Peter Bergen's aptly titled book "Holy War, Inc", draws a stunning portrait of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization. He depicts al-Qaeda as a multi-national terrorist network, with members everywhere from Egypt and the Philippines to Disney World and the suburbs of London. Bergen takes the reader on a fast-paced journey around the world to try to understand the minds of these Islamic militants.
Bergen's first contention is that Osama bin Laden is grossly misunderstood by the West. Bergen begins by dispelling various rumors circulating around bin Laden. For instance, it was falsely speculated that bin Laden received an engineering degree from an American University, teamed up with Iraq to plot the 1998 African embassy bombings, and was receiving funds from the CIA. The first step Bergen, a journalist by profession, takes to give the reader a clear understanding of bin Laden is to lay out the factual aspects of bin Laden's life.
Bergen argues that it was misunderstanding that led to, what he deems as, countless blunders in U.S. foreign policy, especially the actions of the CIA, with regard to the Muslim world in the 1980s. He does not go as far as to claim that the CIA "created" bin Laden and al-Qaeda, however he does argue that the CIA committed a "significant tactical error" in giving the Pakistani Intelligence Service, the ISI, carte blanche authority over the distribution of about $3 billion to the Afghani resistance against the Soviets. The ISI, according to Bergen, mostly supported anti-Western mujahedin, including Pashtun General Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is a known associate of bin Laden.
Bergen does an excellent job of conveying the pervasiveness of al-Qaeda throughout the globe. He identifies many members in the United States, including a Disney World Employee, a California undergrad, a military advisor, Boston cab driver, and "several African-Americans." All the while he links the actions and influence of these people, and others on almost every continent, to acts of violence going back to the 1980s, in places including, but not limited to, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Tanzania, New York, Egypt, Afghanistan, Yemen, Kashmir, Kenya, and Sudan. Most poignant, is Bergen's small biography of Ali Mohamed, whom is describes as an al-Qaeda "sleeper" who was able to "penetrate one of the U.S. military's most secretive establishments and plot terrorist attacks on American soil."
"Holy War, Inc." does, however, have its shortcoming. In may places the writing seems thrown together and even sloppy at times. Bergen, in his afterword, apologizes saying that the book had to be revised and rushed to press after September 11th. Bergen also often takes the reader on tangent after tangent into everything from the lives of minor characters to camels copulating in the middle of the road. An additional, but perhaps unavoidable, difficulty is the alphabet soup of Muslim names that gets thrown at the reader. Presumably this book is targeted toward a Western audience and an attempt to mitigate the confusion over which Mohammed did what would have been helpful.
Toward the end of the book Bergen attempts to debunk Professor Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" theory. Bergen rejects Huntington's argument on empirical grounds and maintains that nationalism and power politics are still the best predictors of rivalry in the post-Cold War world. However, his feeble arguments make it grossly obvious that Bergen is a journalist and not a political scholar. He never actually addresses any of Huntington's core arguments, but rather simply lists several loosely interpreted counterexamples.
To finish his book, Bergen recommends several pragmatic steps that the United States needs to take to effectively battle al-Qaeda. First, the United States needs to leave behind its Cold War mentality and rethink everything, especially the employment of military force and the business of intelligence gathering. He argues that our reliance on electronic intelligence is not effective against a man like bin Laden who has stopped using telephones since 1997. Also, the U.S. should not rely as heavily on intelligence from the Pakistani ISI, since many members are sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The U.S. should therefore develop more human intelligence sources, specifically recruiting agents from the many rival tribes in Afghanistan, such as the Northern Alliance. Also, the world needs to be ever vigilant with the existing nuclear stockpile to ensure that nuclear material does not find its way into the hands of al-Qaeda. Bergen does not believe the problem would go away if bin Laden were to be killed, however he acknowledges that his organization would "be dealt a severe blow if bin Laden were ushered from the world."
Finally, Bergen argues that the best way to eliminate al-Qaeda is to "shut down permanently the Afghan training camps where the foot soldiers of Holy War, Inc. learn their deadly skills". It is these camps that turn unskilled, undisciplined Arab men into professional terror soldiers. Without the camps the recruits cannot easily learn how to make bombs or organize themselves into cells capable of carrying out elaborate plans.
"Holy War, Inc." is a good book for someone who wants to transcend the pro-Western rhetoric surrounding Osama bin Laden and simply get the straight facts. Peter Bergen's journalist flair allows the reader to take in a heap of information and draw their own conclusions. That is not to say that Bergen does not advocate his own opinions, but he does not allow his personal biases to obscure the facts. An enormous strength of this book is Bergen's in-depth knowledge of his subject matter. He personally travels all over the Muslim world to track down facts and interview key personalities. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning the facts about al-Qaeda , or anyone who would like to get some insight into the inner workings and motivations of Osama bin Laden.
