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Book Review - Holy War Inc., by Peter L. Bergen

2004 – online click here for related stories: peace/antiwar

The tragedy of 11 September 2001 inexorably has led to the publishing of a small library of volumes exploring the innards of so-called "Islamic Fundamentalism." Among the most celebrated of this genre is the instant volume, penned by the CNN producer, Peter L. Bergen, who has been interviewed frequently on television.

Suggestive of the popularity of this best-selling volume is that I bought it at an airport in Nairobi, Kenya. Recall that this city was the site of one of the more devastating attacks on US interests before 9/11 – the bombing of the US Embassy there, which killed 200 Kenyans and injured 4000. Indicative of the new era that "terrorism" has initiated is that security at this airport was phenomenal during my visit in the spring of 2004, involving three close searches and traversing three metal detectors before being allowed to board a plane.

This book provides valuable details on the collaboration between the so-called "Islamic Fundamentalists" and Washington.

Bergen is one of the few writers to have interviewed bin Laden, which he did before 2001 and the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The author points to 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 bin Laden was able to draw upon this fortune when he began his de facto collaboration with the US in undermining the pre-Taliban government in Afghanistan, backed by the former USSR. The author argues that the "war against the Soviets in Afghanistan surely" was a "just jihad," but since this conflict was the seedbed for 9/11, it is hard to accept the author’s reasoning.

Further confidence in the author is shaken when he writes that the "Russians invaded over Christmas of 1979 to install Hafizullah Amin, effectively a Soviet puppet, as President." In fact, Amin was deposed during the course of this intervention and was replaced by Babrak Karmal. It is downright shocking that this book has been vetted by numerous experts and gone through a number of editions and yet cannot get this simple fact straight.

Moreover, when the author writes of the attack on the ship, USS Cole in Yemen the fall of 2000, he gives scant attention to Washington’s effort over the years to destabilize the then government of Southern Yemen, headed by progressives and Marxists.

Nonetheless, it is understandable why this book has sold so many copies. It is well-written and the narrative is enhanced by the author’s "you are there" approach, as the scene shifts from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Yemen to other hotspots. Moreover, the book does provide valuable details on the pre-2001 collaboration between the so-called "Islamic Fundamentalists" and Washington, though this is certainly not the author’s primary intention. As such, this is a book worth reading.

Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden
By Peter L. Bergen
London: Orion Books, 2003.

--Gerald Horne is a contributing editor of Political Affairs.

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