world. Wright points out on numerous occasions how ill-prepared these men are to manage a country based on the antiquated precepts of the Koran. They created a cult of death that runs counter to the teachings of the Koran and which has increasingly worsened the lot of Muslims the world over. By invoking the dubious notion of "takfir" - that anyone who's not of the Islamic faith deserves to die - these men opened the doors to the wanton murder of innocents - men, women and children. By tortured parsing of another section of the Koran, they justify the use of suicide as a means to their ends.

"The Looming Tower" is required reading for anyone who wants to make at least some sense of the history and ideology behind the enemy in the so-called "war on terror." More than anything, Wright makes the case that there's no reasoning with these men, no way to reconcile with them and no chance of swaying them from their demented beliefs. No, they certainly don't represent all Muslims, but they do represent a growing number of mostly men who feel alienated from the modern world and who manifest their anxiety by violence against the West.

Other review of THE LOOMING TOWER; Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4226977.html

http://www.amazon.com/Looming-Tower-Al-Qaeda-Road-11/dp/037541486X

http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375414862

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/books/review/06filkins.html?ex=1312516800&en=0e30ba3235672b53&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/5e9a4960-50c8-4b95-acdb-a0b320f75c5e

http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/article.jsp?content=20060925_133309_133309

A tragic figure himself, Wright uses O'Neill's story to illustrate the calamitous failure of information sharing between the CIA and the FBI enabled 9/11 to occur. After failing to weaken al-Qaeda, Wright leaves the FBI to take a job managing security for the World Trade Center just weeks before the attacks. The rubble of the south tower would be his tomb.

Umm... some writing/editing issues here...

The reviewer seems convinced that jihad and terrorism are an aberration of izlam, a deviation from the norm. Perhaps a better read would be Mary Habeck's new book "Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror."

From Buckley's latest column which references it:

"The most widely respected Islamic authorities ... all assume that Muslims have a duty to spread the dominion of Islam, through military offensives, until it rules the world. By the 'dominion of Islam' these authorities did not mean that everyone in the world must convert to Islam, since they also affirmed that 'there is no compulsion in religion,' rather that every part of the Earth must come under Islamic governance and especially the rule of the sharia.

""Azzam's definition of offensive jihad (Azzam is the principal modern theorist of militant Islam) follows this traditional understanding of jihad, noting that it is a duty for the leader of the Muslims 'to assemble and send out an army unit into the land of war once or twice every year.'" The jihadist is obliged to perform with all available capabilities "until there remain only Muslims or people who submit to Islam."

"The author reminds us that Azzam's explanation of offensive jihad is "a recounting of the interpretations of the most respected traditional Islamic authorities. To deny this fact would be to deny one of the main reasons that jihadis have gotten a hearing in so much of the Islamic world today."

"It is clearly wrong to assume that every Muslim is a jihadist. But it is also wrong to assume that every jihadist is heretical to his faith;

Wright makes the case that there's no reasoning with these men, no way to reconcile with them and no chance of swaying them from their demented beliefs.

Despite being a staff writer for the New Yorker at least Wright has some understanding of the problem...

How one fights that is anyone's guess.

...which is more than I can say about the writer of the review. How do we fight this? Simple. By treating it like Florida's war on mosquitoes. All you can do is to kill them down to a tolerable level.

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