Customer Reviews

Al Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Al Qaeda's Great Escape" (AQGE) is a must-read for all who have forgotten the confusion of the war in Afghanistan. The first half of the book is a day-by-day account of journalist Philip Smucker's travels to and through the Afghani war zone, beginning just after the war began. The second half of the book is a third-person chronicle of the fight for Tora Bora and of Project Anaconda, taken mostly from interviews with the Special Forces commanders involved in the fighting. This change of mode results in a bit of disjointedness. Luckily, the subject is fascinating and vital, allowing that shortcoming to be overlooked.

AQGE chronicles how the war, fought with unreliable Pakistani and Afghan proxies, never had a chance of defeating Al Quaeda. That the US allowed bin Laden to escape is either a sign that we are not serious about fighting terrorism, or that our military and governmental leaders are too stupid to run a real war. We had thousands of al Qaeda fighters bottled up at Tora Bora. Yet we chose not to lay siege and flush them out. Also, we hugely underestimated the resolve, tenacity and ingenuity of the Al Quaeda fighters. Fighting on while vastly outgunned and outnumbered, they held off the larger and better-equipped US forces and inflicted serious casualties. Was this the "fog of war" or the fogginess of mind in the Pentagon and the White House?

AQGE also offers a comic look at the media buffoons who used the war to bolster their own egos and ratings. Geraldo Rivera comes in for a special raking. His moving, from-the-scene "report" on the aftermath of an attack on American troops was complicated by the fact that he was never there.

Media mockery aside, AQGE stays within journalistic bounds by refusing to indict the perpetrators of the mismanagement of the war. Yet the problem was not the lack of bravery on the part of American fighting men and women. Political timidity and naivete, even with the American public fully committed to war after 9/11, played a large part in failing to commit sufficient men and materiel to the battle.

Given bin Laden's mindset, he probably sees his escape as deliverance by God. Far from showing our strength and will, the inept prosecution of the Afghan War will only embolden bin Laden and his followers. AQGE is a valuable tool for bringing out the truth about the current adminstration's ability and willingness to wage war on terror.

This book is a gem. I picked it up in Detroit after I read the below review on the web in the Washington Post. I must agree that the author makes reading about the Bush Admin's massive strategic mistakes at Tora Bora both fascinating and, {Allah forbid,}FUN.

Wash Post Book World wrote:

The book is a devastating critique of Bush, Rumsfeld, other politically oriented strategists imposing their will on U.S. military forces and -- as the subtitle suggests -- quite a few of Smucker's fellow journalists. The critique is delivered with such humor and irony, however, that casual readers could easily underestimate its full impact. For all but the most avid Bush-Rumsfeld detractors, the humor and irony will be welcome. Smucker is a superb stylist; it is difficult to grasp how reading about something so depressing can be so much fun.

The book instructs pleasurably from the first page, as Smucker and his Afghan guide explore a remote tribal area of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. Smucker notices a sign reading "Winston Churchill's Picket." Winston Churchill, later to become the renowned British statesman? Yes, it turns out that just before 1900, Churchill spent time as a journalist in that very spot, writing about a frontier war dear to the empire. When Smucker learns that Churchill published a book about his experiences -- "The Story of the Malakand Field Force" (1898) -- he obtains and just about memorizes it. Then, in a brilliant touch, he opens his own chapters with apt quotations from Churchill's book. It is as if almost nothing has changed in that part of the world for more than a hundred years.

But the news reported by Churchill is not the same as the news Smucker reports. Churchill knew something about indigenous warriors from Pakistan, Afghanistan and other seemingly exotic territories whose thought patterns were so different from those found in the ruling U.S. and British citizens. He also knew quite a bit about government propaganda -- trying to make a losing cause seem not so bad. But Churchill knew nothing about airplanes flown into two New York skyscrapers and the Pentagon. Everything Smucker writes must be read in the shadow of Sept. 11, 2001.

When he wrote that al Qaeda terrorists had escaped their Tora Bora hideaway despite the vaunted U.S. military combining with native warriors to stop just that eventuality, Bush administration spokesmen all the way up to Rumsfeld said otherwise. As Smucker notes, "If it had not been for the Pentagon's diligent efforts to deny that bin Laden could have slipped out the back door, the story might well have been lost among all the other stories, rumors and propaganda. Instead, the Pentagon's denial mode boosted interest in our story of bin Laden's slippery moves."

Read it to believe it. Six Stars

When historians finally begin writing the comprehensive stories of the "War on Terror", something better willl probably come along than this book. But for the time being
this is a very enjoyable and enlightening read. Enjoyable because the author - a bit of an eccentric perhaps - takes us
along with him as he wanders througout eastern Afghanistan in the hope of interviewing or capturing Bin Laden. Along the way we are given snapshots of other
member of the foreign correspondant trade - with the
exception of Geraldo Rivera, who's arrival and subsequent
reporting fills five pages, with a mixture of respect, bemusement and envy at the whole coterie of assistants that accompany him. And then we have the two Afghan warlords hired by the Pentagon to conduct most of the ground operations. Smucker captures their ideosyncrasies perfectly, and the reader is not ultimately surprised to learn that they find no problem in being bribed by both sides.

The second half of the book is less folksy, as it concentrates
on the two major battles the US took part in: Tora Bora and
the Anaconda campaign. Here we learn how Rumsfeld's naivety perhaps didn't cost us Bin Laden per se, but allowed most of his high command to cross the border to Pakistan.
As for Anaconda, the only drawn out battle, Smucker reports it mainly from interviews and military records, describing it with a journalistic "you are there" eye. And it is an eye-opener to see that were it not for our air power our ground forces might have actually taken a beating.

Smucker wisely refrains from writing about what he doesn't either observe or learn first-hand. For that reason the reader doesn't get much insight into what the Pentagon was thinking when it did what it did. In any case, this book will help prepare for the fact that the "war" in Afghanistan is far
from finished, and may not yet turn out the way we want.

The hunt for Bin Laden, post 9-11, was the featured media story during the Oct. - Dec. 2001 timeframe. As much media coverage as the "Bin Laden" hunt garnered at that time - this book takes the reader to the next level of understanding, on the scene, in the scene, about what was taking place in Afghanistan.

Mr. Smucker offers an account that is interesting, fast-paced and insightful. It provides a vivid recording of his movements through the wild and rugged terrain of Afghanistan, and will introduce a cast of characters more interesting than a year's worth of so-called "TV Reality" shows.

Fasten your seatbelt, and enjoy the ride!

A bit to the left but probably one of the most balanced presentations on this topic in print. Very well writen and a smooth read.

When my friend recommended this book, I wasn't too interested because I don't usually like tedious military histories or heavy analysis. This book had enough of that kind of stuff that I felt like I learned something, but it is written in such a way that the book read like an adventure novel. I finished it in a couple of days. A great read!

This book conjures up a litany of incompetencies. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, our commander-in-chief vowed to take down the chief perpetrator "dead or alive." Despite the mild rebuke he received at the time from his wife, the President stuck with his determined sounding language. The fiasco that unfolds for us to see in "Al Qaeda's Great Escape," exposes both hubris and hypocrisy. After vowing to get bin Laden, the White House did not bother to coordinate a military plan that would have concentrated our forces -- conventional and special forces -- on the senior AQ leadership that masterminded 9/11. Mr. Smucker provides convincing evidence that AQ was goading for a major ground confrontation with US troops in Afghanistan. When, instead, we unleashed a massive aeriel campaign, the AQ leadership decided to pack it in, slip over the border into Pakistan and hope to fight another day. Ironically, the expanded Islamist insurgency -- with bin Laden still at the helm -- has found what it was after in the Iraqi theater. The argument put forth by Pentagon officials -- Rumsfeld in particular -- that a major infusion of US forces into Afghanistan risked alienating the Afghan population no longer washes. Afterall, we've now become bogged down in a country that had no dog in that attack. And since several thousand US infantry made it to the 2-mile high battle of Anaconda a few months after Tora Bora, the Pentagon/White House warning of a "logistical nightmare" that would ensue if we sent in thousands to surround the old Soviet redoubt doesn't fly either. The American public is still paying for strategic mistakes at Tora Bora to this day. Beyond that, the Admin's contention that bin Laden might not have ever been there is rendered moot with the testimony of the Green Beret commander, Col.Mulholland, within the text of this book, not to mention the massive amount of circumstantial evidence provided by eyewitness testimony of AQ and Afghans. I noticed that the other day, Pentagon lawyers actually used as "summary evidence" to hold one Gitmo prisoner his complicity in helping bin Laden escape Tora Bora. So apparently the Pentagon is now convinced enough that he was there -- despite vehemently denying it for over 3 years -- to use it as proof to detain the enemy. Given all we've learned -- and with the help of this fascinating and gritty account -- one wonders how the incompetents managed to escape a broader rebuke from the US public for their gross errors of judgement. No wonder that when pressed to express his regrets of his first term, Mr. Bush now lists the statement "dead or alive" as something he might not have said given a second chance.

A wonderful rendition of the battle at Tora Bora and our mistakes that allowed Osama bin Laden to escape, from someone who was actually there. A great story teller who weaves the personalities of the terrorists, warlords, correspondents and goverment officials into a book that is almost impossible to put down. A great read!

I won't spend much time saying why this book is good because the other reviews do a good job of that.

If you are considering this book pick it up and you won't be able to put it down. (sorry for the lame pun)

An awesome, fascinating tale with an unhappy ending. Mr. Smucker's book, a high-stakes account from the trenches, rightly focuses on the crucial few weeks in the Afghan campaign when Pentagon and White House officials had bin Laden in their sights. The uncalculated plan of attack at Tora Bora (and beyond) should have given us all fair warning of the blunders that lay ahead for the Bush team. One reason we never found out was due to shoddy reporting driven by Pentagon spin doctors, aka Rummy and company. Read this book and bear witness to the indecision, the blind faith in our so-called Afghan "allies" and the unconvincing cover up of bin Laden's escape. Bush's security team has failed the American public and brought shame to the treasured institution of the US military, but it all started in Afghanistan. Required reading for the general public and military buffs the world over. Mr. Smucker calls it down the middle. Alas, he leaves the last decision to the reader. You're Fired, RUMMY!!!