Getting Away with Murder : The Real Story Behind American Taliban John WalkerLindh and What the U.S. Goverment Had to Hide

Rating:
Summary: Put this one on your reading list.
Review: A premise of Richard Mahoney's "Getting Away With Murder" is that U. S. attorney cut a plea deal with "American Taliban," John Walker Lindh, at least in part because the U.S. government did not want a public airing of its illegal dealings with the Taliban. Mahoney's marshalling of the facts supports his premise.

The book starts in a fortress near Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, with Mike Spann and Dave Tyson, CIA paramilitary commandos, interrogating non-Afghan Taliban prisoners shortly before the prison riot that claimed Spann's life and ends with Lindh's sentencing hearing. Sandwiched in between these events, author Mahoney reviews how America has enabled - even sponsored - terrorism, the crusade of counterterrorist FBI agent John O'Neill, and the how Lindh arrived in Afghanistan.

Most of the allegations detailed in the book of governmental incompetence, too cozy U.S. government and specific public servants' relations with Saudi Arabia, its royal family and the Taliban have already found their way into the public consciousness. However, author Mahoney does an excellent job organizing the information in an interesting and coherent manner. More than 30 pages of notes follow.

Readers who refuse to acknowledge that those in the service of the public and the agencies they toil for make mistakes and do at least on occasion overstep, will dismiss this book. An open-minded reader will at moments believe author Mahoney has become overly critical and at other moments become angry about events detailed in the book. Conspiracy theorists will have a field day.

Overall, I found this book well worth the price and my time. My only real criticism is minor. I find a book more enjoyable when it includes pictures of the major figures and maps of the areas detailed in the book. Sadly, no pictures or maps are found in the book - at least not in the first edition.

Rating:
Summary: Great Read!
Review: I found this book spellbinding. Mahoney takes two ordinary lives before 9/11, that of Mike Spann (CIA paracommander) and John Walker Lindh (the American Taliban), and spins them into the web that the United States, the Soviets, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have been weaving for decades. Spann and Lindh will come face to face in Afghanistan, a meeting with a tragic ending, but what are the global circumstances that the world powers put into motion that led to this fateful rendezvous? Mahoney takes us into a historical perspective spelling out the wheeling and dealing that went into supporting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, the plan to build oil pipelines, the Saudis financing terrorists, and how the United States, rather than submit to an investigation that would reveal its duplicity and involvement, dropped nine out of ten charges against Lindh.

Rating:
Summary: WHO did "get away with murder"?
Review: Who "gets away with murder"?

This is a wonderful "read". Sketches of Mike Spann (CIA hero and casualty), Lindh (the American Taliban), and O'Neill (the terror expert who might have made the difference) grab the reader as much as a well documented discussion of the Bush administration's questionable role bargaining with the Taliban; responding ineffectually immediately after 9-11; screwing up their case against Lindh.

Given the total naiveté of young recruits sequestered in the Indian Ocean on ship and brainwashed about Saddam's role sponsoring 9-11 (a total myth), one might buy the notion that Lindh was a naïve, confused, idealist looking for clarity and Faith. Spann, a hero, may have been equally naïve and equally expendable to his government. War in Afghanistan was planned before 9-11 and the decision to attack Iraq was made in the first weeks of the Bush administration. The rest, as becomes increasingly clear, was "smoke and mirrors" (to put it kindly).

You can decide just who (several parties maybe) "got away with murder."

Any book on current events will prove to have some errors. Here, aside from a proof reader who uses the Buddhist 'sutra' for the Muslim 'surah' there are a couple worth mentioning. The evidence that George Bush before the Gulf War hoodwinked the Saudis and the public about the satellite photos showing immanent Iraqi invasion - to get their support and American bases in Saudi Arabia (a key critical bin Laden 'cause') - is now very convincing and includes satellite photos showing no such thing and the government's failure to produce or even show their evidence 'off the record.' Salafiya is not identical to Wahabism as is implied. Nevertheless the story is compelling, great reading, and makes one think.