Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press.
Book Review |
Lawrence, W. (2006).
The looming tower: Al-Qaeda's road to 9/11
Thames Valley Police, Kidlington, Oxford, OXON, OX5 2NX, UK
W. Lawrence (2006). The looming tower: Al-Qaeda's road to 9/11 Penguin ISBN: 0-713-99973-X
This is a thought-provoking and factual analysis of the history of a global terror organization, Al-Qaeda. It traces the principal actors behind the 9/11 plot that destroyed the World Trade Center and details their part in the creation of the ideology that spurred Al-Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, to state: "Wherever you are, death will find you, even in the Looming Tower" (quote from the Qur'an and used by bin Laden in his speech to the future 9/11 hijackers).
Lawrence Wright is a staff writer for the ‘New Yorker’ and a fellow at the Centre on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. He is also the author of ‘Twins’ and ‘Remembering Satan’, and the co-writer of the film ‘The Siege’. His blending of journalistic exposé with first-hand reportage makes for compulsive reading, your education takes place covertly, as you are carried along by the story and the heroes and villains it contains.
It must be borne in mind that this is a book about the radicalization of the founders of Al-Qaeda, it is not about the contemporary wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. It details, from the terrorist's own perspective, the reason's why Al-Qaeda exists and, from an historical perspective, how it came to be.
It has the theme of acerbic juxtaposition and introduces us to bin Laden's nemesis, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) counterterrorism chief John O'Neill. Wright (p. 295) describes O'Neill as ‘insecure, deceptive, and potentially compromised. He was also driven, resourceful and brilliant. For better or worse, this was the man America now depended on to stop Osama bin Laden.’ As well as revealing his personal demons, O'Neill's battle with the US intelligence services is laid bare.
The book opens in prologue (pp 3–6), with an account of the C.I.A.’s intelligence gathering operation against Osama bin Laden at ‘Alec Station’ and the appointment, in early 1997, of FBI agent Daniel Coleman to this virtual outpost. Eighteen months later Coleman had mapped the then 93 members of the nascent Al-Qaeda and concluded that ‘this was a worldwide terror organization dedicated to destroying America’ (p. 6). It was, however, ‘too bizarre, too primitive and exotic’ (p. 6) to be taken seriously and Coleman, stuck in his C.I.A. backwater office, was finding it difficult even to get his superiors to return his calls.
The tale begins in earnest with the story of ‘The Martyr’, the Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb. More than any other, Wright gives Qutb (pronounced kuh-tub) the responsibility for setting the radicalization agenda and providing the ideological tools ‘that would echo in the ears of generations of young Muslims who were looking for a role to play in history’ (p. 30). He does this by plotting the radicalization of Qutb, via his encounters with Western materialistic hegemony in the U.S.A., through to his ‘earned martyrdom’ in 1966 at the end of an Egyptian noose ostensibly for writing a call for Muslim youth to ‘purify’ Islam (Qutb's book ‘Milestones’ is acknowledged as Al-Qaeda's manifesto).
Qutb's determination to embrace Islam and resist the ‘godlessness’ of America was vulcanized through torture, a theme returned to in successive accounts of the evolution of Al-Qaeda's founders from political resistance to terrorism, ‘the theme of humiliation, which is the essence of torture, is important to understanding the radical Islamists' rage’ (p. 52). This is especially true of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the founder of the Egyptian terror organization, Al-Jihad, and the intellect behind Al-Qaeda. The account of his torture and expulsion provides an apt simile for ‘the sobering new world of deliberate mass murder’ (p. 316) that he would help create. His internal struggles to re-write the politics of Egypt through Al-Jihad, which were met with personalized humiliation through torture and eventually expulsion from his homeland, were very much focussed on installing an Islamic government in Egypt. The turning point, from a local to a universal focus, is a measure of his rage, brought about by his personal experiences and his subsequent embrasure of takfiri doctrine (p. 123). The relatively small step of turning his people towards Islam was overshadowed by Zawahiri's thirst to see the universal restoration of ‘true Islam’, the movement that could deliver this was to be known as ‘Al-Qaeda’ and would be lead by Zawahiri and bin Laden.
The prominence of the bin Laden family, and finally of Osama bin Laden, in the politics of the Middle East and the rise of Al-Qaeda is explained in depth. The radicalization of bin Laden is examined and his journey from ‘not much of a political thinker’ to the leader of the global jihad is explained with reference to the events and personalities that touch his life. This is accomplished by a very detailed biography of bin Laden, gleaned through open source investigations and the personal recollections of those who know him. It becomes clear that bin Laden's strategy was to get America to follow in the footsteps of the Soviet Union and blunder into an internecine war where an umma, an army of Muslim holy warriors, could bleed them to death and spread their message through a revivified Islamic world, 9/11 was to be pivotal in this regard.
The Looming Tower closes with an account of the criminal investigation of Al-Qaeda and the part played by agent John O'Neill. It exposes the dysfunctional relationship between the security agencies (curiously prompted in law by rule 6E of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure—p.342) and the effect this had on O'Neill's decision to retire and take a job as Chief of Security at the World Trade Center. The final irony of O'Neill's death on 9/11 is illustrative of the sacrifice that was made because of the U.S. intelligence services' alleged posturing and interagency flagellation over the threat from Al-Qaeda.
The main text is 373 pages long and can be read quite quickly, the following 52 pages of ‘Principle Characters’ and ‘Notes’ help to illustrate why it took Wright five years to research this study, they are also a useful resource for recalling who's who in this detailed tale. The book ends with an exhaustive index, which makes for an excellent research tool. Everyone who wants to understand the underlying facts of the current ‘war on terror’ should read this book.
The Looming Tower has just won a book prize (in March 2007).
Incidentally, Lawrence Wright won the 2007 Lionel Gelber Prize for this book; it is awarded to the author of the world's best book on international affairs.
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