"ontopicks" has got it all wrong - Ahmed has done us a great service - and outdone himself yet again - with this brilliant sequel to The War on Freedom, his 3rd book. This book isn't about resolving theories of MIHOP or LIHOP, which is of course a fairly banal issue of internal interest to the 9/11 truth movement rather than the uninformed patriotic public unaware of 9/11 as "the big lie". It's an unprecedented, courageous confrontation with the entire political history of international terrorism in the post-Cold War period.
Ahmed doesn't repeat unnecessarily the writings of other authors who've written on 9/11. This is because The War on Truth is a work of original research, and isn't actually derivative of those other authors in any sense. Also, Ahmed's expertise - the realm of political science and international relations - leads him to focus on exactly that. Physical theories are simply not the remit of his actual thesis, which is a political thesis about, to paraphrase him, the symbiotic ties between Western power and international terrorism. To be frank, Ahmed's work consistently outclasses every other 9/11 author for its sheer detail, meticulousness and wealth of documentation.
The War on Truth is based on more than 1,000 sources - largely mainstream news accounts, official documents, critical analysis of the official inquiries, and occasionally the critical use of the findings of some other researchers. To say that it's based on "left-gatekeepers" is simply disingenuous. This book is based on such an abundance of rich and credible sources, it's almost impossible to keep track except for Ahmed's superb, lucid narrative.
The overall result is a powerful and sophisticated argument that contributes new knowledge not only to the 9/11 truth movement, but to political science in general. Ahmed completely eclipses Tarpley and others with a detailed examination of the systematic linkages between western military intelligence services, regional intelligence services, and al qaeda networks, across several different continents. For instance, he does detailed case studies of al qaeda activities in algeria, chechnya and the philippines - and finds that the respective al qaeda terrorist networks are fundamentally subverted and coopted by local state intelligence services backed by the west! he extends the analysis to Madrid: and finds that the al qaeda perpetrators of the Madrid bombings were double agents working as informants for the Spanish government! So he goes much further than Tarpley in his analysis, and far deeper.
And he ties it all together with a fascinating overview of how al qaeda DOES exist, was created by the western powers, but ultimately manipulated and coopted by them not only during the Cold War but well after the end of the Soviet Union until today in the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, the Middle East (yes, including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia), etc. Most disturbingly he demonstrates beyond doubt that these policies inevitably and directly produced anti-western terrorist attacks, with the full awareness of western government elements maintaining these 'ties with the devil',as Ahmed ironically describes them. And his focus is not only Bush, but Clinton. Not only the USA, but Europe and Britain.
As for his discussion of the hijackers - I've never read such a detailed and well documented account of the odd liaisons between the US military intelligence services and the alleged 9/11 hijackers. Ahmed doesn't bother going round in circles wondering whether or not the hijackers existed, or were actually on the plane, or not - he simply presents report after report showing that these guys were monitored round-the-clock by the CIA and FBI both before and after their entry into our country, were trained by the US military, and were steeped in completely anti islamic practices like alcohol, cocaine, and lap dancing. And he clearly suggests, at one point, that these guys were probably double agents, although with characteristic and welcome caution, he doesn't labour the point and again leaves it to us to make up our own minds.
This is ultimately the real value of Ahmed's work. By sticking to simply laying out fact after fact in such intricate detail, he offers us a powerful antidote to the prevailing myth that can be given to anybody, whatever the political standpoint. Whether you're into MIHOP, LIHOP, or know nothing at all about the problems with the 9/11 official story, you need to read this book, urgently. It gives us the big, "geopolitical" picture of international terrorism and al qaeda as products of a worldwide system of western power, "symbiotically conjoined" to the "arteries" of that power, to paraphrase Ahmed again. So buy it, read it, get your friends and family to read it, and send copies to your representatives. This is probably the most important book you'll ever read.
