Peter Bergen

In "United Stats of Jihad", author Peter Bergen talks about radical Islamic terrorists, both the state sponsored / top-down organized groups, as well as the lone-wolf activists. It may not be obvious unless we stop and think about it, but in the United States, he notes that the bulk of post-9/11 terrorist activities or threats were carried out by citizens or residents, not refugees or immigrants entering the Country to commit a terrorist attack.

He details many of the stories of U.S. residents or citizens who became radicalized, what common traits they may have shared, and how they turned against their home country. This includes the more well know individuals such as the Tsarnaev brothers (Boston Marathon bombers in April, 2013); Faisal Shahzad (failed Times Square, NY car bomber in May, 2010); Major Nidal Malik Hasan (Fort Hood, TX shooter in November, 2009); Syed Rizwas Farook (San Bernardino shooters); Omar Mateen (Orlando, FL shooter); etc. He also includes several others, some successful, others not, and discusses their motives and who inspired them.

It's clear from his book that immigration barriers and entry restrictions are no guarantee against terrorist activities. The bulk of lives lost in the U.S. since 9/11 have been caused by individuals in small attacks. Vigilance by families, associates, communities, in addition to the continued and effective monitoring by law enforcement officials are all part of identifying and stopping those using their concept of Jihad to harm others on either a small or large scale.… (mehr)

This is a fine companion work to Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower. While Wright's work does a much more extensive job of showing the events leading to the creation and evolution of Al Qaeda than this book does, both books deal very well with the inside work of American intelligence and defense agencies in dealing with Islamic terrorist groups in general and Al Qaeda in particular. It can be argued that this book picks up where The Looming Tower ends, after a fairly brief "Previously on the Osama bin Laden TV show" type introduction. In fact, that introduction initially came across so sparse, at the time of reading it, it felt like the author was talking extemporaneously from his notes. It later occurred to me that he might have been asked to tack it on for the final edit before publication. After all, the author had previously written his own Looming Tower type books, and may not have felt the need to rehash what he had already written. While this book enthusiastically picks up after 9/11 and takes us to the bin Laden capture and death, it shifts away from much discussion of Ayman al-Zawahiri and other key Al Qaeda figures, and stops short of any discussion of the almost inevitable Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Ultimately, the power of this book is not in the more-exciting-than "Zero Dark Thirty" climax, but in the very deep explanation of how U.S. agencies overcame many of their pre-9/11 misdeeds and demonstrated extraordinary care in "getting it right." All of which seems to have been thrown out the window in a recent Yemen raid by the new U.S. administration. Oh, well. What's that famous phrase? "Those who would never be caught dead reading a history book, will be condemned to make fools of themselves and their country"?… (mehr)

With our current government focused on protecting our borders form Islamic terrorists, I found this book to be a great factual take on our home-grown Islamic terrorists. Since 9/11, all of the terrorist attacks in the US have been committed by US citizens.

The book downplays the role of ISIS and Al Queda as more thought influencers than attack planners. Most of the criminals depicted in the book were influenced by the teachings of the radical Islam groups, with no evidence to show that they were instructed to engage in the attacks.

The book is well-written and was given to me by the publisher in the expectation of a review.… (mehr)