Chapter three
In this chapter, the father of Osama bin Laden is introduced. The name of this father is Mohammed. This person was a “road king and a construction guru for the Saudis” (Anonymous, Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower: Para7). Following this, he turned out to be a very rich man and he was closely linked to the ruling class. This man was a Yemen and because of this, he was not entirely accepted in the community of the Saudis. However, he was held in very high esteem by these people; he was broadly and deeply respected (Anonymous, Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower: Para7). He built up an immense construction empire. He was a “legendary in the country for building roads which helped fuel modernization of Saudi Arabia” (“Fearful Symmetries” Para 3).
Osama’s father had 22 wives in total. He also had 54 children and Osama was the seventh child. Osama was the only child of his mother. The name of the mother was Alia and she was the fourth wife. The two met in a small village in Syria and Alia was 14 years old at the time they got married.
However, later in time Osama’s father divorced Osama’s mother. He handed the wife to one of his workers and they got married. At the time his parents divorced, Osama was still a very young boy. Osama bin Laden went to stay with his mother and the step-father. Later her mother gave birth to her step brothers and sisters. After the divorce, it did not take long before Osama’s father dying in a plane crash. At the time Osama attained the age of 17 years, he went to the same village in Syria where his father had gone to marry his mother and also got married to 14 year old girl. The name of this girl that Osama took for a wife was Najwa. He also followed his father’s footsteps and practiced polygamy and he ultimately took four wives (Meek Para 21).
Chapter five
In this chapter, there is presentation of the main financial and military undertakings carried out by Osama with the people of Afghanistan in the course of the 1980s and the war that was staged against the Soviets. His business undertakings had the luck of the bin Laden empire and the “reactionary Saudi regime” (Nixon Para30). The intimate link that he was having with MAK as well gave out an implication that here was full awareness by the CIA about the activities he engaged in.
The station chief of the CIA by the name Milt Bearden in Pakistan who held this position beginning from the year 1986 up to the year 1989 accepted the fact that he did not meet Osama bin Laden in person but he knew him. He admitted that Osama bin Laden used to bring in every month between twenty to twenty five million US dollars from the rest of the people of Saudi Arabia as well as the Gulf Arabs to fund the war.
In the year 1986, Osama bin Laden brought to Afghanistan an important construction gear. This equipment was brought in from Saudi Arabia. By making use of the great knowledge he had in construction, he set up the training camps. Osama is a man who is very much educated in the field of engineering because he has a degree in civil engineering. Some of the people he worked with engaged in digging beside the mountains and they as well set up roads that reached these sides of the mountains.
These camps that were set up, which are now referred to by Washington as “terrorist universities”, were set up with the help of the CIA and the ISI. “The Afghan contra fighters, including the tens of thousands of mercenaries recruited and paid for by bin Laden, were armed by the CIA, Pakistan, the US and Britain provided military trainers” (Nixon Para 32)
A man who was formally a British SAS by the name Tom Carew, who engaged in fighting for the “mujoheddin” gave information to the British observer that there was keenness among the Americans to educate the people of Afghanistan about the methods and skills of urban terrorism. The urban terrorism included the car bombing among other activities. They offered this education in order that they could be in a position to strike the people of Russia who were in the major cities. Most of these people are making use of the knowledge they have to stage war against anything that they do not like.
Al-Qaeda was set up in the year 1988 which was Osama bin Laden’s organization. This business was brought in to operation to manage the business enterprises as well as the camps. This is a entrepreneurial investment business that is run in a tight manner although it is one which brings in the activities of a mercenary force and those logistical services that are associated with it in those business activities that are legal.
Osama bin Laden has just proceeded with the task that he was assigned to carry out in Afghanistan in the course of the 1980s. His task has been to offer funds, give food and offer training to the mercenaries. All that has undergone transformation is his primary client. At that time, the primary client was ISI and behind the scenes was the CIA.
“Osama bin Laden turned out to be a terrorist according to the United States of America judgment at the time he fell out with the royal family of Saudi Arabia over the decision this family made to permit over a half a million troops to be staged on the land of Saudi Arabia and after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq” (Nixon Para 33). At a time a number of soldiers of the United States of America still remained in Saudi Arabia at the time the Gulf War was over, the annoyance that Osama bin Laden had had transformed to absolute opposition. “He made a declaration that Saudi Arabia among other regimes like Egypt that were found in the Middle East were the United States of America’s puppets, the same way the Afghanistan government had been in a similar manner the Soviet Union’s puppet” (Nixon Para38).
Chapter Six
This chapter talks about the “back-and-forth between Zawahiri’s Al-Jihad and bin Laden’s group, before bin Laden’s group and its goals of global jihad win out” (Anonymous, Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower: Para 9). Consequently, officially al Qaeda commences with its activities on the tenth day of September 1988.
At this particular time, at the beginning of al Qaeda, it tends to look like America is not in play for it. According to Anonymous (Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower: Para10), “even if they would not have cared taking pokes at Americans, it wasn’t closely as high on the list to the same level as other objectives or goals were. Proof of this is that the United States of America did not exist on their list in the year 1988”. Also, the United States of America had been of much help to the resistance of Afghanistan that they offered against the Soviets. Osama bin Laden presented claims that the efforts that were carried out by the United States of America to offer assistance to Israel in Lebanon in the year 1982 was the stimulant or driving force for the development of the hatred that he had.
Several people, Osama bin Laden being among them, had fondness for Saddam Hussein but they remained uncomfortable about what actions he would take and what the reaction to his actions would turn out to be. The origin of these fears resulted from the bombing he carried out on Kuwait. However, worse still, the fears resulted from the response that was given out by the American people as well as the deep and unconcealed dependence of the Middle East. To make matters to be even much worse, the American people stayed in spite of the leadership of America and Saudi giving out promises that the American people would go. “This links this author’s, Lawrence Wright, work to the thesis of Pape that the continued presence of the American people send out a powerful impression that the Americans were an occupying force” Anonymous, Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower: Para10). On a consistent basis, this has been the driving force for the efforts carried out by al Queda against the people of the United States of America (Anonymous, Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower: Para11)
Chapter Seven
In this chapter, the author tries to trace the way al Qaeda evolved on top of giving his readers a clear picture of the daily lives at the training camps. The descriptions he gives out serve as an echo of what was given out by the rest of the experts like the person who was formally a CIA officer by the name Michael Scheuer that what Osama has on mind is that he does not go against the United States of America for the reason of the culture it has or the ideas it stand for but instead, he is against it because the political actions as well as military actions it engage in the world of the Muslims.
The author here makes an observation that Mr. Osama bin Laden permitted his young boys to play Nintendo and also that the trainees in the al Queda camps engage in watching the Hollywood movies before they could go to sleep. This was a move that was taken in order to obtain some tips. One of Osama’s wives preferred American commodities and the other wife had a PhD in child psychology (Anonymous, The Evolution of Al Qaeda and the Intertwining Paths Leading to 9/11 Para 3).
Chapter Eleven
This chapter focuses on the actual events that took place during the September 11 bombing (iguama.com Para 13). This part centralizes on a character by the name O’Neill. This was a person who was formally an agent of the FBI who shad been appointed as the chief Security officer just a short time before there was bombing. The account given by Lawrence Wright in this book is greatly disturbing and they encompass much detail which other authors have left out, probably from a notion of fragility (Meek Para 30).
O’Neil foresaw the danger that could be posed by Osama and had intentions of arresting him but at the time his colleagues in the CIA had preference of having Osama to be simply murdered. O’Neil died in the World Trade Center when the bombing occurred. I During the late 1999, he stood alone in his organization, and at this time sent out warnings about the danger al Qaeda could bring to the American people in the country. Acco0rding to Lawrence Wright, O’Neil was a person who felt insecure, misleading and prospectively compromised. Wright also goes ahead to point out that this man was determined inventive and bright. Regardless of the situation, this was one gentleman America relied on put a stop to the actions of Osama (Cashill Para 11).
Emotional as the ironical death of O’Neill was in the World Trade Center,. This death resulted from his action of leaving the FBI to take the task of the Chief security officer in this place. Basing on the account that is presented by Lawrence Wright, it is indicated that the security of America and elimination of Osama did not rely on just one person. This was a job called for cooperation among several people and even not just people but organizations. To stop Osama, he could not be dealt with by a single man or woman. To counter his force called for an effort to be undertaken by an institution and in case this institution did not succeed was much more impressive than any of the achievements that could be obtained by O’Neil (Knopf Para 6).
In the case of the September 11 attacks, the lack of success by the intelligence of the United States of America was so bizarre that doubt is gotten over. “Some joint work by the NSA, the CIA< and Malaysian and Saudi intelligence surveilled a group of known al Qaeda operatives meeting in Kuala Lumpur as early as 1999” (Meek Para 32). If this meeting was not allowed to take place, on top of stopping the September 11 attacks, there would have also been stopping of the USS Cole in Aden. However, as the way it was, the CIA were able to get the names of those people from the al Qaeda who would make the attacks in the September 11 bombing and they also had their photographs. But then the rivalry that existed among the agencies as well as the suspicion that was there among them caused them not to give out information to the State department as well as to the FBI.
In the end, one of the partners in FBI of O’Neil by the name Ali Soufan being among the intelligence agents of the United States of America who were able to speak the Arabic language, had a chance to view the photographs. This was a day after the September 11 attacks had taken place, that is, this day was on 12th September 2001. He was aware that O’Neil had died. When he came to realize that the CIA had been having knowledge about the presence of the attackers in the United States of America for over one and a half years, he got sick from the shock of this issue. For quite some time before the occurrence of these events, the United States of America intelligence establishment jointly with the British intelligence establishment did not listen to the message that was given out by revolutionary Islam which was meant to transform the world (Meek Para 36).
Works Cited
Anonymous, The Evolution of Al Qaeda and the Intertwining Paths Leading. 2006.
Anonymous, Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower. 2009. Web.
Cashill, Jack, Will Richard Clark head Obama’s CIA. 2007. Web.
“Fearful Symmetries”, The Looming tower by Lawrence Wright. 2010.
iguama.com, The looming tower: al Qaeda and the road. 2010.
Knopf, A., Alfred, The looming Tower: Al Qaeda road to 9/11 review. 2006.
Meek, James, The original targets. 2006.
Nixon, Norm, How the CIA created Osama bin Laden. 2001.