Rating: 
Summary: The Most Thorough Book On Religio-Facist Terrorism
Review: If you are interested in educating yourself on the subject of post-modern terrorism as it has come to be practiced by al Qaeda and other such groups and you wish to undertand the who, what, where, and why, without a political axe to grind; this is the book.This is a scholarly works that reads extraordinarily well. It also puts much of the confusion and unanswered questions about what happened in and to the United States over the past 13 years in to a picture of quite some clarity. Anyone who wishes to have an informed opinion about the events unfolding in the Middle East and who also wishes to make informed decisions regarding what the country's leaderhsip are doing will find this an indespensible read. The author's, finally someone did this, take the trouble to put the current threat in historical context.
Rating:
Summary: Get Smart
Review: If you want a book that will enable you to 'get smart' about the most salient security issue facing the world today, this is the book for you. On that score, I can't rate it highly enough. I found the Simon and Benjamin dealt with the subject matter in an informed and complex manner, yet the book was also very readable, accessible and immensely enjoyable. I felt that I was eavesdropping on discussions among those whose job it is to protect us from these apocalyptic warriors. This book covered the major themes in just the detail I wanted and needed: the history and context of where these Jihadists come from and what they want, want the Clinton and Bush Administrations (pre 9/11) did and did not do to fight the Jihadist threat, how making policy in such an unwieldy beast as the US Government is far more complex than most people give credit for and finally, what measures and changes are really needed to ensure our future protection. This book is a must have.
Rating: 
Summary: Real Life Horror Story
Review: In the first pages of "The Age of Sacred Terror," authors Benjamin and Simon, outdo Stephen King, enticing us into the bizarre and terrifying minds of Al Qaeda members and friends who celebrate murder in the name of heaven. The book provides necessary insights into these enemies of the civilized world, and also answers questions critical to American policy. Why do fanatical Islamists celebrate attacks on their enemies, even if they also result in the murder of innocents and children? Because they believe that the righteous innocents will go to heaven and be better off, and the apostates amongst them will deservedly go to hell. Would fanatical Islamists really use nuclear weapons on the United States if they had the opportunity? Yes. They would view it as a g-d-given victory. If we abandon Israel to destruction, and return to pre-World War II isolationism, will we buy peace for ourselves? No. We will assure World War III at some future time when our enemies have nuclear weapons and delivery systems. The world vision of fanatical Islamists is of a unitary Muslim world ruled by a single caliph. War to achieve that goal is acceptable. If you doubted whether or not we are truly in a war, and one which must be fought to total victory, you will have no doubt after reading this book. Regrettably, the authors meander off track for the middle 150 pages or so of the book, name-dropping and trying to assure us that they were the lone voices in the Clinton administration who understood the severity of the terrorist threat. And the final chapter pays silly obeisance to political correctness by reminding us that all people and religions can go astray - a legitimate sentiment, but for a different book. Still, the book provides a sad reminder that ruthless ideologues with dreams of world domination cannot be defeated with diplomacy alone.
Rating:
Summary: Get Smart
Review: Put simply, I loved this book. If you are looking for a book that will enable you to 'get smart' on the most salient strategic issue facing the western world today, then The Age of Sacred Terror is the book for you. I found this book to be authoritative, detailed and refreshingly complex but yet highly readable, understandable and enjoyable. As for 'getting smart', the Age of Sacred Terror enabled me to understand the root causes behind the Jihadists in their quest to conquer the world for their brand of Islam, eavesdrop on the Clinton Administration's fight against terror (and, sadly, against the law enforcement and intelligence bureaucracy as well as itself) and begin to appreciate what is truly required to ensure our future well-being. Be warned - don't read this book at your peril!
Rating:
Summary: Chickens coming home to roost...
Review: Still the best book I've read yet on fundimentalist Islamic terror. Note that Richard Clarke is a main character in the story, much admired by the authors for his intellegence and tenacity. Unfortunately, current events are tending to prove that the authors' more controversial assertions re the failures of the Bush Administration to heed Clarke's warnings may have been all to true.
Rating:
Summary: Everything we needed to know, and could have
Review: The Age of Sacred Terror tells us everything we needed to know about Al Qaeda immediately after 9/11. Which is, of course, everything we needed to know *before* 9/11. And it then turns out that we could have known just these facts before 9/11, that the authors and others were trying to tell us what this new threat was, and where it came from, and how it should change our international policy priorities and our domestic security aims. Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Simon were ideally placed in the Clinton administration's counterterrorism structure to acquire most of the knowledge the US government had about Al Qaeda and its ancestor organizations in the Middle East. They also have a thoroughly scholarly bent, and are able to summarize admirably the origins of a particular interpretation of one of the Five Pillars of Islam in the 12th century. It is this interpretation of what constitutes Jihad that informs Usama bin Laden's thought, and enables him to convert disaffected Muslims to his cause and to inspire them to dedicated and often successful acts of terror against civilian populations, which may include other Muslims. The history Simon and Benjamin tell is detailed, insightful, and fascinating. For those who had the acumen to look for patterns in the strategies of the organizations that preceded bin Laden's, it seems almost obvious what we should have expected from Al Qaeda at any time after the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, and certainly after the embassy bombings in 1998. But it only seems obvious because Simon and Benjamin expose the pattern superbly. Although the authors maintain a scholarly and balanced tone of voice throughout, they are never dry and they are often insightful. The authors move on, after describing Al Qaeda's first incursion onto American soil, and their succeeding, always more ambitious plots, to a thorough history of the efforts of the Clinton administration to deal with a threat they perceived remarkably well, considering they were working on the problem at least six years before the towers fell. Each of the organizations with major roles in the catastrophic failure of intelligence that was 9/11 is analyzed, and its successes and failures noted. The major personalities of the heads of these organizations are sketched insightfully, and both the powers they had and the constraints they worked under are scrutinized. Among the conclusions I drew is that America is paying an awful lot of money to enable our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to misprioritize their work and noncommunicate with each other. And Al Qaeda is still out there. This war has just begun, and all of us are soldiers in it, because we are civilians. Stateless terrorism knows it doesn't have to fight our armies to defeat us. If we missed the first announcement of the war, there is no longer any excuse to avoid meeting our enemy, and this book is an excellent place to start. It is impossible for me to imagine a better place to start.
Rating:
Summary: Everything we needed to know, and could have
Review: The Age of Sacred Terror tells us everything we needed to know about Al Qaeda immediately after 9/11. Which is, of course, everything we needed to know *before* 9/11. And it then turns out that we could have known just these facts before 9/11, that the authors and others were trying to tell us what this new threat was, and where it came from, and how it should change our international policy priorities and our domestic security aims. Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Simon were ideally placed in the Clinton administration's counterterrorism structure to acquire most of the knowledge the US government had about Al Qaeda and its ancestor organizations in the Middle East. They also have a thoroughly scholarly bent, and are able to summarize admirably the origins of a particular interpretation of one of the Five Pillars of Islam in the 12th century. It is this interpretation of what constitutes Jihad that informs Usama bin Laden's thought, and enables him to convert disaffected Muslims to his cause and to inspire them to dedicated and often successful acts of terror against civilian populations, which may include other Muslims. The history Simon and Benjamin tell is detailed, insightful, and fascinating. For those who had the acumen to look for patterns in the strategies of the organizations that preceded bin Laden's, it seems almost obvious what we should have expected from Al Qaeda at any time after the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, and certainly after the embassy bombings in 1998. But it only seems obvious because Simon and Benjamin expose the pattern superbly. Although the authors maintain a scholarly and balanced tone of voice throughout, they are never dry and they are often insightful. The authors move on, after describing Al Qaeda's first incursion onto American soil, and their succeeding, always more ambitious plots, to a thorough history of the efforts of the Clinton administration to deal with a threat they perceived remarkably well, considering they were working on the problem at least six years before the towers fell. Each of the organizations with major roles in the catastrophic failure of intelligence that was 9/11 is analyzed, and its successes and failures noted. The major personalities of the heads of these organizations are sketched insightfully, and both the powers they had and the constraints they worked under are scrutinized. Among the conclusions I drew is that America is paying an awful lot of money to enable our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to misprioritize their work and noncommunicate with each other. And Al Qaeda is still out there. This war has just begun, and all of us are soldiers in it, because we are civilians. Stateless terrorism knows it doesn't have to fight our armies to defeat us. If we missed the first announcement of the war, there is no longer any excuse to avoid meeting our enemy, and this book is an excellent place to start. It is impossible for me to imagine a better place to start.
Rating:
Summary: solid facts, no specific ideas
Review: The book offers a good, even if partisan, account of the American anti-terrorist activity. However, it leaves a different impression from what the authors probably attempted to achieve. Instead of appreciating the heroic struggle of American government with terrorism, the reader sees a patent account of bureaucratic stupidity, bizarre inefficiency and cheap ambitions governing the national defense policy. The book is a practical invitation to terrorists to act as they wish, a statement of inability to cope with a dynamic threat, virtually guaranteeing the impunity for perpetrators.
Rating: 
Summary: First half of the book is very good, second half not so
Review: The first half of this book I found very informative and interesting. The authors discuss the historical basis behind what bin Laden and those that agree with him believe and just why they claim to have a religous backing to their beliefs. It is not an indictment of Islam or a witch hunt, but a very informative discussion of the various interpretations of Islam over the thousands of years of its history. In particular, the authors discussion of Wahhabisim and why countries such as Saudi Arabia allow its existance, and even to some extent support it in order to legitimize their own repressive regimes.
The first half of the book is also very good in substantiating how long the US government has known about bin Laden and tracked his movement and his hatred of the United States, including prior attempts to organize terrorist attacks against US interests which culminated in the bombings of US embassies in Africa. Also very interesting is the authors discussion of the problems of institutional culture which permiated the FBI before September 11th and how it contributed to the lack of needed available information given to those in the CIA and in the Executive branch that were in a position to analyze it and act on it to stop attacks in America and against Americans abroad.
Unfortunately, the book suffers from major faults. Either through the lack of available documentation, or simple failure by the authors, much of their information is not documented other than by quotes from those in the Clinton adminstration, most notibly Sandy Berger. However, its left to the reader to simply believe these quotes and the information included in them, and support provided by the authors, is true.
The second half of the book while plausable, is problematic and ideologically driven. The authors, again using unsubstantiated quotes from Berger and others in the second Clinton administration, attempt to assert that the Bush administration did not take their repeated warnings about terrorism seriously, and therefore are at least in part responsible for allowing the September 11th attacks. Due to the fact that both of these authors, as well as the people they quote, were out of government, their assertions about what the Bush team did or did not do concerning terrorism and bin Laden in particular are dubious. The authors then go off the deep end, accusing the media and the US population of focusing too much on the scandles and lies of Bill Clinton and not what was important, terrorism. This part of the book makes one's eyes roll, it's totally unsubstantiated and reads like a political ideologically driven diatribe, not good solid scholarship that should be expected of these authors.
This book would have been much better had it simply been concluded with the end of the Clinton administration and their efforts to track bin Laden and supposed, undocumented, attempts to bring him to justice. While believable, and plausable, these assertions ultimately also fail due to lack of available documentation and evidence. Evidence which may or may not ever be available, and certainly won't be available for many years to come.
Rating:
Summary: Good account of Islamic Extremism
Review: This a well written book that traces some of roots as well as consequences of Islamic Extremism. It is rather long, but reads easily. It has a nice account of origins of Wahhabism, a concise Bin Laden bio, and the actions taken by terrorist cells in the past as well as their ambitions. The authors review what actions have been taken by security services, pointing out their inadequacies. This is a good first book to read about the topic, and in its substantive account will offer something to a reader already familiar with the topic.
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