Holy War Inc.
Craig P. Beatty
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Holy War Inc. Book Review
If you don 't know the difference between al-Qaeda and the Taliban (and before September 11 ‛01, I sure did not) or if you 're a little fuzzy about where Yemen is in relation to Afghanistan, this is an excellent book. Peter Bergen is CNN 's terrorism analyst and an experienced reporter. He uses a wide range of sources including his own experience to describe the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. There 's even a map of the Middle East that you can refer to as you read.
But those with some expertise in the world of the mindless jihad masters and the issuance of pretentious fatwas will find this rather limited, I would imagine. We don 't really get "Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden," but rather are provided with a narrative distilled from numerous news accounts augmented with Bergen 's interviews and travel experiences. Essentially, we stay outside the organization (but so did the CIA). Furthermore, Bergen 's "Holy War, Inc." characterization of al-Qaeda as a kind of multinational corporation is exactly the sort of catchy, but superficial and misleading designation that irritates the cognoscenti. Al-Qaeda does not turn a profit, nor does it look to turn a monetary profit. It exists on funds raised from charities, from donations from Muslim fat cat businessmen, from bin Laden 's inheritance and from funds siphoned from various commercial enterprises, both legal and illegal, and from what it can beg, borrow and steal. Bergen does emphasize the enormous wealth of this notorious figure’s family, which – as is well-known – has had various ties to the fortune of the Bush family. "By the mid-1990s, the bin Laden group of companies had grown into a colossus whose worth was estimated at $5 billion." This economic behemoth was "the distributor for Snapple drinks and Porsche and Volkswagen cars in the Middle East and is licensed by Disney to produce a wide range of Arabic books." Osama
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Holy War Inc. Book Review
If you don 't know the difference between al-Qaeda and the Taliban (and before September 11 ‛01, I sure did not) or if you 're a little fuzzy about where Yemen is in relation to Afghanistan, this is an excellent book. Peter Bergen is CNN 's terrorism analyst and an experienced reporter. He uses a wide range of sources including his own experience to describe the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. There 's even a map of the Middle East that you can refer to as you read.
But those with some expertise in the world of the mindless jihad masters and the issuance of pretentious fatwas will find this rather limited, I would imagine. We don 't really get "Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden," but rather are provided with a narrative distilled from numerous news accounts augmented with Bergen 's interviews and travel experiences. Essentially, we stay outside the organization (but so did the CIA). Furthermore, Bergen 's "Holy War, Inc." characterization of al-Qaeda as a kind of multinational corporation is exactly the sort of catchy, but superficial and misleading designation that irritates the cognoscenti. Al-Qaeda does not turn a profit, nor does it look to turn a monetary profit. It exists on funds raised from charities, from donations from Muslim fat cat businessmen, from bin Laden 's inheritance and from funds siphoned from various commercial enterprises, both legal and illegal, and from what it can beg, borrow and steal. Bergen does emphasize the enormous wealth of this notorious figure’s family, which – as is well-known – has had various ties to the fortune of the Bush family. "By the mid-1990s, the bin Laden group of companies had grown into a colossus whose worth was estimated at $5 billion." This economic behemoth was "the distributor for Snapple drinks and Porsche and Volkswagen cars in the Middle East and is licensed by Disney to produce a wide range of Arabic books." Osama
Cited: Bergen, Peter L. Holy war, Inc.: inside the secret world of Osama bin Laden. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. Huntington, Samuel P. "The Clash of Civilizations." 1993. Robert Farkasch. 15 Mar. 2010 . "Jihad." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 15 Mar. 2010 . "Opium." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. . "Politics, Terrorism, and the Sunni Divide." Foreign Policy Research Institute. Sept. 2009. Samuel Helfont. 15 Mar. 2010 . "Stop the Afghan Drug trade, stop terrorism." Forbes.com. 26 Feb. 2009. Rachel Ehrenfeld. 16 Mar. 2010 .