The Looming Tower

I just finished The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright. It starts off outlining the life and development of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian intellectual father of militant Islam. Qutb lived in the U.S. during the 1950’s and thought it was the most decadent place on earth. He took this view back to Egypt and spun out a medieval interpretation of Islam. This in turn influenced another fire-beard named Ayman al-Zawahiri, who started plotting to overthrow the government at age 15. Zawahiri went on to found al-Jihad, which based on the name you can pretty much guess what they did. Al-Jihad and Zawahiri had a John Hinkley/Jodie Foster type fascination with the government of Egypt.

As usually happens when you start pooping where others eat, Egypt soon became too hot for Zawahiri, so he fled to Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia he came across pious piss-ant named Osama bin Laden. About this time bin Laden, like a lot of other rich boys in the Muslim world, wanted to go play danger against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The bin Laden family’s connections to the royal family of Saudi Arabia allowed him to channel large amounts of money and aid to the mujahideen. One interesting factoid brought out in the book: The Arab fighters were largely worthless against the Soviets and the mujahideen couldn’t stand them. Also, bin Laden’s legend as a brave battlefield commander is myth he marketed and promoted. When the conflict ended bin Laden and a few other key players decided that liked playing adventure and wanted to continue jihading. After a lot of brainstorming they decided that the U.S. would make a good enemy and the elected bin Laden head of the club because he could swing the most money. Eventually Zawahiri merged al-Jihad with al-Qaeda because he ran out of money.

One of the most interesting concepts brought out in the book is the idea of takfir. Takfir is the intellectual fig leaf militant Islam uses to create its circular, adolescent nihilism. In short, takfir is the idea that it’s okay to kill infidels, and anyone that doesn’t think like you do is an infidel. For example, when an al-Qaeda member was being interrogated about the embassy bombing in Nairobi in 1998 he was asked how killing women and children could be justified. The bombing took place on a Friday, and the al-Qaeda member said that if the victims were good Muslims they would have been at the mosque and not where the bombing took place.

The book takes a lot of air out of the myth of al-Qaeda. What is painted as a worldwide network of legions of committed religious zealots is actually a very loose association of deranged sociopaths. Modern society has enabled their reach to exceed their grasp, and modern media tells the narrative of the image, not the substance. Over the years of its existence a lot of members have left. 9/11 did not result in hordes of the faithful joining the fight, as bin Laden had hoped. The ones that enter today have bought into a marketing campaign that would make B.F. Skinner and Madison Avenue blush. If you study the composition of cults al-Qaeda very much fits the pattern. Even without an academic analysis the book makes for compelling reading. It’s a measured, wide-ranging examination in a field of shallow understanding.

Ares