Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America

I read "Through Our Enemies' Eyes" while on active duty with the Nevada National Guard in the Middle East. I have spent eight years in this part of the world, and Anonymous has pegged the viewpoint of many people in this region concerning the United States and Osama Bin Laden. Opinion here isn't uniform--but the United States is seen as an outsider. Osama Bin Laden is not a new type of threat. The Assassin cult in this area was also a stateless movement promoting religious conformity to an ideal--and may have been the force that ended the Islamic empire. Then there was another stateless movement of anarchists, the Terrorists, about 100 years ago. The most successful movement went from stateless to world superpower during the period 1830 to 1990--yes, those Cold War foes of the West, the Communists. The Communists were very much a stateless organization until after the Russian Revolution. Once they established themselves as a national government, the threat of Communism changed. That's why Trotsky was murdered in Mexico--he was trying to export revolution the "old fashioned way" like Bin Laden is doing now. Problem: having a homeland means being a target. Stalin had to kill Trotsky in order to save the Soviet Union. I have purchased several copies of this book as gifts for friends and relatives still serving in military and government office because this is an important book for their professional bookshelves. My one reservation is that the threat posed by Bin Laden's organization (and the greater threat posed by Bin Laden as a symbol) (and the even greater threat of American myopia) is that Bin Laden is not really something new or different. The author may have chosen to portray Bin Laden as "new" because the current American government mindset--the one that foundered in Vietnam--blinds us to reality in the modern world.

This is undoubtedly the finest book on Bin Laden/Al Qaeda out of the countless I have read over the last several years. It is concise, clear, and absolutely terrifying as it makes clear that Al Qaeda is led by an able and charismatic genius who has been able to gather and focus the Muslim world's collective hatred of the United States and our one-sided foreign policy. The thrust of this treatise is simple. Al Qaeda is smarter than we are (they don't have to win elections and they are not beholden to special interests), they are tougher than we are (aren't you afraid to die?), and they don't care how long it takes to win (Allah is infinitely patient and will be pleased with victory whenever it comes - why does my microwave dinner take so f* & * & %$#$ long to heat up?). What I found most compelling is that the book is HEAVILY footnoted, quoting Muslim clerics, bin Laden, and other relevant Muslims. So, in other words, it is not some pedantic, crusty white guy lecturing me about why Al Qaeda is evil; rather it is Al Qaeda telling me in their words why they hate me and why they are going to kill me and how all of that is supported by the Koran and driven forward by the ridiculous and inarguably anti-Muslim foreign policy of this, our once great and now downward-trending country. Whew, what a book. And what a world we live in.

This is by far the best of the countless books on Bin Laden (and there are a lot of them...) The author really knows what he is talking about, and since most of it was written BEFORE 9/11 that fact shows all the more why this is so important for every person to read. There is no fancy theorising in this book, and the author also shows that bin Laden really is religious in his motivation - it is his warped interpretation of Islam that is behind all this, and not some ludicrous notion of people hating us for our freedoms. Read it and be truly well informed on the present crisis. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ (Carroll and Graf, 2004) and CHRISTIANS MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)

There's so much literature about bin Laden, al-Qaeda, etc. that I just don't even bother to get myself involved in it. I had picked up this book, thinking, it was going to read like the Pentagon Papers and just give me a bad headache. I was wrong. Instead, I found that Anonymous gave insightful information and different angles on the subject. It's about reality and less hocus pocus. S/he showed parts of the situation I never explored or even bothered to care about. S/he is very descriptive without getting wordy or over-exaggerated and gets to the meat of it. This author talks/discusses with you and not over/at you. It's simple, short but descriptive enough to read. You don't need to know the complete, in-depth history of x, y, or z. It's a nice quick reference book about bin Laden: from his education to the Taliban connection and Muslim point of view. I actually want to learn more and answer the questions that the book brought up and the ones I've made as well.Anonymous precisely focuses on the topic and rarely strays from it. You know what s/he will be talking about in every chapter. Within each chapter, there are also subdivisions and headings that tell you what s/he will be discussing. S/he really zeroes in specifically and makes sure that it's not confusing. The break up of the chapter helps make it more focused and I didn't get as lost at all.Another really helpful bit is the complete index and reference page at the end of the book as well as a short glossary of terms that may be unfamiliar. S/he also emphasizes certain points to the reader to make sure we don't start jumping to conclusions. I'd suggest reading the author's note to the glossary.I found that Anonymous mostly asking the reader to have an open mind and keep things in perspective. S/he made a point about the media representations by US/West and bin Laden's own propaganda in MidEast. I think s/he did his best to give a picture of both sides. S/he uses quotes from many resources and wants the reader to judge for him/herself what it means. Anonymous makes sure that when quoting, the reader understands who, what, where, why, when of the quotes and it's not just some quote from somewhere. It's quite easy to be biased and I hope people will give this great book a chance. Some people may be put off by the fact that the book doesn't put the US/West in a 'pretty light', but the Author also shows the violence/illusions of bin Laden as well. Neither parties are saints. One of the most important points Anonymous brings up is the fact that, at one time or another, we (US or Western civ, etc) held the same beliefs and passions of bin Laden. That in the end, we (humans) are all the same. You may not agree or like it, but it's one angle of reality that cannot be ignored because ignorance only festers more ignorance.

After reading numerous books by so-called "terrorism experts," I was worried that the bookshelves would sadly fill with ill-informed literary diarrhea about one of today's most important issues. This book, however, provides a refreshing and skillful account of the rise of bin Ladin and Sunni extremism. Unlike other authors who churn out manuscripts with little substantive experience in the matter on which they are writing, the author obviously works in the intelligence community on counterterrorism issues. Most other books about bin Ladin are nothing more than a collection of warrants and press clippings, but this book provides substantive analysis of bin Ladin's pinnacle role in the rise of global terrorism. This is by far the best book I have read on the subject and I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to have a better understanding of what the country was facing prior to September 11, 2001. It also provides an alarming look at the current threat posed by al-Qaeda and Sunni extremist elements. If you want an uplifting book about how the U.S. Government safely has its hands around the issue of terrorism, this is not the book for you. If you want to learn about what the country is facing and how menacing and developed this new adversary really is, this is the book for you. It is written for the average reader, it is not an academic opus for the over-educated.