The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader

by Peter L. Bergen

Book Overview

Osama bin Laden has haunted the popular psyche and stymied the world's mightiest military for the last five years. Despite President Bush's declaration that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive,"... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743278925
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.6" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Superb Context Shows How Clinton & Neo-Cons BOTH Fueled Islamic Violence

This is quite a superb composition of the statements of others about Bin Laden, interspersed with very credible observations and conclusion by Peter Bergen. The book opens with a cast of characters and ends with a "where are they now" listing. It also provides a timeline, but a limitation of this book is that it focuses on Bin Laden alone. I have a number of notes from this excellent book: 1) The 1967 war in which Israel won was vital in showing the Arabs that it was their own inept and corrupt regimes that were leaving the Zionists in power. Also this book, at the end, where the Sykes Picot 1916 agreement highlighted in the Lawrence of Arabia epic movie, is clearly identified by Bin Laden as the start of the current "crusade" against Islam. 2) Bin Laden was a shy and polite, very religious person with a good education--the classic revolutionary (contrary to conventional wisdom, the rebels are the smart ones that see through the facades). 3) The 1979 invasion by Saudi forces to recapture the Al Haram mosque radicalized Bin Laden, as did the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The writings of Egyptian Sayyid Qutb on Islam as a complete way of life, when COMBINED with the corrupt and often decadent lifestyles of the Saudi, Egyptian, and other Arab rules, were in tandem a foundation for the radicalization of youth across the region. 4) The Pakistani cleric Abdullah Azzam was a major influence and enabler for jihadists seeking to fight the Soviets by entering via Pakistan, and the clearly untold story, in this book or any other, is the deep and constant relations between the Pakistani intelligence service, the Taliban, and Bin Laden. 5) In Afghanistan the back story is Bin Laden the theocrat versus Massoud the tolerant secularist in the Northern Alliance. 6) Soviet invasion of Afghanistan produced 6 million refugees, half to Pakistan and half to Iran. 7) The open sources of information available on Bin Laden and anti-Israel and anti-us plans are legion, and the author is extremely effective in cataloging all of the overt information that the U.S. Intelligence Community simply ignored from 1988, when the Commandant of the Marine Corps and I first made terrorism, and the use of open sources to understand terrorism, a national issue. 8) In 1996 Jamal Al Fadl walked in to a US Embassy (probably Sudan) with plans for attacks on US by Bin Laden, and also in 1996 Bin Laden announced on CNN, ABC News and in Al Jazeera that he was declaring war on the US. My comment: in the US, only Steve Emerson ("American Jihad") and Yossef Bodansky "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America") took the declaration seriously. 9) Clinton and Bush BOTH were happy to deal with the Taliban, and the Taliban understood that the Americans, regardless of party, wanted a pipeline from Caspian energy to Pakistan (rather naively assuming Pakistan would be able to protect it), as well as bases against China and Iran. 10) This book makes it clear that every time Geor

Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner

I had never heard this French phrase until it was introduced in this book by Peter Bergen. It means "to understand all is to pardon [or forgive] all." The sentiment appeals to me intellectually, even though I don't agree with it. I more agree with the phrase you must to understand your enemy to be better able to defeat him. I think it helps to know that Osama fasts every Monday and Thursday, that he arises before sunrise every day for prayer in a private mosque, that he prays five times a day, that he listens to no music, watches no television except the news, and he keeps no photographs or paintings of any type. It helps to know that he has four wives but that he has only divorced one of them. It helps to know that he believes his father's generation is weak and that his constant refrain to his followers is "Unless we, the new generation, change and become stronger and more educated and more dedicated, we will never reclaim Palestine." It helps to know that he counsels his followers not to wear shorts or short sleeve shirts. It helps to know that he is soft spoken and seldom "preaches", preferring to lead by example. It helps to know that his followers tend to follow the example he sets. It helps to know that he reveres his father, a one-eyed laborer who started a construction empire that built the mosques at Islam's three most holy sites, Mecca, Medina, and the Dome of the Rock (which he deliberately bid at below cost, donating a large portion of the construction money). It helps to know that Osama was enraged when the Saudi Government drove tanks into the mosque at Mecca. The tank treads desecrated the building his father had built. It helps to know that his father had his private jet take him to all three holy sites in a single day, so he could pray at each, and that he did this twice a month. It helps to know that when Osama entered his father's road contstruction business, he worked from dawn to sunset in the desert, pausing only to have lunch with the workers. He was dedicated to being know as a worker, not as the spoiled son of a rich and powerful businessman. How does knowing some of Osama's personal background help? When you know that Osama doesn't listen to music because it is forbidden, you understand the depth of John Walker Lindh's committment to Islam when he destroyed his album collection. When you know that Osama forbids homosexuality you understand Lindh's rejection of his father's committment to the gay lifestyle, and the younger Lindh's decision to leave California and study in Yemen. It also helps you understand why Lindh joined the Taliban and chose to fight against the U.S. when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. When you know that Osama keeps "no graven image" you understand why Muslims rioted at the depiction of Mohammad in a series of Dutch cartoons. Depiction of the Prophet violates the Second Commandment against making a graven image of anything on earth. Other cult figures, like H

BEST BIN LADEN BOOK OUT THERE!

I've read just about every credible book out there on Osama Bin Laden(OBL)and I think this one is by far "THE BEST." What I particularly like about this book is it's approach - the snapshots in time, the individual personal remembrances that give fascinating little details into the personality and character of OBL. These little details and Peter Bergen's excellent commentary throughout the book help us to develop a profile of OBL and gain a better understanding of who he is and what made him into the person he is today. As a former military analyst this is fascinating stuff, but don't just take my word for it - READ THIS BOOK!

"Bringing it on"

I read the excerpts in Vanity Faire and had to get the book. Bergen brings Osama to life as no one has before. Dead or alive he is a messianic figure for much of Islam and America haters everywhere. Bin Laden declared war on the U.S. 12 years ago on CNN and has since carried out the most audacious attacks on the U.S since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Some good photos of a very scary man. Can't put it down.

Bergen is insightful, like usual.

Peter Bergen again manages to write a fascinating book that, for all intents and purposes, states the basic facts of something that has been overly complicated by politics, sensationalistic journalism and just plain ignorance. An attempt is not made to demonize Bin Laden, which is almost always the case with books on Bin Laden, which have unfortunately been plentiful and severely lacking in both substance and often out of context. What makes this book far better than the rest is that everyone can understand it and gleam information from it. I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable about Osama Bin Laden and terrorism in general. The appeal of this book though is that the novice, the person just starting to learn about Bin laden, can gleam the same knowledge and information from this book as me or anyone else who has followed Bin Laden for years. This book is different than most books out there for one reason and one reason only: Peter Bergen gets it. The reality is that Bin Laden is demonized to no end, to the point where fact and fiction become blurred for the average man or woman trying to learn about him. Bin Laden is a bad person, I'm not arguing otherwise. However he's not the personification of evil like people wish to paint him as. Those people do all of us a disservice because it forces us to rely on politicians to educate us. While I'm sure I will come off as an anti-Government nut job, the truth is that the politicians don't want you or I to truly understand the nature of our enemy. They benefit from demonizing him because it wins them elections, it boosts poll numbers and brings campaign donations. The facts though are far more disturbing than what politicians, from both sides of the aisle, lead us to believe. This book is invaluable because it does exactly the opposite of what the media and our Government does. It states the facts and lets them stand on their own so that you and I can judge on our own because the facts are damning enough, there is no need for rhetoric that only serves to help those who wish to remain and obtain power, or in the case of the media, get ratings. Bin Laden isn't insane. He's not even evil. He believes in everything he is doing and that is the real motivation behind it, not this thirst for bloodshed. In the eyes of his supporters they look at him no differently than we look at our founding Fathers. He truly believes, with all of his heart, that this is his duty. If he were fighting for a different cause, one that you or I looked at as being truly noble, I have no doubt that he would fight for that cause with the same dedication and sense of moral obligation as he does with his cause today. While I hate to stir debate with a fellow reviewer, Michael Scheuer is correct in stating that Bin Laden is "a great man". If you are able to look at it from the point of view of Bin Laden and his followers, he is a great man. He is different from Hitler and other murderers because they knew what they were doing wa