Is it as easy as a 19 minute jihadist video made in Yemen,to influence American policy (like shutting Guantanamo bay) thousands of miles away in the White House? Sounds like beggars belief to me. The more likely scenario surly is that someone who never wanted the closure of Guantanamo bay orchestrated the making of the video to force the hand of Obama or am I just another nutty Muslim prone to conspiracy theories? If the Pakistani government stands accused of not managing its own Intelligence Service than surly the mighty US government is also vulnerable to a similar ailment with own CIA?
That was my initial impression when reading the prologue to this book before undergoing a detailed set of events which pretty clearly explains the nature of Al-Qaida in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Osama was Yemeni and wanted desperately to make Yemen Al Qaida's base of operations. The chronology of events is presented like the format of a flowing story which makes it very readable. I must confess I was convinced by the end of the book that Al-Qaida is a real threat and not a mere passing fascination as portrayed by media in Pakistan and most of Middle East. Therefore the almost full marks accorded to this brilliant longish article of a book, which resembles a blog in form. The only bit missing was the abrupt end to the book without the author's concluding remarks.
Then there was the casual mention of ex-volunteers turned intelligence officials in the book. I was never able to fully understand the utter dislike for 'peaceful' initiatives like polio drop vaccination and the deployment of Peace Corps among majority Pakistanis. This book provides at least one example of a peace corp volunteer turn into diplomat, into intelligence officer before evolving into head of clandestine operation in Yemen. Do I need any more evidence still?
The story of Yemen is a familiar one, a powerful monarch partners a fundamentalist Islamic militant sect to crush its enemy before turning over its guns on its former partner. It happened in Saudi Arabia, Lawrence of Arabia orchestrated another version for the Allies, Pakistani/Arabs did a version in Afghanistan and now a repeat version in Yemen. How many more iterations will we witness before we learn from the past?
That was my initial impression when reading the prologue to this book before undergoing a detailed set of events which pretty clearly explains the nature of Al-Qaida in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Osama was Yemeni and wanted desperately to make Yemen Al Qaida's base of operations. The chronology of events is presented like the format of a flowing story which makes it very readable. I must confess I was convinced by the end of the book that Al-Qaida is a real threat and not a mere passing fascination as portrayed by media in Pakistan and most of Middle East. Therefore the almost full marks accorded to this brilliant longish article of a book, which resembles a blog in form. The only bit missing was the abrupt end to the book without the author's concluding remarks.
Then there was the casual mention of ex-volunteers turned intelligence officials in the book. I was never able to fully understand the utter dislike for 'peaceful' initiatives like polio drop vaccination and the deployment of Peace Corps among majority Pakistanis. This book provides at least one example of a peace corp volunteer turn into diplomat, into intelligence officer before evolving into head of clandestine operation in Yemen. Do I need any more evidence still?
The story of Yemen is a familiar one, a powerful monarch partners a fundamentalist Islamic militant sect to crush its enemy before turning over its guns on its former partner. It happened in Saudi Arabia, Lawrence of Arabia orchestrated another version for the Allies, Pakistani/Arabs did a version in Afghanistan and now a repeat version in Yemen. How many more iterations will we witness before we learn from the past?
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