Book Description
Now the inspiration for the CBS Television drama, "The Unit."
Delta Force. They are the U.S. Army's most elite top-secret strike force. They dominate the modern battlefield, but you won't hear about their heroics on CNN. No headlines can reveal their top-secret missions, and no book has ever taken readers inside—until now. Here, a founding member of Delta Force takes us behind the veil of secrecy and into the action-to reveal the never-before-told story of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-D (Delta Force).
Inside Delta Forece
The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit
He is a master of espionage, trained to take on hijackers, terrorists, hostage takers, and enemy armies. He can deploy by parachute or arrive by commercial aircraft. Survive alone in hostile cities. Speak foreign languages fluently. Strike at enemy targets with stunning swiftness and extraordinary teamwork. He is the ultimate modern warrior: the Delta Force Operator.
In this dramatic behind-the-scenes chronicle, Eric Haney, one of the founding members of Delta Force, takes us inside this legendary counterterrorist unit. Here, for the first time, are details of the grueling selection process—designed to break the strongest of men—that singles out the best of the best: the Delta Force Operator.
With heart-stopping immediacy, Haney tells what it's really like to enter a hostage-held airplane. And from his days in Beirut, Haney tells an unforgettable tale of bodyguards and bombs, of a day-to-day life of madness and beauty, and of how he and a teammate are called on to kill two gunmen targeting U.S. Marines at the Beirut airport. As part of the team sent to rescue American hostages in Tehran, Haney offers a first-person description of that failed mission that is a chilling, compelling account of a bold maneuver undone by chance—and a few fatal mistakes.
From fighting guerrilla warfare in Honduras to rescuing missionaries in Sudan and leading the way onto the island of Grenada, Eric Haney captures the daring and discipline that distinguish the men of Delta Force.
Inside Delta Force brings honor to these singular men while it puts us in the middle of action that is sudden, frightening, and nonstop around the world.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
wisdom in defeat and humility in victory.......2007-07-12
David Mamet, in my edition of this book, now more than three years old, long before 'The Unit' came along, writes at the beginning:
"The great military novels have about them an ineffable air of sadness. [They] seem, both in scenes of combat and in the scenes of rest, depictions of a life heightened to the plateau of regret, longing, and loss. The great military memoirs, similarly, are a record of loss and its transmutation into compassion. [...] in Eric Haney's Inside Delta Force, we are welcomed into the curious, moving and persuasive philosophy of the soldier trying to find wisdom in defeat and humility in victory."
It's a comment that reflects the spirit of the contents, and which ultimately translates into the very cool TV series based on the book. I also admit, quite without shame that the characters of 'Phantom Strike Team' in my novel 'Fontaine' were definitely inspired by this account, which I found fascinating and quite un-put-downable; much like Michael Durant's 'In The Company of Heroes'.
I have no idea how 'real' and 'true' the things depicted here are, because I have no real evidence to back up whatever I believe. However, I would like to think--possibly wishfully, but why not?--that Orwell's 'rough men [who] stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm' aren't just a bunch of thugs, who just like to shoot people, but that they are like those guys; that they are grounded and have a sense of purpose, and that Mamet's comments are on the mark.
Again, without evidence for the 'truth', whatever that may be, I cannot tell; but I choose to think that Haney has done more than just show them in the best light; that even in the harsh light of day, it all basically holds true.
How Delta Came to Be.......2007-07-09
I read a few other reviews of this book before buying it and find they were accurate. Haney tells about how Delta force came to be in interesting detail. The people that submit themselves to the Selection process really can only truly truly want the job. If you watch or have seen any episodes of "The Unit" you can see where story plot lines came from, but don't expect any detailed past mission stories.
Excellent book........2007-06-08
As usual, the same excellent quality and service that I have come to expect from Amazon. Book was great and recommend it to anyone thats interested in this type of stuff. Great compliment to "The Unit".
Best 1st Person Spec.Ops. Account I have Read to Date.......2007-05-19
I initially was drawn to this book after seeing it credited as the inspiration for CBS's drama "The Unit". (I'm a sucker for marketing, huh?) This book was to be the first in a long line of military non-fiction works that I read recently and for me it's still one of the best. Haney isn't the GREATEST writer in the world but his style works well for the subject matter at hand and thankfully lacks some of the irritating macho-ness that plagues many other ex-military authors. What made the book great for me was the fact that because Haney was a recruit in Delta as opposed to one of the organizers, there is a sense of mystery and the unknown as he chronicles his progress through Selection and his early days in the unit. I also read Charlie Beckwith's book on Delta and thought this was the better read. The only thing I didn't like about the book was that Haney retired so many years ago that you are left wanting to know more about current ops, but that's not a criticism of the book itself, simply a lament on my part. Overall I'd highly recommend this to anyone interested in learning more about what drives these incredible individuals.
Excellent book. .......2007-05-18
Great read. I spent 28 years in the Army, many of them at Bragg and retired in 2003. Mr Mercer's comments about what he believes are fact and fiction as it pertains to the contents of this book are inaccurate and I would recommend he go back and do his research correctly this time.
Book Description
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind takes you deep inside America's real battles with violent, unrelenting terrorists -- a game of kill-or-be-killed, from the Oval Office to the streets of Karachi.
You may think you know what the "war on terror" is.
But to know it truly, you must read this book.
Suskind has written a riveting work of narrative nonfiction, filled with exclusive, historically significant disclosures that will echo across America and the world.
What is the guiding principle of the world's most powerful nation as it searches for enemies at home and abroad? The One Percent Doctrine is the deeply secretive core of America's real playbook: a default strategy, designed by Dick Cheney, that separates America from its moorings, and has driven everything -- from war in Afghanistan to war in Iraq to the global search for jihadists.
The story begins on September 12, 2001, the day America began to gather itself for a response to the unimaginable. Ultimately, that reply would shape the nation's very character.
Suskind tells us what actually occurred over the next three years, from the inside out, by tracing the steps of the key actors -- the notables, from the President and Vice President to George Tenet and Condoleezza Rice, who oversee the "war on terror" and report progress to an anxious nation; and the invisibles, the men and women just below the line of sight, left to improvise plans to defeat a new kind of enemy in an hour-by-hour race against disaster. The internal battles between these two teams -- one, under the hot lights; the other, actually fighting the fight -- reveal everything about what America faces, and what it has done, in this age of terror.
Who is actually running U.S. foreign policy? Is there an operational cell, armed with WMDs, inside the United States? Have some of the world's most dangerous terrorists -- including leaders of al Qaeda -- been caught and accidentally released? Can America prevail in this struggle against enemies who are patient, ingenious, certain, and have clear tactical advantage?
With his unparalleled access to senior officials, past and present, Ron Suskind -- author of The Price of Loyalty, the most revealing book yet written on the Bush administration -- finally answers the questions that keep Americans awake at night.
And in this startling book, he reframes the debates that roil the globe.
Customer Reviews:
Inaccurate information makes conclusions suspect.......2007-09-20
The present administration misled the american public regarding the presence of weapons of mass distruction (WMD) in Iraq.
Suskind alleges that George Tenent, former chief of CIA, knew nothing about the misrepresentation. This seems to be incorrect.
This inaccurate reporting makes other conclusions Suskind reaches suspect as well.
Fascinating.......2007-09-06
As someone who originally supported the Iraq war, I very much appreciate this book. It's insightful and engaging, well-researched and thoughtfully written. If you're undecided or lean toward the conservative and want to hear a good anti-war argument (as well as an analysis of the state of the government and its intelligence or lack thereof) that isn't just empty mud-slinging or hoaky conspiracy theories, then I highly recommend this book.
A strong book about what were facing in the post 911 world........2007-09-04
I'd recommend this book for anyone who wants to find out how the internal dynamics of the Bush WhiteHouse operate in the post-911 world. The author also gives us a better understanding of what our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are also having to face in the post-911 world. If the author is right and I think he is in many regards we are not really much safer now than we were on September 10th, and Al Qaeda is poised to strike again. I recommend that anyone interested in this title also read the 911 Commission Report.
AmBUSHED.......2007-08-28
Suskind makes a strong case that being smart doesn't mean you can't be president. After reading The One Percent Doctrine and another Suskind book, The Price of Loyalty about Paul O'Neill, I am more than ever convinced that we have a C- GPA graduate of Yale in the White House and we deserve what we get.
So much for exchanges of opinion in the Oval Office. I must say, however, that Suskind has done a thorough job of researching the way policy is adopted and implemented, even though Cheney comes out looking like the mad Rasputin.
I recommend you read The Price of Loyalty because this time, it GETS PERSONAL with Paul O'Neill and puts the frosting on Bush's obvious mantra, "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with the facts."
Signed,
Ashamed Utah Republican
Mostly Blowing Smoke.......2007-07-26
Unlike some other reviewers, I found this book unfocused and lacking a central theme. It bounces all over time and the world without tying the pieces together.
Perhaps I am just naive and unimaginative in not identifying Bush bashing and Cheney chasing as a good central basis for a largely fictional plot.
That is the other great problem with this book. I guess Suskind is trying to copy Bob Woodward in writing a tell all book without identifying source material. If you compare his description of supposedly secret events with his with the author's index, there is little correlation. Suskind attributes his sources as "Many former officials with the CIA, the FBI, the White House" and others in the US government. But we accept the claims of an author who seems to have such a political bias?
If you are a committed Bush hater, the answer is obviously yes. This must be great reading and confirms what you have suspected all along.
For those who might be interested in having a more solid feel to the information you are reading, this book will be disappointing.
Book Description
My Year Inside Radical Islam is a memoir of first a spiritual and then a political seduction. Raised in liberal Ashland, Oregon, by parents who were Jewish by birth but dismissive of strict dogma, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross yearned for a religion that would suit all his ideals. At college in the late nineties he met a charismatic Muslim student who grounded his political activism with thoughtful religious conviction. Gartenstein-Ross reflects on his experience of converting to Islam-a process that began with a desire to connect with both a religious community and a spiritual practice, and eventually led him to sympathize with the most extreme interpretations of the faith, with the most radical political implications.
In the year following graduation, Gartenstein-Ross went to work for the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a charity dedicated to fostering Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia's austere form of Islam-a theological inspiration for many terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda. Shortly after he left al-Haramain-when his own fan-aticism had waned-the foundation was charged by the U.S. government as being a source of funds for terrorist organizations. Gartenstein-Ross, by this time a lawyer at a prominent firm, volunteered to be questioned by the FBI. They already knew who he was.
The story of how a good faith can be distorted and a decent soul can be seduced away from its principles, My Year Inside Radical Islam provides a rare glimpse into the personal interface between religion and politics.
Customer Reviews:
Liked Islam, then found Jesus.......2007-10-10
I thought this book was going to be great, because the first page was so interesting; but, with the exception of one or two compelling details about Islam, it was all downhill from there. College boy gets involved with Islam, then finds Jesus. Borrrrrrrrrr-ing. If you think you can take another "Why I Accepted Jesus Christ As My Personal Savior" monologue, go ahead and read it.
My Year Inside Radical Islam.......2007-10-01
"My Year Inside Radical Islam" is an autobiography of the author's spiritual journey from his upbringing in a liberal Jewish-hippy family, to his conversion to moderate Islam and subsequent movement into radical Islam, to his conversion to Christianity. I couldn't put it down. The book is fascinating and reads like a novel.
Radical Writing.......2007-08-03
It's seldom that one comes across such a ground-breaking book. I was very impressed at David's story, and how realistically he writes it. He completely captured the nuances of characters and conversations, and I felt like I was there in the room with him. Yes, he has an unfortunate tendency to telegraph his foreshadowing too much, in every chapter ending with a "little did I know". But this is outweighed by an amazing story, one that is simply too unbelievable to be true.
But I know it to be true from my studies of Islam. Everything he writes about I have come across in different degrees, in different Muslims. Further, David graduated from the same high school as me but five years later, and was part of the same debate team under Mr. Treadway, leading Ashland High to debate glory for two decades. It was simply amazing (and rather eery) to read about the town I spent so much time in, as David described a radical Islamist cell there, masquerading under the guise of peace, in the midst of Lithia Park, Immigrant Lake, and the South I-5 exit. (Though I'm not sure what he means by calling Amazon a "hippie town"- the liberal bastion of Southern Oregon, famed for it's arts and world-famous Shakespearean Festival.) I know David is speaking truth because I've been to the places he talks of, and I've met people just like those he worked with.
This story is a search for spiritual enlightenment, and a commentary on the brave new world we now live in. For all those who blindly reject Muslims without understanding where they're coming from, this book is a must-read. For all those who think Islam is a religion of peace, because some Imam has once told them that name of the religion means "peace"- this book is for you. If you want to be enlightened by someone who has lived the dream and the nightmare of radical Protestant Islam, of someone who has the bravery, integrity, and the authority to speak on the subject, you have come to the write book.
Not So Much Inside as On the Fringes.......2007-05-03
It is more accurate to characterize this as a memoir of the author's flirtation with radical Islam: a flirtation that burgeoned over the course of a year or so but really blossomed only for the three months he worked for an Ashland foundation dedicated to the spread of Wahhabism. The book starts with the author recounting a New Age spiritual upbringing dedicated more to seeking spiritual fulfillment than to living with answers once they're found. When he drifts into Islam, he finds himself drawn to the idea of an end to the quest for answers: the more fundamentalists he hangs out with, the more decisions he finds God has already made for him. But as he competes with his co-religionists for the honor of being considered the most orthodox, he finds his increasingly rigid life and attitudes at odds with his freewheeling and liberal upbringing. He begins drifting away from the fundamentalist life as soon as he leaves employment at the foundation. Eventually he converts to Christianity.
This book is most useful as a candid autobiography of one man's spiritual quest and the dead end it nearly reached in fundamentalism. The author describes the increasing conservatism of his mindset during his weeks at the foundation with objectivity and plausibility. As the author remarks, this mindset is important to understand, because it contradicts both liberal and conservative dogma about what motivates America's Islamist enemies.
But those who hope for a real look "inside radical Islam" will be disappointed, as this is much more a personal account than a journalistic one. For the real "inside" of radical Islam, we would have to look substantially farther east than the liberal enclave of Ashland, Oregon. The title oversells the book, but it is a quick read and besides its value as the account of one callow youth's spiritual journey, it will be useful to any reader with traditional assumptions about why the Islamists fight.
How to make "radical" Islam boring in 280 agonizing pages.......2007-04-27
Don't bother with this one, there are about 8000 other better books about Islam. Gartenstein-Ross is a terrible writer who uses lame shortcuts and hackneyed techniques that would earn him a D- in English 101 at any junior college. On top of that, his story is unremarkable. His ties to "radical Islam" are weak and insignificant, and the bulk of the book is dedicated to him whining about the unbearable distress of a faith-hopping Ashland trustafarian. At any other point in history, this lifeless story never would have made it out of Gartenstein-Ross's diary.
Book Description
Babbin details how the United Nations actively pursues anti-American policies and appeases America's enemies, while being largely funded by $3 billion worth of annual American dues. After revealing the depth of rampant corruption in the UN, Babbin concludes that it is time to recognize the changes in Old Europe and redesign America's alliances that line up with America's national interests.
Customer Reviews:
Babbin ain't liken.......2007-03-25
Although I basically liked this book.It definitely has a right leaning attitude.
Inside the Asylum.......2007-03-12
I enjoyed reading this eye-opening book from start to finish. The exposure of the UN's corruption and anti-American bias was disturbing but is also something all Americans should understand, especially when our misguided politicians insist we need UN approval to defend ourselves. Mr. Babbin also provided an in-depth review of the duplicity in those European countries who 'pretend' to be our friends and allies but who are anything but, especially France and Jacques Chirac.
I strongly recommend this book. It is an easy-to-read and understand book which is both educational and enjoyable reading, written by someone who has been close to the action and knows from whereupon he speaks.
Don McGowan
Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse Than You Think.......2007-01-09
Corruptness, mismanagement, self-intrest and anti-Americanism are what we get for our billions of dollars spent for this bad endeavor. We all know it is bad, but should read this book to get the whole story that the media won't tell us.
An asylum run by the inmates........2006-12-14
If you ever wonder if the U.S. should leave the UN, read this book and you will have the answer.
In case you do not know enough about the UN to make form an opinion, read this book.
It should be required reading for Congress and the Executive Branch.
Time to get out.......2006-10-14
Like many ideas, the desire to set up a structure such as the UN was probably well-motivated and a legitimate concept at the time. But a strong argument can be made that the UN no longer serves its original purpose, and may in fact be acting against its founding ideals.
That is certainly the case being made by Jed Babbin, a leading American national security analyst. He argues that the UN has become a moribund, corrupt, biased and bloated bureaucracy which does little to promote the good of the world, but much to support tyrants, dictators and leftwing causes, as well as its own longevity.
When the UN was formed in 1945, it had some laudable aims. But also built into the original UN charter were some glaring defects, argues Babbin. The first error was to apply the doctrine of the equality of all men to nations. But not all nations are equal. Dictatorships, terrorist states, and Communist states are simply not on a par with free, democratic states.
Another problem is that "any nation, pseudo-nation, or thugocracy such as Iran under the mullahs" can be a member of the UN. This makes the whole exercise of peacekeeping and the promotion of human rights become counterproductive.
And the lack of accountability and a system of checks and balances makes the UN answerable to no one. Thus the opportunities for mismanagement and corruption are many.
Indeed, the Oil-for-Food scandal is a classic case in point. This debacle has yet to fully see the light of day, but we do know that the UN was implicitly involved in this. Indeed, UN officials provided Saddam Hussein with the means to "bribe politicians, to deprive his people of needed food and medicine, and to literally steal billions of dollars".
Not only was this the biggest financial scandal of the UN, much of the money siphoned off ended up lining the pockets of UN bureaucrats, along with various politicians.
The UN has been especially impotent to deal with terrorism. But worse than that, it has tended to side with the terrorists and tyrants over-against he US and much of the West. The democratic members of the UN seek to abide by its resolutions, but rogue states regularly flaunt them. By routinely cooperating with terrorists, the UN is not making the world a safer and more peaceful place, says Babbin.
He argues that reform of the UN is probably impossible, and the wisest course for the US may be to simply pull out altogether. Indeed, given that is directly and indirectly pumps around $7 billion a year into the UN (being its largest benefactor), and gets nothing but grief and hostility in return, that may not be a bad option.
Babbin says a coalition of like minded states could seek to do what the UN was meant to do, but has been unable or unwilling to do. Such a proposal may or may not be workable. But to stay in a system that has proven to be a failure is certainly not the way to proceed.
Other books have been recently written making a similar case to Babbin's. But if just one volume is to be consulted, this would be a good starting place indeed.
Amazon.com
The word "terrorism" first became popular during the French Revolution, when the régime de la terreur was initially viewed as a positive political system that used fear to remind citizens of the necessity of virtue. The use of violence to "educate" people about ideological issues has continued, but it has taken on decidedly negative connotations--and has become predominantly, though not exclusively, a tactic deployed by those who do not have the powers of state at their disposal.
Bruce Hoffman, the director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, has written a clear summary of some of the major historical trends in international terrorism. He makes careful distinctions between the motivations that drive political (or ethno-nationalist) terrorism and religious terrorism, and he also shows why the rise of religious terrorism, coupled with the increased availability of weapons of mass destruction, may foretell an era of even greater violence. In the past, Hoffman argues, the main goal of the terrorist was not to kill, but to attract media attention to his cause in the hope of initiating reform. "For the religious terrorist," however, "violence is first and foremost a sacramental act or divine duty executed in direct response to some theological demand or imperative ... religious terrorists see themselves not as components of a system worth preserving but as 'outsiders,' seeking fundamental changes in the existing order." Hoffman does not "choose sides" in this framework, pointing to the bombings of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City and to the sarin nerve gas attacks in Tokyo in order to demonstrate that fundamentalists of any religious denomination are capable of extreme acts of terrorism.
Book Description
Bruce Hoffman's Inside Terrorism has remained a seminal work for understanding the historical evolution of terrorism and the terrorist mindset. In this revised edition of the classic text, Hoffman analyzes the new adversaries, motivations, and tactics of global terrorism that have emerged in recent years, focusing specifically on how al Qaeda has changed since 9/11; the reasons behind its resiliency, resonance, and longevity; and its successful use of the Internet and videotapes to build public support and gain new recruits. Hoffman broadens the discussion by evaluating the potential repercussions of the Iraqi insurgency, the use of suicide bombers, terrorist exploitation of new communications media, and the likelihood of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear terrorist strike.
Closer to home, Hoffman reconsiders the Timothy McVeigh case and the threats posed by American Christian white supremacists and abortion opponents as well as those posed by militant environmentalists and animal rights activists. He argues that the attacks on the World Trade Center fundamentally transformed the West's view of the terrorist threat. More relevant and necessary than ever, Inside Terrorism continues to be the definitive work on the history and future of global terrorism.
Customer Reviews:
Terrorism - the heart of the matter..........2007-08-04
I picked up Bruce Hoffman's book at the suggestion of an associate who knew of my interest in history and influences therein. Mr. Hoffman's experience and understanding have produced a treatment on the mind of the terrorist and terrorist organizations - both domestic and foreign - that is, in my opinion, unmatched. INSIDE TERRORISM will hold a permanent place in my library, and receives my highest recommendation.
Other Suggest Reading:
Ku Klux Klan America's First Terrorists Exposed (Shadow History of the United States)
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
analyzes the political tactics of terrorism.......2007-02-07
I found this book to be quite enlightening as well as facinating to read. Refusing to engage in the political rhetoric surrounding terrorism, the author, Bruce Hoffman, (an expert in counterterrorism at West Point as well as a professor at Georgetown)follows the evolution of terrorism as a means of calling world attention to forgotten or underpublicized plights of the disenfranchized in order enact political change, through what he terms the "internationalization of terrorism" where terrorists enact "major media events" by the targeting of symbols of power. He examines the refinement of terrorist tactics by the Palestinian organizations, and refutes the idea that terrorism is ineffective, pointing out how the Palestinian cause has gained worldwide recognition and (frequently) sympathy through the advertisement of their cause via use of terrorist events. He investigates the role of the media in this process, and develops the hypothesis that part of what has occurred leading to the current state of affairs is, like an addict, the terrorist organization needs increasingly horrific and intense events to gain the attention that will put it in the media spotlight. This is supported by how the news of "car bombings" in Bagdad start to sound like weather reports--because they are a daily occurance and fail to engender the level of horror and outrage that they should, and would have, just a few years ago. This is an excellent analysis of the historical developments that form the basis of present-day terrorism, and Hoffman is only able to do this by putting aside the rhetoric of "evil" which only confounds our capacity to understand and effectively address the threats of terrorist activity.
Interesting but somewhat obvious.......2007-01-03
I live in Israel. We live with terrorism daily and I have been following the events worldwide in the news for many years.
This book does an excellent job of summarizing the history of various terror groups, their changing techniques, failures and successes.
HHG
Understanding Terrorism.......2006-07-18
In the wake of the 9/11 disaster a plethora of books has been published on the nature and structure of the terrorist threat. Some are quite good, but others are absolute nonsense. Interestingly, some of the best books on both terrorism and counter-terrorism predate 9/11 and were written before counter-terrorism became the cottage industry it is today.
This book by Bruce Hoffman in cooperation with the Rand Corporation was published in 1998 and remains one of the best books available on the nature of terrorism. Hoffman provides a useful and on the whole an accurate explanation of the differences between secular, religious, transnational, and state sponsored terrorism providing useful examples of each. He also provides a good deal of probably accurate information on terrorist motivations and operational procedures. Finally he was prescient enough to recognize that the phenomenon represented by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda represent an ideological movement rather than a structured organization. After four years of the so-called, `Global War on Terrorism' this fact is slowly sinking into U.S. Government circles. Hoffman only lightly touches on the related issue of the al Qaeda financial structures, but notes the relatively small amounts of money actually required for most terrorist operations.
As indicated Hoffman does not limit this book to Islamic religious terrorism but also delves into motivations and operations techniques of secular terrorism as well. Perhaps most importantly given the July 2006 Near-East crisis, he uses Hezbollah as an example of the dangerous nature of state sponsored terrorism. All in all a sound book that contains markedly better information on terrorism than many more recent books and reflects the fruits of sound scholarship.
A good textbook on terrorism.......2006-07-15
Just for the record, I'm reviewing the 2006 edition of this book, so it is no longer as out of date as the previous edition. And it is a very interesting book. We learn definitions of terrorism, we see what terrorism is, how terrorists recruit, how many of them think, what some of them say, how they get publicity, how they take advantage of media opportunities ("Don't shoot, Abdul! We're not on prime time!"), and so on.
We also read about circumstances in which terrorists may decide that mass murder (involving huge numbers of deaths as opposed to spectacular but less deadly acts of terror) makes sense.
Can terrorist groups be defeated? Of course they can. Most of them do not last long. A few such groups do last for a while, especially if they get some support from one or more nations. But even these can be defeated.
Bruce Hoffman makes the point that while media coverage is essential for terrorists, the net effect of such coverage is mixed: audiences are eager to follow the exploits of terrorists, but much of the media coverage of terrorism is negative, and most of the audience is opposed to terrorism.
The author recommends patience and determination in the fight against terrorism. And I think that human civilization always has a chance against any terrorist foe. If not, the terrorists will, of course, destroy themselves along with the rest of us.
Terrorists often claim that their victory is inevitable. But it rarely is. After all, most terrorist goals are incredibly arbitrary. Without the use of violence, terrorists would rarely have any chance of even temporary success, and in the long run, they usually have no chance. Almost all terrorist groups are therefore at a big long-term disadvantage.
Still, I think we may be overlooking something here: what about those cases in which terrorism is not the first option of some greedy extremists? What about those rare cases in which it is a minor option of reasonable people?
For example, suppose some of us decided to try to accomplish some possibly dubious but possibly reasonable goal, such as the expansion of the Church of Latter Day Saints to 30 million members, or autonomy for Poles, Kurds or Tibetans. Would terrorism be our first choice? No. We would realize that our goals were not so arbitrary as to be impossible without violence. We'd be patient and slowly move towards success.
But now suppose that, with the Church of Latter Day Saints increasing in numbers, some nations, including the United States, decided on a controversial policy of genocide to get rid of all Mormons! Oops! Now what? Well, in that case, terrorism might well be one of several options for those trying to change such a strange and catastrophic policy. And in that case, with the goal of terrorism simply being to stop the genocide, the terrorist aims would be anything but arbitrary and dubious. I think it is always important to notice the difference between the wild actions of extremists and those of people who are merely trying to defend themselves. And I feel that many people, including some experts on terrorism, fail to emphasize this sufficiently. Even in this book, we see the author point out that in some cases (such as in South Africa), terrorism can help achieve goals. Hoffman does explain that in this case, the terrorist goals were very coherent and relatively reasonable, but he fails to emphasize the fact that without violence on either side, those goals were likely to be achieved! I think we also see a little confusion about the false similarities some people see in Jewish terrorism versus Arab terrorism. Much of the Jewish terror in the 1940s was indeed arbitrary, but at least it was in support of a goal (Jews getting human rights in the Levant) that was going to be achieved if neither side used any violence. Much of the Arab terror was also arbitrary, but it was in support of a very different goal, namely the permanent obliteration of human rights for Jews in the region. That goal had no chance of being achieved without violence. I think the author should have been clearer about such differences. After all, the former kind of terrorism has goals that are indeed likely to be achieved in the long run, and moreover, mere achievement of such goals is not much of a threat to society. The goals of the latter form of terrrorism have little chance of being achieved in the long run and constitute a great threat to everyone.
In spite of these minor complaints, I like this book very much. It is comprehensive and useful, and I recommend it.
Book Description
For the first time, a first person account of life inside the jihad...
Between 1994 and 2000, Omar Nasiri worked as a secret agent for Europe's top foreign intelligence services - including France's DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurite Extérieure), and Britain's MI5 and MI6. From the netherworld of Islamist cells in Belgium, to the training camps of Afghanistan, to the radical mosques of London, he risked his life to defeat the emerging global network that the West would come to know as Al Qaeda.
Now, for the first time, Nasiri shares the story of his life--a life balanced precariously between the world of Islamic jihadists and the spies who pursue them. As an Arab and a Muslim, he was able to infiltrate the rigidly controlled Afghan training camps, where he encountered men who would later be known as the most-wanted terrorists on earth: Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, Abu Zubayda, and Abu Khabab al-Masri. Sent back to Europe with instructions to form a sleeper cell, Nasiri became a conduit for messages going back and forth between Al Qaeda's top recruiter in Pakistan and London's radical cleric Abu Qatada.
A gripping and provocative insider's account of both Islamist terror networks and the intelligence services that spy on them, Inside the Jihad offers a completely original perspective on the ongoing battle against Al Qaeda.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Read!.......2007-08-08
In my opinion, Inside The Jihad was a great book. It read like a good spy novel. I could not put it down. In addition, the book provided great insight into the minds of the Jihadist and the newtorks in which they operate. Moreover, I was shocked at the amount, and quality, of training the author mentions. As a former soldier, I was amazed at the vast topics of training these "soldiers" receive: weapons, documents tampering, infantry tactics, ect. Overall, a great book. I would, and have, recommended it to others.
Interesting, but not credible.......2007-08-01
Overuse of trivialized Muslim forms of address and the juvenile
nature of the writing make this book "incredible".
I'd bet it was written by someone with limited knowledge
(probably gained via internet gossip).
Described handler behavior was incorrect in many particulars.
Tradecraft descriptions were, at best wishful thinking.
Good novel, worth reading, but not at all believable.
Strong Narrative From An Insider. .......2007-07-12
In "Inside The Jihad" author Omar Nasiri (not his real name) spins a very readable narrative about his life as a spy for the British and French intelligence services, including a year-long tour in a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.
I was struck by the readability and clear understanding of the complex issues that surround the recruiting of terrorists and the real boots-on-the-ground, day to day life and training in the terrorist camps. Much different of course, than the prospective of Western outsiders looking in, even the very experienced ones like Bob Bair (23 years Middle East, CIA operative).
The readability of this book deserves special note. Even serious readers of the subject struggle with retaining the alphabet-twisting, dash-filled names common in the Middle East. But Nasiri helps with this by outlining each major character and his association with them, plus, re-outling in a separate section who they are. I found myself only having to refer to this outline on one occasion, a credit to the author's clear foundation of the characters the first time.
Nasiri reinforces two major facts known to serious students of the subject, but unknown to most citizens and, of course, the Main Stream Media who are basically both lazy and clueless: 1. Most terrorists are not downtrodden, slum dwelling thugs, but rather middle class, college educated individuals who are not dumb. 2. The CIA procedures, directed by the Left-leaning Administration during the '90's of not even contacting informants who are bad guys, left our intelligence forces grossly under-informed during that critical decade. Informers inform for many different reasons, many times far too complex to clearly understand, but that doesn't mean the information does not have value.
The reader caught drifts of self-serving narrative in the book, but this is common in books of this type and can be accepted or rejected as you see fit.
In both style and content, I found this book a solid 5-star effort and well worth the reader's time.
A Good Read.......2007-06-28
The book is told in first person, storied format, which made it really enjoyable to read. I could care less about whether or not it's non-fiction (which the author claims), it's a good, suspenseful espionage type story, that teaches you a little something.
I didn't read it looking for political knowledge for debate, I read it to have something to read, and it was good, plain and simple.
Great book .......2007-06-18
Great book! Easy read the author is a really good writer, he should write more. this book is so good that it has made want to learn more about the muslim religion and since I have ordered more books about it.
Get it!!!
Book Description
They are the Army's most elite top-secret strike force. But you won't hear about their heroics on the news, no headlines about them can appear in the papers, and no one—not even their families—can know who they are. First Special Forces Operational Detachment-D—Delta Force, America's supersecret counterterrorist unit. On paper they do not exist, but without them, our lives wouldn't be the same.
In this exclusive behind-the-scenes account, founding member Eric L. Haney, Command Sergeant Major, USA (ret.), takes you into the grueling selection and training process of Delta Force. From learning how to open a padlock with a soda can to rescuing a hijacked airplane, these men are masters of espionage and warfare. They are the anonymous heroes who protect us every day from threats we'll never know existed.
Download Description
He is a master of espionage, trained to take on hijackers, terrorists, hostage takers, and enemy armies. He can deploy by parachute or arrive by commercial aircraft. Survive alone in hostile cities. Speak foreign languages fluently. Strike at enemy targets with stunning swiftness and extraordinary teamwork. He is the ultimate modern warrior: the Delta Force Operator.
In this dramatic behind-the-scenes chronicle, Eric Haney, one of the founding members of Delta Force, takes us inside this legendary counterterrorist unit. Here, for the first time, are details of the grueling selection process -- designed to break the strongest of men -- that singles out the best of the best: the Delta Force Operator.
With heart-stopping immediacy, Haney tells what it's really like to enter a hostage-held airplane. And from his days in Beirut, Haney tells an unforgettable tale of bodyguards and bombs, of a day-to-day life of madness and beauty, and of how he and a teammate are called on to kill two gunmen targeting U.S. Marines at the Beirut airport. As part of the team sent to rescue American hostages in Tehran, Haney offers a first-person description of that failed mission that is a chilling, compelling account of a bold maneuver undone by chance -- and a few fatal mistakes.
From fighting guerrilla warfare in Honduras to rescuing missionaries in Sudan and leading the way onto the island of Grenada, Eric Haney captures the daring and discipline that distinguish the men of Delta Force. Inside Delta Force brings honor to these singular men while it puts us in the middle of action that is sudden, frightening, and nonstop around the world.
"A book that could not be more timely, written by a warrior who knows what he's talking about.."
JAMES WEBB, AUTHOR OF FIELDS OF FIRE AND
LOST SOLDIERS
"A rousing chronicle of what it's really like to be a special-ops guy."
ESQUIRE
"Compelling memoir... a book that you won't want to put down."
PLAYBOY
"Perfect for military enthusiasts."
KIRKUS REVIEWS
Customer Reviews:
The creation of The Delta Force.......2007-08-14
Eric Haney, tells his tale as one of the founding members of the Delta Force, and what it took to to become a member. This book is filled with tons of informative information, plus little trinkets Eric toss's in here and there(for instance fill a squirt gun with ammonia to knock a man out).
However there is nothing other, then the selection process to become a delta member, and training. There is not a journal from jungle missions, to desert ops(although Haney makes reference to comrades he later fights with, some of whom die).
Despite that, this book is still very appealing. It teaches you the stunning thing these men are capable of, such as boarding airplanes in flight and the rigourous training, that makes them as close to invincible as any man will ever become.
All in all, great book, great group of men it's based on.
Inside Delta Force.......2007-06-13
I enjoyed this book as an"intro" into how special forces work. I love the show "The Unit" and this book tells about how things work in the military that we as citizens never know exits. It was fascinating!
Good Book for Teens.......2007-05-07
This book gives the reader an in depth view of training for the most top secert/elite unit in the U.S. Army, the Special Forces (Delta). The author states several times that he will try to give as much detail as he can without breaching unit security. With the riggerous training and grulling psychological testing, there are some instances of humor, I will not go into any detail. To find out you will just have to read it for your self.
Delta Force.......2007-01-19
I purcahsed this book for a present and it came in quickly and in great shape.
HOLY CR@P!!!.......2007-01-11
i could not put this book down... front to back in one setting! personally, i have been waiting for this book for years, and i am so glad sgt. haney has led the way! i only wish i had an autographed copy so i could meet the man himself.
anyone who has heard stories about this unit, and has thought and pondered the challenges and sacrifices of our nation's best, will savor every detail and word in this book, as he reveals how much strength and determination these men apply. these men can overcome...anything!
sgt. haney has brought so much honor to those men who serve. anyone who reads this book will realize, that the only reason americans can sleep peacefully at night is because of men who are prepared to face the evil of the world at a moments notice! god bless em!
Amazon.com
In this fast-paced memoir, Ken Alibek combines cutting-edge science with the narrative techniques of a thriller to describe some of the most awful weapons imaginable. The result will remind readers of The Hot Zone, Richard Preston's smart bestseller about the Ebola virus. That book focuses on the dangers of a freak accident; Biohazard shows how disease can become a deliberate tool of war. Alibek, once a top scientist in the Soviet Union's biological weapons program, describes putting anthrax on a warhead and targeting a city on the other side of the world. "A hundred kilograms of anthrax spores would, in optimal atmospheric conditions, kill up to three million people in any of the densely populated metropolitan areas of the United States," he writes. "A single SS-18 [missile] could wipe out the population of a city as large as New York."
Chilling passages like these, plus discussions of proliferation and terrorism, make Biohazard a harrowing book, but it also has a human side. Alibek, who defected to the United States, describes the routine danger of his work: "A bioweapons lab leaves its mark on a person forever." An unending stream of vaccinations has destroyed his sense of smell, afflicted him with allergies, made it impossible to eat certain kinds of food, and "weakened my resistance to disease and probably shortened my life." But it didn't take away his ability to tell an astonishing story. --John J. Miller
Book Description
Anthrax. Smallpox. Incurable and horrifying Ebola-related fevers. For two decades, while a fearful world prepared for nuclear winter, an elite team of Russian bioweaponeers began to till a new killing field: a bleak tract sown with powerful seeds of mass destruction--by doctors who had committed themselves to creating a biological Armageddon.
Biohazard is the never-before-told story of Russia's darkest, deadliest, and most closely guarded Cold War secret.
No one knows more about Russia's astounding experiments with biowarfare than Ken Alibek. Now the mastermind behind Russia's germ warfare effort reveals two decades of shocking breakthroughs...how Moscow's leading scientists actually reengineered hazardous microbes to make them even more virulent...the secrets behind the discovery of an invisible, untraceable new class of biological agents just right for use in political assassinations...the startling story behind Russia's attempt to turn a sample of the AIDS virus into the ultimate bioweapon. And in a chilling work of real-world intrigue,
Biohazard offers us all a rare glimpse into a shadowy scientific underworld where doctors manufacture mass destruction, where witnesses to errors are silenced forever, and where ground zero is closer than we ever dared believe.
Customer Reviews:
Awakening Terror.......2007-07-17
I bought and read this book years ago and was astounded with the information that was revealed. It's a dangerous world we live in knowing what various governemnts have created in order to destroy humans etc... This story is coming from the Author who was behind some of the most deadly biological, chemical weapons created in Cold War Soviet Union. he defected from the Soviet Union and then went to work for the U.S. governemnt applying his knowledge of weaponized biological agents and how to combat them etc... It's a true story with lots of information. It's a Great Book.
A factual but not fun read........2007-01-14
It many ways this is necessary reading in today's world. Lots of facts, but not a particularly passionate story. It's not a fun page turner. And the author's regret for the demons he created seems too late and too little. The book also ends in 1999 and is due for an update or adddendum. After reading this, one could make the arguement that if there was only a 10% chance that the Soviet bioweapons technology made it to Iraq, then the Iraq invasion was justified. The book is not an exciting or particularly good read; but it may be a necessary read.
Hard To Sleep After Reading This Eight Stars .......2006-10-28
The author for once and for all exterminates the propaganda that the USSR was not involved in the large scale production of biological weapons. He also reminds us that our college campuses are filled with what Stalin termed , " Useful Idiots", those who want to think the US is the eternal villan.
The scale of the USSR bioweapons program was almost beyond what we could imagine both in the quantities produced and the variety of agents exploited. The author leaves little doubt as to the consequences of the use of these materials.
Written before 9-11 the book helps to understand the threat bio-weapons pose when in the hands of unstable nations or terrorist groups. The ease of production and of deployment ( expecially if the humans are willing to die for the cause) is the foundation for restless nights.
The book is also enlightening in how a huge program was shielded from US penetration through conventional Soviet security measures and our scientists unwillingness to consider the possiblity that the Soviets were developing and deploying such weapons.
As terrorist organizations race to be the first to use chemical, bio or nuclear weapons against the US homeland the lessons of the book take on more importance.
Highly recommended .
I love this book!.......2006-07-25
This is one of my top 3 favorite books. It is so addicting you cannot put it down! Most of the statments in this book have do evidence to back them up contrary to what another reveiwer said. I learned a lot from this excellent book!
Dark side of microbiology.......2006-06-16
This book covers the production and development of bioweapons in the Soviet Union. Reading the book is an unique chance to have a peek in the paranoid bureocratic society, in which production of mass murder technologies becomes a norm. In a way, the book is another example how ideological (in this case state sponsored) propaganda can subvert humans to do incredible, inhuman actions.
The book is equally important as a warning for humanity of the self destructive potential of scientific knowledge when harnessed into usage as weapons of mass destruction.
The book is written in readable, professional (from microbiologists viewpoint)and what appears a sincere way. It even seems that the book could be a part of a personal salvation process in which the author wants to deal with his past. I recommend the book for those intrested in soviet history/society, and especially for microbiologists and politicians who should get a deeper understanding of the issues covered in the book.
Amazon.com
In 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, New York Times writers Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn vividly recreate the 102-minute span between the moment Flight 11 hit the first Twin Tower on the morning of September 11, 2001, and the moment the second tower collapsed, all from the perspective of those inside the buildings--the 12,000 who escaped, and the 2,749 who did not. It's becoming easier, years later, to forget the profound, visceral responses the Trade Center attacks evoked in the days and weeks following September 11. Using hundreds of interviews, countless transcripts of radio and phone communications, and exhaustive research, Dwyer and Flynn bring that flood of responses back--from heartbreak to bewilderment to fury. The randomness of death and survival is heartbreaking. One man, in the second tower, survived because he bolted from his desk the moment he heard the first plane hit; another, who stayed at his desk on the 97th floor, called his wife in his final moments to tell her to cancel a surprise trip he had planned. In many cases, the deaths of those who survived the initial attacks but were killed by the collapse of the towers were tragically avoidable. Building code exemptions, communication breakdowns between firefighters and police, and policies put in place by building management to keep everyone inside the towers in emergencies led, the authors argue, to the deaths of hundreds who might otherwise have survived. September 11 is by now both familiar and nearly mythological. Dwyer and Flynn's accomplishment is recounting that day's events in a style that is stirring, thorough, and refreshingly understated. --Erica C. Barnett
Book Description
At 8:46 am on September 11, 2001, 14,000 people were inside the twin towers. Over the next 102 minutes, each would become part of a drama for the ages. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with rescuers and survivors, thousands of pages of oral histories, and countless phone, e-mail, and emergency radio transcripts, New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn tell the story of September 11 from the inside looking out, weaving together the stories of ordinary men and women into an epic account of struggle, determination, and grace. Hailed immediately upon its hardcover publication as the definitive account of that terrible morning, 102 Minutes now contains a new Afterword that incorporates powerful firsthand material, including tapes and documents, that Dwyer and Flynn recently obtained after more than three years of litigation with the city of New York. Eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and translated into a dozen languages, 102 Minutes is a gripping narrative that is also investigative reporting of the first rankin a class by itself, according to Readers Digest. Dwyer and Flynn reveal the decisions, both good and bad, that proved to be the difference between life and death on a day that changed America forever.
Customer Reviews:
The Most Compelling Book I Have Read On 9/11.......2007-10-08
This book was more than I ever imagined it would be. I thought it would be a more technical and tedious account of the horrible events of that September morning; man was I surprised whe I began to read this wonderfully written book. The stories are compelling and show you how people can come together in the most hedious of circumstances. I was blown away at the depth of the reseach into the events of that day, and even found myself learning more about this tragedy than I knew before hand. My this book illustrate to everyone the power that the average Joe has when it comes to caring and helping his fellow human being. The heroes of that day are not only the NYPD or the FDNY, but many of the doomed individuals in the buildings of the World Trade Center.
Making it real.......2007-09-20
I have never been to New York. Watching the ongoing events of 9/11 had a very surrealistic overtone. It was real, yet it wasn't. This book is the first of the several that I have read, that really "put you there". Reading the description of a person actually standing on the street, trying to comprehend what they were witnessing, really brought it home for me. It includes a diagram of the building (including where the planes hit) that helps the reader to realize how many people were "without hope" from the very onset of the strike.
If you only read one book about the events of 9/11, this is the book.
An American Tragedy.......2007-09-17
As a native New Yorker who in childhood watched the Twin Towers rise to dominate the skyline, I was like many other people who considered the buildings two soulless gray monoliths. We called them the boxes the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building came in. And certainly, in their singular dual angularity, they lacked either the graceful Art Deco aestheticism of the Chrysler Building or the reassuring solidity of the Empire State Building. Many were the times I wished the architect, Minoru Yamasaki, had had even a smidgen of artistic creativity. The unrelieved gray bulk of the towers (charitably described by New York Times reporters/authors Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn as being a very Wall Street apropos "pinstripe") was broken only at top and bottom by stylized gothic windows and by the exterior banding of the sky lobbies. I set one of my (early and unpublished) novels in the North Tower as a symbol of the single-minded preoccupations of the Me Decade. In white, the buildings might have seemed carved in alabaster, or perhaps an enclosed rooftop arboretum might have added charm---who can say? But as the years passed, the Towers took on personalities of their own as the World Trade Center complex grew and throve, and like all real New Yorkers I developed an affection for these sentinels who seemed to anchor Manhattan Island to the sky like some kind of bizarre hydrofoil afloat at the juncture of the harbor and the rivers.
And like all real New Yorkers I was stunned by the news of their destruction. I remember just where I was---I had driven a friend to attend Traffic School in Fort Lauderdale. She was dutifully taking a written test when another friend called me on my cell:
"The World Trade Center was attacked."
"That's old news."
"What are you talking about?"
"What are YOU talking about? It happened in 1993."
"No. Not that. I mean this morning."
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"
"Go find a television."
And I did, and stood there horrified, watching as the Towers---where my friends and relatives worked---dissolved into dust. Staggering outside, I approached a stranger who hadn't heard the news. Although I don't remember his exact words I'm still angry at his comments about the rich brats who deserved what they got, leavened with a little antisemitism. To this day, I wonder where that idiot has gotten himself to. No place good, I'll wager.
The nightmare of the news---the planes flying smack into the Towers, the Towers burning and then collapsing in upon themselves, the dust storm that blanketed my hometown, the sight of rescue workers DIGGING WITH THEIR BARE HANDS in a fruitless attempt to find survivors---all have left their mark upon me. It has only been recently---and it is now six years later---that I can watch programs and read books about that awful day. And I cry.
102 MINUTES is Dwyer's and Flynn's incredibly well done recounting of the destruction of the Towers on that bright late summer morning. Strictly a story of small heroisms amid the larger tragedy, Dwyer and Flynn place us eeriely INSIDE the Towers during the fateful hour and a half and some between the first attack and the ultimate destruction of the WTC. Dwyer and Flynn have obviously listened to thousands of man-hours of recorded 911 calls, read tens of thousands of pages of transcripts, and interviewed scores of people connected with Nine Eleven and the Towers in general in order to present us with this memoir and memoriam. It would be tempting to say that 102 MINUTES is definitive, but given the tens of thousands of stories that make up that day, no one book may ever be definitive.
In the midst of the "untold story of the fight to survive inside the Twin Towers" Dwyer and Flynn also find time to take the authorities to well-deserved task: We discover that the Rockefellers (the political and economic midwives of the WTC in the 1960s) managed to force extensive liberalizations of the building codes through the New York Legislature just before ground was broken. Thus the Towers rose with untested architectural modifications to the steel infrastructure, fewer and non-fireproofed stairwells, and other Code-beating changes that made these most modern buildings completed in 1974 less capable of withstanding structural trauma than the Empire State Building, completed in 1933 (and remember, it was hit by a plane in 1945). All in the name of maximizing rentable floor space, protections that might have saved lives were simply deemed unneccessary. Instead, the builders relied on "Titanic Syndrome"---they're the biggest, they'll withstand anything thrown at them. Truly, no buildings in the world could withstand being struck by jets flying at 550 MPH, but perhaps they needn't have collapsed so utterly.
Dwyer and Flynn do not spare the New York City bureaucracies---The agelong enmities and service rivalries between The Finest and The Bravest hampered effective action. This takes nothing away from the actions of individual First Responders, but the lack of coordination between NYPD, FDNY, EMS and PAPD (the independent Port Authority Police Department who had first jurisdiction within the WTC) undoubtedly cost lives. People were variously told to evacuate, to stay put, some sent back inside, and many given no direction at all. Communications breakdowns meant that occupants, police, fire, and other authorities all essentially had no idea what was going on, even after the South Tower collapsed suddenly. The lack of communications can be put down to the moribund Mayor's Committee (established in 1993) that was to have overseen interservice activity---but "America's Mayor" Guiliani disregarded its existence, much as he has continued to slight the needs of the injured and ill among The Finest and The Bravest who lived through that day.
Little (but enough) is mentioned of the planes, the hijackers, Osama Bin Laden, The Pentagon or Shanksville. This is very much a "local" history of the event, and is very much spiced with the spirit of the Big Apple.
New York is a city that has grieved, but Dwyer and Flynn leave us with the realization that New York, New Yorkers, Americans---and indeed all people of spirit---will endure. The world changed ineradicably on September 11, 2001 (just as it did on December 7, 1941), but it is still a world where life goes on.
An essential read.
Harrowing, Tragic, and an Indictment of the Port Authority.......2007-09-15
Poor design. Complacency. Poor communications. These are elements in the 9/11 tragedy at the World Trade Center that caused or contributed to thousands of deaths. Read 102 MINUTES to see how these factors affected ordinary people, heroic or trying to survive, who were caught in this nightmare.
But for readers like me, who work in office towers built in the 1970's, the fire-safety issues raised in 102 MINUTES are also disturbing. Just for the record, I work in a 40 story glass tower with 10 elevators in the core of building and only two fire stairs, which are positioned directly behind the elevators.
For me, the lessons of 102 MINUTES include: 1)Your fire safety director doesn't know what's going on so question the announcements made over the PA system. 2) Find a stairwell and go down through the fire zone to safety; don't wait... there is no roof top rescue. 3) If the building experiences a trauma, such airplane impact, it may lose water pressure. This is bad news, since office towers are designed to put out fires through their sprinkler systems. In a tower fire, firefighters are on rescue missions only. 4) Smoke hoods and executive parachutes are not silly ideas.
102 Horrible Minutes.......2007-08-24
102 minutes. Hard as that may be to believe, that's all the time that elapsed between the moment that Flight 11 struck the first Twin Tower and the instant that the second tower collapsed. I expect that all of us, at some time or another, have imagined ourselves trapped in one of those buildings and wondered what our struggle for survival would have required of us. We will never forget those horrible images of people falling or jumping from the upper floors of the Towers, nor the pictures and stories of the heroes who were everywhere that day.
At times I found 102 Minutes, by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, to be painful reading. The book took me much longer to finish than I anticipated because I could only read it for a few minutes at a time before having to put it down for something less depressing. In actual fact, I read the book over a period of several months, finally finishing it last night.
Through hundreds of survivor interviews and countless hours reading transcripts of telephone and radio conversations, the authors were able to recreate much of what happened in the Twin Towers on the morning of September 11, 2001. Much of what went on in the buildings was truly inspirational, with countless heroes to be found selflessly helping those too injured or physically impaired to get themselves down those dozens of flights of stairs that had to be negotiated if they were to survive.
But those 102 minutes were also filled with heartbreaking stories of the hundreds of people who were trapped in offices above the points of impact of the two crashes. Those people never had a chance of survival because their only exits to the lower floors, stairways and elevators, had already been destroyed. There was so much smoke, and the buildings so soon showed signs of being unstable, that roof top helicopter rescues were also impossible. Phone calls for help quickly changed to last messages to loved ones when the trapped realized that they were going to die.
Some of what Dwyer and Flynn learned while researching 102 Minutes will also anger the reader because, while it is true that some 12,000 of the almost 15,000 people in the buildings managed to escape, more should have gotten out alive than did. The combination of sheer chaos, poor communication systems, and building code exemptions taken over the years unnecessarily claimed hundreds of lives. Even after the first tower had collapsed, most fire fighters and policemen in the second tower had no idea that the first tower was gone or that the tower in which many of them were resting for a final attempt to reach its upper floors was in danger of an imminent collapse itself. Some 200 of them are believed to have died together that way when the second tower fell. And despite the communication problems exposed by the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, New York policemen and fire fighters still found it near impossible to communicate with each other, further limiting the chance that they and many of the tower office workers would survive the day.
But most disheartening of all is the fact that there were simply not enough stairways in either building to effectively evacuate the many thousands of people who worked in them each day. Real estate and office space is at a premium in New York and the Port Authority was able to get building code exemptions that allowed the Twin Towers to be constructed with fewer exits than they should have contained. Fewer stairways meant more office space to rent, and that's the trade off that was chosen. The fact that many of the existing stairway sections were so damaged or destroyed in the initial crashes meant that many of the survivors never had a chance.
While this is not an easy book to read, it has much to offer to those who manage it. There are many lessons to be learned from what happened on September 11, 2001 and 102 Minutes is a clear presentation of those lessons. Let's all hope that those in authority will be better prepared if something like this horror ever happens again.
Book Description
Based on over five years of research, Inside Al Qaeda provides the definitive story behind the rise of this small, mysterious group to the notorious organization making headlines today.
Customer Reviews:
Good Overview .......2007-10-04
Rohan Gunaratna scrutinizes this worldwide terrorist organization and its theater of operations country by country. He examines Al Qaeda's reach, strategic and tactical threat, mind-set, and messianic culture. There are some suggestions of ways given on ways that the international community could counter this movement. The book is written based on five years or interviews, research, and travel.
Informative with one major omission.........2007-08-22
Where's KSM?
The book overlooks Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the uncle of Ramzi Yousef. There's no mention of his emergence into global terrorism, his efforts with Yousef in the Philippines (Project Bojinka, 1995) and his masterminding of the 9/11 attacks.
Perhaps the revised version includes him?
I had a class with Rohan Gunaratna..........2007-07-28
Of course we had to read this book for the class, but for those of you who doubt his knowledge, let me just say this. There is no, and I mean no American who has the knowledge about Al Qaeda as Dr. Gunaratna has. That is why he was a debriefer for the CIA, he questioned Bin Laden's pilot, and also the former head of Al Qeada's Anthrax program, yes they had an Anthrax program. This book isnt writen by some guy listening to others, this is writen by a guy who was living it. I advise all of you, who want to know the truth about Al Qeada, and how they are no longer a group but a movement, to read this book like a bible. And of course, if your as lucky as I as to have him as a teacher, take any class he teaches, not only is he informitave, he is funny and witty as well...
A basic description of current events.......2007-05-11
I read this book in the summer of 2003. At the time it was probably the first book I read on the Al Qaeda and violent Islamic fundamentalism. I was initially impressed with the references, even though they interrupted the flow of the book and made it read more like a textbook. Since then every other book on the Al Qaeda and/or violent modern day jihadists has been more informative, both in the areas of description and in thought provoking conjecture and predictions.
an OK read M.A.......2007-02-21
Inside Al Qaeda was one of the best books about Al Qaeda and the new threat of terrorism that I have ever read. Seeing, as it is the only book on Al Qaeda I have ever read. Gunaratna's writing showed me the vastness of terrorism, how it has reached others throughout the world, how I never knew about this kind of terrorism earlier in my life. The book is very detailed in facts and the chapters are quite complex like, but still understandable in some ways. I would recommend reading this book to learn about this new threat of terrorism and or if you want to learn more about Al Qaeda.
Books:
- Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy(3rd Edition)
- Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press
- Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy)
- Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy
- Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Canto)
- Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World
- On Liberty and Other Essays (Oxford World's Classics)
- On the Move
- Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground And the Politics of Solidarity
- Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Sensemaking in Organizations
- Learn-To-Knit-Afghan Book
- Der Kongress Vorbereitung Und Durchfuehrung Wissenschhaftlicher Tagungen
- Encyclopedia Of Dinosaurs
- History: Fiction or Science
- History: Fiction or Science
- Horse Genetics
- How to Do Everything with Your Palm Handheld, Fourth Edition
- Business Valuation Body of Knowledge: Exam Review and Professional Reference
- Contingency Planning and Disaster Recovery: A Small Business Guide
General
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Delta Force: The Army's Elite Counterterrorist Unit
The Unit - The Complete First Season
Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy Seal
Inside Delta Force
Killer Elite: The Inside Story of America's Most Secret Special Operations Team
