Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, well-documented book about Islamic terrorism, June 3, 1997
By A Customer
Bodansky's two books published by SPI (Shapolsky) Publishers document in a highly readable format the Islamic fundamentalist terror network that operates inside and outside the United States and the malevolence these Islamic terrorists bear toward America and Americans. More people ought to be made aware of the hate-filled rhetoric of these Islamic radical leaders and the violence they advocate and espouse toward Americans and Western society generally. Bodansky is an expert in this area and well-qualified to address these issues. He has advanced degrees in the field, has worked for Congressional subcomittees dealing with terrorism and also has written numerous articles on the subject which have been published by a variety of academic and other journals
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Written in 1992, January 8, 2003
By A Customer
This book was printed in 1992 and without doubt foretells many of the things done in the name of Allah that have happened around the world since then. While the book is a tough read, replete with footnotes and references, it is nevertheless incumbent on the reader to finish it. While depressing, the book is a wake-up call to all freedom loving people around the world, and demonstrates that Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and Stalin are not all dead but have actually taken up positions of authority in many Islamic states, and threaten freedom at every juncture in the road.
It was startling to learn that Islamic terrorists in Iran, Syria, and other places, were practicing the simulated flying of large airplanes into skyscrapers in the 1980s. Sure this book and its facts are fictitious!
The book refers to numerous Islamic terrorist organizations indoctrinating expendible youths with the glory of suicide and dying for the Jihad. The fact that Arafat has said that he "would be willing to expend 65 Palentinian lives to kill one Israeli" is a prime example of the glory and emphasis placed on dying for the cause; of course, when it is not he who has to die. The incessent bombing and murdering of Jewish and other infidels, more than 10 years after the book was written, further substantiates the fictional aspects of this book. The book clearly describes the incarnation and growth of the "axis of evil" and the people who orchestrate the diabolical show. There can be no doubt that the axis consists of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, as has finally been attested to by our politicial leaders. Of course there are the "axis of evil" supporters in Europe, the US, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, adnauseumstan, and frankly, I'mtiredofthemallstan. The capture of a shipload of arms from Iran to the Palestinians and the selling of SCUD missiles to Yemen by North Korea are excellent examples that the axis of evil is alive and well and living on planet earth. Wake up America. Turn the TV off. Read, educate yourself. Find out what our enemies are saying and doing. This book is a good place to start. It's so out of date, it's scary!
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
EARLY WARNINGS OF TERRORIST ATTACKS ON U.S. SOIL BEFORE 9-11, January 21, 2006
Originally sold in 1993 as "Target America and the West: Terroism in the U.S.," Yossef Bodansky's "Target the West: Terrorism in the World Today" is a detailed harbinger of the 9-11 attack on the U.S.
Since the late 1980s, Yossef Bodansky had been Director of the Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the United States. He worked very closely with Congressman Bill McCollum (R-Florida), Chairman of the Task Force to develop plans for effectively dealing with terrorist attacks on American interests domestically and overseas. McCollum wrote the Introduction to TARGET AMERICA: TERRORISM IN THE U.S. TODAY. In it he concluded: "It is only by publicly exposing this threat to America and through educating our citizens that we can stop the terrorists from carrying out their nefarious plans and protect our freedoms."
The Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare was formed because Republicans believed, president Bill Clinton's administration was not doing enough to protect the United States against threats on American soil by Islamist terrorists. The first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, master-minded by Sheikh Umar Abd-al-Rahman seemed to justify the Republicans' concerns.
TARGET AMERICA (aka "Target the West") is well organized into eight chapters, beginning with Chapter 1 "Radical Islam Against the U.S" and concluding with Chapter 8 "Islamist Terrorism in America (II)". More than fifty pages of notes and references support the arguments presented in this book. The section, "The New Islamist International in America," tells us:
" ... between March and December 1992, the Islamist terrorist network conducted actual preparations for a major terrorist strike against the Great Satan. Initially, the bulk of the work was done clandestinely by expert terrorists, both in New York and overseas, who conducted a survey of potential targets. Specific planning, such as bomb design, followed.
" ... They took advantage of the main lesson learned from the Kikumura operation, namely, that one can get everything in the U.S. A major sabotage operation can be carried out with little or no need for smuggling tremendous amounts of explosives, especially the tell tale plastiques."
In TARGET AMERICA, there is little mention of Osama bin Laden. This was corrected by Bodansky in 2001 when he wrote his more narrowly focused, BIN LADEN: THE MAN WHO DECLARED WAR ON AMERICA. But lately, President George W. Bush said that he didn't have adequate warnings of the 2001 attacks on American soil. The facts are that he had a plethora of warnings by the Director of the Republican Task Force on Terrorism, outlined in TARGET AMERICA.
Bodansky's book on bin Laden came out in September 2001, just ten days after nineteen Islamist skyjackers executed their spectacular suicide attack on the United States. Possibly, one reason bin Laden could so quickly be targeted by Bush after the September 11th attacks is from the work of Bodansky's Task Force. Eight years earlier, Bodansky wrote in TARGET AMERICA:
"By the end of the (1980s), Iran and the U.S. were, in effect, involved in a very intense, yet secret, war in the Persian Gulf and Lebanon, where Syria was actively involved. ... The three phases of the Iranian-Syrian long-term terrorist strategy were as follows:
1. Use of local expendable assets to carry out operations while creating problems for the local security forces;
2. Quality attacks by operatives already on-site, living off and gaining operational support from the locally-based dormant networks.
3. Spectacular strikes, including suicide attacks, by specially placed expert terrorists in order to demonstrate the global of the Iran-led Muslim Bloc and to avenge the Muslim world ..."
Bodansky argues in TARGET AMERICA that the 1993 truck bomb attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center was the opening skirmish in the Islamist terrorists' war inside the United States. America's leaders can expect more, larger and protracted battles. The small group of New Jersey-based Islamist terrorists led by Abd-al-Rahman were apprehended and punished for their crimes. But those with responsibility for America's security didn't clearly communicate to the rest of us that this terrorist cell was merely one platoon in Al Qaeda's widespread international army.
Republican and Democratic leaders could have and should have issued clear warnings to the American people about imminent attacks on us by Islamist suicide platoons. Yet the Bush-Gore debates during the 2000 American presidential election failed to raise the issue of terrorism on United States' soil. This issue needed to be publicly debated long before the September 11th attacks forced Bush to declare his "war on terrorism." TARGET AMERICA concludes:
" ... Islamists are convinced that they are on the verge of a marked escalation in their fateful Jihad aimed at demonstrating the Islamists' reach and announcing the opening of a new escalatory phase in their war against America.
"The [1993] bombing in New York was merely a prelude to a new terrorist campaign in which America is the target."
Well, that was what Bodansky warned us about in 1993. Now, we all know what happened after 9/11 and how an aging Yale cheerleader turned failing president managed to create an historic career out of it with his "war on terrorism."
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