Review: The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

The Looming Tower

I had bought this book so many years ago but I never ended up reading it. Finally loaned it from a library and what a book it is! By far one of the most interesting books I have read in recent times. I did know lot of things about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda through news channels, documentaries, and online articles. But this book starts right from the beginning of the thought which lead to the catastrophe of 9-11.

Author starts with Qutb from Egypt and his ‘exile’ to America, later his return to Egypt and his fight against Naseer and others. Many important characters from the Middle East are covered from Mubarak, to Saudis like Turki, Yemeni folks, Pakistan’s ISI heads etc.

What stands out the most in this book are two things. First, Osama bin Laden was not an outright success nor was he a trailblazer as he has been portrayed in the media to create a larger than life image of his. Yes, he did have decent money, and others pouring money into his enterprise in Afghanistan and elsewhere, but never was he beyond the control of political leaders, whether in Saudi Arabia or Yemen or Afghanistan. Not just that, even when Osama and the Saudi volunteers were fighting off the Soviets, they were not even doing anything to repel the off rather than lazying around and just going to the battlefield to claim that they engaged in guerilla warfare. There are countless funny anecdotes which make Osama and his brigade look like loonies who got inspired by prophetic sayings and wishful thinking. One specific episode is where they name themselves on the lines of being losers after a failed ‘mission’ to repel the Soviets. Even more glaring is the brainwashing of the youth which was done by Azzam who voiced utter garbage during Soviet invasion, stating that “mujahideen who defeated vast columns of Soviet troops virtually single-handedly”, “some fo the brave warriors had been run over by the tanks but survived; others were shot, but the bullets failed to penetrate”, “ambulance filled witht he sound of humming bees and chirping birds” when death came for the mujahids, “bodies of martyrs uncovered after a year in the grave still smelled sweet and their blood continued to flow”, “falling bombs were intercepted by birds”! If such nonsensical imaginative thinking can move low-IQ youth to move themselves to a country like Afghanistan to fight whatever they want to fight, there is only one thing to blame: lack of education. Author also explains some of the differences between Salafists, Wahhabists, and other practitioners of Islam.

Second is the massive and glaring failure of CIA to share important information with FBI regarding the hijackers and their meetings in Malaysia and other related information. I do remember seeing a slick web series about this and also lot of other articles covering this in the years after 2001. But this book delves into specifics and leaves you shocked how bureaucracy and ego clashes led to such critical information being not shared with the US-based agencies.

The only disappointment was the cover page which portrays Osama, Zawahiri, and the various plance hijackers. But in reality the scope of the book is way too larger than just 9-11. In fact, the whole preparation of 9-11 and the hijackers are not even covered until the last quartile of the book. Probably it was a commercial decision to have that cover as media frenzy was all about Osama and his acolytes back in the days and would have sold more copies that way rather than having some obscure faces like Qutb or Azzam or even Zawahiri.

This is a must-read book, though much has changed since 2006 when this book was published.

Review: The Weight of Sand by Edith Blais

This is an interesting book which sheds light on the risks of going adventure tripping to some parts of Africa which are besieged by Islamic extremism and anarchy. Edith had already spent a good number of years as a vagabond doing backpacking in U.S. and Canada. Edith hails from Quebec, Canada.

Her adventure becomes a nightmare when she heads to northern Africa and western Africa where she and her friend get kidnapped by Islamic terrorists. She documents her days and how they struggle to adjust to the tough life.

Unfortunately, the book is quite poorly written. The editor / publisher seem to have put in the least amount of effort to make the story in a smooth-flowing narrative. Chapters feel like summaries, ending abruptly, often without any objective at all. The most exciting part of the book is when Edith and her partner hatch and execute their plan to escape the kidnappers – that’s when you feel the adrenaline of the adventure.

I wish the publisher had shown some inclination to make this book more interesting. The last portion of the book, when Edith has been rescued, reads like a school-going kid writing excitedly about meeting a rock band. The crew who rescues Edith is ‘oh so kind, oh so funny, oh so concerned, oh so good, oh so goofy, oh so funny’. Damn!

Read this book as a light-hearted, poorly written, barely edited narrative of a young person’s adventure going wrong in the distant lands of Africa. It does give you a good insight however in the customs and cultures of the barbarians who captured and kidnapped Edith.

Review: The Silent Coup by Josy Joseph

A riot of conspiracy theories

There are conspiracy theories, and then there is Josy Joseph. His book Feast of Vultures was rooted in real stories, often backed by personal experience or sometimes even by facts. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about his latest book. Josy seems to have lost the plot when he treats his sources differently when they feed him ‘stories’ which suit his narrative and when they don’t. At the beginning of the book he mentions how the intelligence officers often feed false stories to journalists, and hence he mistrusts them to a great extent. But when these ‘stories’ suit his narrative, Josy readily accepts them and gleefully boasts of having access to ‘insider’ and ‘sinister’ plots which have been conjured up in the minds of the ‘evilest’ top-brass.

He raises questions about how Afzal Guru was an innocent bystander and was a scapegoat after the Parliament attacks of 2001. However, one only has to read Rahul Pandita’s book to get to the truth. Rahul has clearly presented the facts when he presents the links of Afzal Guru with these Islamic terrorists hiding in plain sight in Pakistan. But that’s too much to ask of Josy because he is clearly blinded by the blinkers.

Josy writes about how ‘hindu terror’ or ‘saffron terror’ was unearthed by NIA during UPA regime, and then posits this theory that because this does not suit BJP, all the accused were let go of lightly. Would, say, Sadhvi Pragya be so naive that she would use her own two-wheeler for carrying out attacks? But such simpleton questions would baffle Josy so he does not even bother to ask them.

He mentions in his book the chapter of Kasab and other terrorists attacking Mumbai on 26/11, but comfortably ignores how the stooges of Congress / UPA had released a book after 26/11 which claimed that 26/11 was an RSS plot! Josy, as expected, does not write a word about this. Not even a hint. Of course Josy won’t because when you have an agenda at the back of your mind, incovinient facts are to be ignored and brushed aside.

As per Josy, the two dozen or so intelligence agencies are an evil manifestation of bad State actors, who can’t think of anything else but to create havoc in the state. Josy, as would be apparent to the reader by now, is a typical journalist who sits in his ivory tower and keeps pointing out how the armed forces, police, politicians, intelligenc officers, informants are not only imperfect, but even conniving at each breath on how to fool the public, the journalists, and the world at large. One would infer from Josy’s criticism, that when a terrorist enters Kashmir with a gun, the military should present the law book to the terrorist, outling what the terrorist’s rights and duties are. And in case the terrorist crosses the line, which would be a rare occasion as per Josy, then the military should take recourse in the laws of the land and go through a ‘proper’ process through the judiciary.

I am glad that people like Josy are confined to the journalistic world, having no real-world experience dealing with terrorists, gangsters, anti-nationals etc. Because only the theorists and purists can revel in their own utopian principles of ethics, equality, and kindness. It is because of this parasite called “fourth pillar” that India as a country has been weakened from the inside, like a moth-infested beam. It is not journalism but disguised-journalism that is the real enemy of India. What exactly are these so-called journalists upholding? If India fails to avert a terrorist attack, these journalists gleefully roast the security establishment and political masters of being a failure; but when the security establishment / politicians are able to nip terrorism in the bud, these ‘journalists’ smell a fish and suspect foul-play.

My disgust for journalism and especially the holier-than-thou attitude of those in this ‘establishment’ has grown by leaps and bounds over the years. Noam Chomsky could not make an iota of a difference in this world for a reason. Arundhati Roy likes to go on ‘explorative naxal’ trips and then write books and articles but cannot dent an inch of the government, and that’s like this for a reason. And the reason is that these people and ‘thinkers’ are stuck in their textbooks of ethics and morality. They scored 90% percentage in their written exams and think they can change the world and fight the enemy based on their 90% score! Welcome to the real world, folks!

I would not recommend this book as it is full of hypotheses, fact-less pronouncements, personal disgust, political agenda, and even laughable, if not derisive, conjectures. His first book was way better, but somewhere Josy seems to have lost it. I will wait till he veers back to the track.

Review: The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur by Rahul Pandita

“Lover Boy”

Rahul Pandita is someone you can trust as a journalist. His previous books were on the Maoist insurgency in India (which, essentially, is tribals fighting for their own lands against an usurping State), also called Naxalism.

To call Umar Farooq a “lover boy” is a stretch of imagination: he neither has the looks nor the persona. But appearances belie true colours. This Umar (aka Idrees bhai) was the ‘mastermind’ behind the Pulwama attacks. He already was involved with multiple girls in Kashmir, and hence the monicker “lover boy”.

Pandita’s book is quite detailed in how it deals with history of Kashmir, especially the 80s and 90s, which saw increased cross-border support for terrorism from Pakistan and different groups fighting amongst themsleves in Kashmir for dominance and legitimacy. The book gives a detailed account of how intelligence operatives develop their sources in a troubled region like Kashmir, and what all entails finding clues to solve a case. It’s a cat-and-mouse game.

Pandita also proves another important point, which the blind left-wing bigots have not been able to accept: the link of Afzal Guru with the Parliament attacks.

I would recommend this book for various reasons: the inside sources the author has developed and the information that is presented in the book; the operations of intelligence operatives and how they crack a case; the risks the intelligence community takes to take on these terrorists; the operational details of various counter-attacks and neutralizing operations conducted in Kashmir by Indian forces; the riveting details of the 2019 Pulwama attack and the ‘luck by chance’ that lead to the unearthing the people behind it.

A well written book which focuses on the essentials: the language is not flowery or sophisticated, but who needs these when there is a bearded, fat, ‘lover boy’, eh?