Customer Reviews

Getting Away with Murder: The Real Story Behind American Taliban John Walker Lindh and What the U.S. Government Had to Hide

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I found this book spellbinding. Mahoney takes two ordinary lives before 9/11, that of Mike Spann (CIA paracommander) and John Walker Lindh (the American Taliban), and spins them into the web that the United States, the Soviets, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have been weaving for decades. Spann and Lindh will come face to face in Afghanistan, a meeting with a tragic ending, but what are the global circumstances that the world powers put into motion that led to this fateful rendezvous? Mahoney takes us into a historical perspective spelling out the wheeling and dealing that went into supporting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, the plan to build oil pipelines, the Saudis financing terrorists, and how the United States, rather than submit to an investigation that would reveal its duplicity and involvement, dropped nine out of ten charges against Lindh.

This is Richard Mahoney's newest book. I really enjoyed his other books...so I just had to read "Getting Away With Murder". I was not disappointed. I am going to share it with my classmates tomorrow!

I almost didn't buy this book. The world is awash with 'what really happened' books, and the cover contrives to suggest one of those 'inside the organisation' action accounts which make good beach reading but add little.

In fact this is an extraordinarily clear and touching account of the struggle going on on for the soul of America, personalised by the two tragic lives of Mike Spann - CIA agent,and John Walker Lindh - the young Californian fleeing from the degeneracy as he saw it of his home society and finding a fate he could never have imagined as 'The American Taliban.' Their story is framed between chapters detailing the history of US foreign relations since the sixties which alone would would earn the book a place on my reference shelf. Mr Mahoney's respect and love for the best of American culture and tradition confronts his disgust at its takeover by the power of oil and money which he unhesitatingly describes as 'corrupt.' As a lawyer, he is well placed to detail the scandal surrounding the quashing of the Lindh trial, but he expressly avoids any implication that this was simply a case of a misled teenager. While its a litle hard to believe that the one thing standing between arrest of some of the Twin towers attackers before their attack was an interoffice feud between the FBI in Washington and their New York chief, John O'Neill, Mahoney neverthless regards Mr O'Neill - tragically killed on 9/11 - as a true American hero.

Well researched, well written and well connected, this is an important book. Buy it America! Read it! Then go out and vote -before its too late.

A premise of Richard Mahoney's "Getting Away With Murder" is that U. S. attorney cut a plea deal with "American Taliban," John Walker Lindh, at least in part because the U.S. government did not want a public airing of its illegal dealings with the Taliban. Mahoney's marshalling of the facts supports his premise.

The book starts in a fortress near Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, with Mike Spann and Dave Tyson, CIA paramilitary commandos, interrogating non-Afghan Taliban prisoners shortly before the prison riot that claimed Spann's life and ends with Lindh's sentencing hearing. Sandwiched in between these events, author Mahoney reviews how America has enabled - even sponsored - terrorism, the crusade of counterterrorist FBI agent John O'Neill, and the how Lindh arrived in Afghanistan.

Most of the allegations detailed in the book of governmental incompetence, too cozy U.S. government and specific public servants' relations with Saudi Arabia, its royal family and the Taliban have already found their way into the public consciousness. However, author Mahoney does an excellent job organizing the information in an interesting and coherent manner. More than 30 pages of notes follow.

Readers who refuse to acknowledge that those in the service of the public and the agencies they toil for make mistakes and do at least on occasion overstep, will dismiss this book. An open-minded reader will at moments believe author Mahoney has become overly critical and at other moments become angry about events detailed in the book. Conspiracy theorists will have a field day.

Overall, I found this book well worth the price and my time. My only real criticism is minor. I find a book more enjoyable when it includes pictures of the major figures and maps of the areas detailed in the book. Sadly, no pictures or maps are found in the book - at least not in the first edition.

Richard Mahoney's new book is insightful and powerfully rendered. His message is extremely timely and deserving of consideration by our highest emissaries and decision makers. As an American and someone who loves this country, I appreciate Mr. Mahoney's scholarship, historical perspective and profound discernment of the complex and tragic situation our country finds itself confronting. He conveys real patriotism in his graceful writing. Mr. Mahoney clearly researched his topic well. Bravo!

Mr. Mahoney covers a lot of ground in his book but at the end fails to provide anything but a hypothetical argument based on circumstantial evidence to suggest, but not prove, that either John Walker Lindh or the "American government" is responsible for the "murder" (Mr. Mahoney's words) of CIA para-military operative Johnny Michael Spann. The book is very interesting, and provides great insight into both the Global War on Terror and Mr. Spann who was a brave and selfless servant and hero of our country. However, the book does not live up to the sensational title or provocative pictures on the cover jacket.

First of all was there a "murder?" Murder is a civil crime. Despite Mr. Mahoney's excellent research, he fails to include a discussion of the "law of land warfare." This law clearly states that in war combatants are allowed to kill other combatants. Mr. Lindh certainly was a combatant. However, was Mr. Spann a "combatant" or a "non-combatant" advisor to US forces? If Mr. Mahoney had addressed the thorny issue of whether members of the CIA' SAD (Special Activities Division) were "combatants" or merely "non-combatant advisors to US combat forces" he might have provided some insights to the complex and critical discussion on the roles US government and civilian "non-combatants" can/should play in times of war. These include but are not limited to: Can non-combatants carry weapons? If they carry weapons can they fire at the enemy? Does the Geneva Convention cover government non-military or civilian non-combatants? The Department of Defense is wrestling with these issues as more and more support services provided to combat troops are being outsourced to non-DOD organizations.

Mr. Mahoney devotes a chapter to building an argument for how historical US foreign policies may have contributed to the rise of terrorism, but in it he deals unevenly with the relative contributions of the last three administrations. He spends a good deal of time detailing alleged Saudi influence during the Bush 41 and Bush 43 administrations but does not mention a word on the possibility that Saudi money may have contributed to US foreign policy making during the Clinton administration. I find that interesting because according to Richard Perle and David Frum, in "An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror" the Saudis were shamelessly seeking to influence the Clinton administration. Here is a quotation from Perle and Frum's book: "Within a month of Bill Clinton's winning the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1992 the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce donated $3.5 million to the University of Arkansas to create a `King Fahd Center for Middle East Islamic Studies.' One month after Clinton's inauguration the University of Arkansas got $20 million more from the Saudis." Saudi money is an insidious and perhaps near omnipresent factor in our government's foreign policy decision-making processes regardless of our President's political party.

Mr. Mahoney spends thirty pages detailing the heroic efforts John O'Neill made to combat terrorism while in the FBI, but I am not sure this interesting discussion contributes to the question "who got away with murder?" I sincerely agree with Mr. Mahoney that John O'Neill should never have been forced into retirement and that he was perhaps our nation's most effective pre-9-11 antiterrorism agent. However, it was the policies of President Clinton's Administration, the Janet Reno Justice Department, and the entrenched bureaucrats in the FBI that failed to allow O'Neill's unorthodox approach to his responsibilities, and ultimately forced him to retire. Mr. Mahoney leads us to believe that it was the Bush Administration's approach to foreign policy that caused O'Neill to retire. Additionally, Mahoney never mentioned that it was a memo from a key member of Reno's Justice Department in 1995 that precluded the CIA from sharing intelligence information about participants at the January 2000 Al-Quida meeting in Kuala Lumpur with the FBI. Two Al-Quida attendees of that meeting subsequently came to the United States and "played key roles in the September 11 cataclysm." Had the FBI received the nanes from the CIA those two Al-Quida could have been interdicted while entering the USA.

I enjoyed this book for Mr. Mahoney's detailed research. However, he obviously had a political axe to grind because he selectively shares information that is very critical of Republican Administrations, but shades the impact of the Clinton Administration foreign policy and Reno's Justice Department errors. An example is that Mr. Mahoney went into great detail about the problems Attorney General Ashcroft brought upon himself while trying to bring charges against Mr. Lindh, but he does not even mention the Justice Department/FBI scandal regarding the 1995 Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City. In Jayna Davis' book "The Third Terrorist" she convincingly makes the case that Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols did not act alone. Although the book was published in 2004, beginning the day of the bombing Ms. Davis gathered evidence and collected statements from eyewitnesses that clearly implicated foreign participants and perhaps even foreign/Al-Quida control of the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City. Although she provided all her information including the names of the eyewitnesses to the FBI in OKC, they never followed up on it and were content to prosecute only McVeigh and Nichols. Apparently an order not to pursue the leads Davis provided the FBI came from up the FBI/Justice Department chain-of-command. If Al-Quida was involved in the 1995 OKC bombing why wouldn't the leadership of our country want to expose it? Perhaps the fact that McVeigh's execution had to be postponed in 2002 after it was revealed that the Justice Department/FBI had withheld evidence from McVeigh's defense attorneys is another indication of the kind of problems that exist in the bureaucracy that is supposed to honor the law while defending and protecting the rights of American citizens. If the Department of Homeland Security and the new Intelligence Czar are going to provide this nation better service than our national intelligence and police forces have in the past, a thorough investigation of Jayna Davis's startling allegations is required ASAP.

Perhaps Mr. Mahoney's next project should be to research and publish a book that explores why in 1995-2004 the Justice Department and FBI failed to follow-up on the evidence and witnesses Jayna Davis provided them. Who in Clinton's Administration made the decision not to pursue the Islamic connection to the Murrah Building bombing and why didn't McVeigh and Nichols ever implicate the Islamic men they were seen with before April 19th 1995 and in the case of McVeigh on the day of the bombing? Why didn't Secretary Ashcroft take immediate steps to reopen the OKC bombing investigation after he was confirmed? The nation deserves answers to these questions.

Richard Mahoney is a respected political and diplomatic historian, but here he almost bites off more than he can chew. This is probably the fullest account yet possible of JW Lindh, Afghanistan and the US government & oil companies' murky dealings with the Taliban and other Central Asian actors. Mahoney presents a very damning case, involving cynical doubledealing and profiteering, against the Bush administration ideologues in particular, but there's plenty of blame to share among recent administrations. The main flaw in this riveting book, noted by others, is that the data is suggestive but not conclusive; both supporters and opponents of the war on terror (read: resource wars) must read and evaluate Mahoney's evidence carefully. Cf. M. Klare, "Resource Wars" for a near-definitive study of this subject. So much of the Lindh story remains shrouded in secrecy---and criminality---that an authoritative acount must still wait for years to pass. Yet another reason to rip through the web of lies and deception emanating from the White House and Pentagon!

Mahoney provides a meticulously researched treastise that exposes the incestuous link between many of our leaders and the Taliban/terrorists. Mahoney is particularly revealing and damning (through his presentation of facts, not opinion) concerning the Bush administrations and their very close links with the Saudis and the oil industry. The author details not only what President G.W. Bush knew about the pre-9/11 attacks but also how he and his fellow power brokers helped foster and fund the very groups that attacked us. It seems a pipeline through Afganistan and the megamillions it would bring (no, not to you; to your political and industrial leaders) were more important than protecting us from a threat that, as Mahoney clearly shows, was very well known long before the attack on the Twin Towers. Only after 9/11 did President Bush choose to replace sending millions of dollars to the Taliban with sending bombs.

There are heroes in the book, people such as the late FBI's John O'Neill, who knew what was going on and encouraged our leaders to act. These few brave souls were summarily marginalized and dispensed with. However, by detailing their insights and courage, Mahoney offers some hope, if his readers can only find the will to even partially replicate their bravery.

Getting Away with Murder, though bleak, encourages us through example to speak out, to act, and to vote with selfless conviction.

Who "gets away with murder"?

This is a wonderful "read". Sketches of Mike Spann (CIA hero and casualty), Lindh (the American Taliban), and O'Neill (the terror expert who might have made the difference) grab the reader as much as a well documented discussion of the Bush administration's questionable role bargaining with the Taliban; responding ineffectually immediately after 9-11; screwing up their case against Lindh.

Given the total naiveté of young recruits sequestered in the Indian Ocean on ship and brainwashed about Saddam's role sponsoring 9-11 (a total myth), one might buy the notion that Lindh was a naïve, confused, idealist looking for clarity and Faith. Spann, a hero, may have been equally naïve and equally expendable to his government. War in Afghanistan was planned before 9-11 and the decision to attack Iraq was made in the first weeks of the Bush administration. The rest, as becomes increasingly clear, was "smoke and mirrors" (to put it kindly).

You can decide just who (several parties maybe) "got away with murder."

Any book on current events will prove to have some errors. Here, aside from a proof reader who uses the Buddhist `sutra' for the Muslim `surah' there are a couple worth mentioning. The evidence that George Bush before the Gulf War hoodwinked the Saudis and the public about the satellite photos showing immanent Iraqi invasion - to get their support and American bases in Saudi Arabia (a key critical bin Laden `cause') - is now very convincing and includes satellite photos showing no such thing and the government's failure to produce or even show their evidence `off the record.' Salafiya is not identical to Wahabism as is implied. Nevertheless the story is compelling, great reading, and makes one think.