Sunday, November 18, 2007

The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

Named one of the 10 best non-fiction books of 2006 by the New York Times (those hippy bastards), the Looming Tower paints a fairly thorough history of Al Qaeda up to September 11, 2001. Going into this book, all I knew was that Al Qaeda was evil and wanted to kill all my future babies. Upon completion, I now consider myself far more versed on Al Qaeda than anyone in the Bush administration (I probably was beforehand as well). This book traces Al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism back to Egyptian Sayyid Qutb who, after living for some time in a quiet suburban town in Colorado during the 1950s, called for jihad (I'm surprised Michael Moore didn't mention this in Bowling for Columbine because it supports his hypothesis that suburban Colorado creates fucked up people). It then talks about living in caves and a contractor named Bin Laden who ultimately make a very expected attack on the United States in 2001. The book claims Bin Laden and Al Qaeda attacked the United States because of the US presence in the mid-East. However, we all know the real reason, as Rudy Guiliani best puts it: "They attacked us for our freedom." A very good book if you are willing to tolerate the discrepancies between Wright and the Christian Right.

Completed sometime in October

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