LIHOP and The Looming Towers

[gumboot]

Well, I've just finished reading Lawrence Wright's Pulitzer-winning book The Looming Tower, and just as many have said, it's an excellent and well-researched piece of journalism.

I found the title somewhat misleading in the second half of the book - rather than follow Al Qaeda's path to 9/11, I felt the book focused more on the efforts of the FBI, CIA, and Saudi Intelligence to catch Osama Bin Laden and shut down Al Qaeda.

The benefit of this is, of course, that it sheds light on the precise environment in which any LIHOP scenario would have occurred.

I'm interested in how those who have read the book feel it affects the LIHOP scenario?

I find the author's explanation for intelligence failures to be thoroughly plausible - a combination of unclear intent, inter and intra agency fighting, clashing personalities, a swamp of information, a lack of experience and preparedness, and so forth.

Although I don't hold to the LIHOP scenario - I feel the book offers only one remotely possible corner for such a scenario to exist - in the position of the individual who was solely responsible for authorising transfers of intelligence from the CIA to FBI.

On that matter, I think more than anything the intelligence failure was not a failure of the particular agencies, but of policy.

The CIA and FBI function very differently, their goals and duties are very different, and as such they regard intelligence very differently. For the CIA, intelligence is something to hoard away, something that is only valuable if secret, and something to be used to guide actions.

In contrast the FBI regards intelligence as evidence, or if not - a path to evidence. Gathering intelligence is not a task in itself, but merely a means to and ends - that ends being a successful conviction in a court of law. Evidence could not be kept secret - indeed the ultimate ambition was always to present it to the world and let justice take its course. Evidence was the prize itself.

These two approaches offer two very different end solutions. I think a major problem was the US government (particularly under Clinton) didn't know what to do with Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda (once they finally knew of its existence). Was he a criminal, who needed to be brought to justice? Or was he a military threat to the US, that needed to be silenced?

Without a decisive position of the end solution to the Osama problem from the government, the two agencies each pushed their own objective, at the cost of the other. The government, rather than sticking to an approach, offered a bit to the CIA (abductions and military attacks, infiltration and assassination) and a bit to the FBI (extraditions and trials).

What do others think?

-Gumboot

[CptColumbo]

I found the insights into fanatical Islam and the origins of Al-Queda very informative. The part where he describes how OBL felt "faith" alone would defend Saudi Arabia from Iraq, and being upset that the Goverment decided to accept the US's help instead, is very telling of their mentality. Also, OBL taking the lessons from the US's failure in Viet Nam, as a plan against the USSR and later the USA, explains what type of fight we're in for.

It's very good and well researched.

[Hokulele]

* Adds book to library list *

[gumboot]

It's very good and well researched.


On the matter of "well researched" the bibliography at the end is nine pages long, written in very small type.

In addition the author lists the people he personally interviewed in his research. He states "Some of the people in this book I have interviewed in depth dozens of times". After the list of interviewees, he has a six and a half page acknowledgment which deals with the problem of bias sources, and his methodology of pulling fact from fiction.

Oh. But back to that list of interviews. How many people did he conduct interviews with (some of them "in depth, dozens of times")?

Five hundred and sixty.

Truthers take note. That's how real research is conducted.

-Gumboot

[JimBenArm]

Oh. But back to that list of interviews. How many people did he conduct interviews with (some of them "in depth, dozens of times")?

Five hundred and sixty.

Truthers take note. That's how real research is conducted.

-Gumboot
[whiney voice] But that's hard! [/whiney voice]

[CptColumbo]

On the matter of "well researched" the bibliography at the end is nine pages long, written in very small type.

In addition the author lists the people he personally interviewed in his research. He states "Some of the people in this book I have interviewed in depth dozens of times". After the list of interviewees, he has a six and a half page acknowledgment which deals with the problem of bias sources, and his methodology of pulling fact from fiction.

Oh. But back to that list of interviews. How many people did he conduct interviews with (some of them "in depth, dozens of times")?

Five hundred and sixty.

Truthers take note. That's how real research is conducted.


-Gumboot
And some of those interviewed aren't that easy to get to talk openly.

Another good book that talks about the rivalries between agencies, that was written before 9/11/01, try The FBI by Ronald Kessler. It's a history of the FBI post-Hoover. The chapter about FBI vs. DEA is very shocking.

[R.Mackey]

Well, I've just finished reading Lawrence Wright's Pulitzer-winning book The Looming Tower, and just as many have said, it's an excellent and well-researched piece of journalism.

The benefit of this is, of course, that it sheds light on the precise environment in which any LIHOP scenario would have occurred.

I'm interested in how those who have read the book feel it affects the LIHOP scenario?

I gave my answer to that question in this post (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3152427#post3152427), which you already saw.


These two approaches offer two very different end solutions. I think a major problem was the US government (particularly under Clinton) didn't know what to do with Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda (once they finally knew of its existence). Was he a criminal, who needed to be brought to justice? Or was he a military threat to the US, that needed to be silenced?

Exactly. Much like the dilemma faced by NORAD in the first minutes of the actual hijackings -- is it a criminal act, requiring that we stand back and let them land; or is it a military thread, and should they be destroyed? Just not enough information to make the call. Logic dictates one must wait for a clear result, rather than pull an Alex Haig and force a solution.

[Undesired Walrus]

Everyone goes on about The Looming Tower, but I think The Islamist by Ed Husain gives a better and more detailed insight into the mind of an ex-radical and the cell structure. But then again, Ed is my friend, so I'm biased.

[CptColumbo]

Everyone goes on about The Looming Tower, but I think The Islamist by Ed Husain gives a better and more detailed insight into the mind of an ex-radical and the cell structure. But then again, Ed is my friend, so I'm biased.
Shill. :)

[gumboot]

Another good book that talks about the rivalries between agencies, that was written before 9/11/01, try The FBI by Ronald Kessler. It's a history of the FBI post-Hoover. The chapter about FBI vs. DEA is very shocking.


I can understand how most of the refusals to share information came about, but one bit in The Looming Tower that really struck me as odd was when the NSA refused to share their intercepts with anyone. The NSA, on its own, can't actually do anything. Their task is to intercept stuff for the CIA or FBI to use.

The notion that the NSA would get vital information and then refuse to give it to the FBI or CIA just makes no sense whatsoever. What on earth were they planning on doing with it?

-Gumboot

[gumboot]

Everyone goes on about The Looming Tower, but I think The Islamist by Ed Husain gives a better and more detailed insight into the mind of an ex-radical and the cell structure. But then again, Ed is my friend, so I'm biased.


The Looming Tower is very much focused towards Al Qaeda, rather than radicalism and Islamic terrorism in general. I also think (as this thread indicates) that one of its more valuable elements in the perspective of the FBI and CIA's efforts to track down Osama Bin Laden.

I'll be tracking down The Islamist once I finish Collapse. :)

-Gumboot

[CptColumbo]

I read Looming Towers after Guests of the Ayatollah. Both are great histories of modern Islam in the Middle East.

[boloboffin]

For even a mild LIHOP scenario, you have to have someone dimly aware of an actual attack and wanting it to happen, and letting it happen. Attacks that happen because people are being [rule10] in inter-agency turf wars isn't LIHOP.

After reading the book, my personal tin foil hattery is now located solely in the CIA not telling the FBI about the terrorists who were in the country. I attribute this to the rivalry between Mike Scheuer and John O'Neill. Mike was sidelined into sitting in a library, where his sympathetic colleagues saw him every workday. John O'Neill was teetering in the FBI with problems of his own. If the CIA had told the FBI about those terrorists, the FBI could have swooped in, taken them out, and John O'Neill would have a major victory, meaning, job security.

And Mike Scheuer would have been still stewing in his library.

But John O'Neill didn't get that information. He got pushed out of the department and killed in the collapse of the Towers. And Mike goes on talk shows now and in the most vehement language blames everybody else, and I do mean everybody else, for what happened except for his own chapped [rule10].
.
No, I can't prove it. How could you? That's why I call it tin foil hattery, even though it isn't LIHOP. I can't say that it would have stopped the attacks. It may have pushed them back a year or so.

Anyway, my opinion.

[PhantomWolf]

I haven't got to Looming Tower yet, it's sitting in the pile beside my bed under the latest Star Wars novel (one about Darth Bane.) I figured I'd need a little light reading after Steve Coll's 2005 Pulitzer winning Ghost Wars which I am reading currently.

[CTM]

If you go to Wright's website which is just his name plus a com, under articles, you will find a NY Times oped he did called: The trials of the Century. It is a very interesting piece on what to do with OBL if he is found alive. I've heard him talk about this several times during rado interviews.

[Firestone]

If you go to Wright's website which is just his name plus a com, under articles, you will find a NY Times oped he did called: The trials of the Century. It is a very interesting piece on what to do with OBL if he is found alive. I've heard him talk about this several times during rado interviews.Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/opinion/22wright.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) for the lazy JREF'er...

What he says:
First, don’t kill him.
...
And, please, don’t send him to Guantánamo or torture him in an undisclosed location.
...
We should, instead, offer him to the authorities in Kenya, where, on Aug. 7, 1998, a Qaeda suicide bomber murdered 213 people in the attack on the American Embassy. More than 150 people were blinded by flying glass in the attack — most of them Africans who were in or near the embassy or the secretarial school across the street, which was flattened by the blast. Let Mr. bin Laden sit in a courtroom in Nairobi and explain to those blind Africans that he was aiming only at an icon of American power.
Then take him to Tanzania, where on the same August morning Al Qaeda hit another American Embassy, killing 11 people, most of them Muslims.
...
— but in my opinion there is an obvious last stop on his tour of justice: his homeland, Saudi Arabia, where hundreds of his countrymen and expatriate workers have died at the hands of Al Qaeda. There he would be tried in a Shariah court, the only law he would ever recognize.

If he were found guilty, he would be taken to a park in the middle of downtown Riyadh known as “Chop Chop Square.” There, the executioner would greet him with his long, heavy sword at his side.
Seems the right things to do, indeed.

On-topic, I have ordered the book last week, and am now waiting for the Amazon-package to arrive ...

[CptColumbo]

There was an interview with Wright on NPR yesterday. He mad some interesting observations on how Al-Queda has no real plan for what to do if they win, at the moment their plan is only one of destruction. Also that their primary target are those nations in the Middle East that they see as non-Muslim, but whenever they try to take over they are put down violently (Egypt and Syria). So the US is really a secondary target, but one that they can operate more freely in.

[hellaeon]

This is a book I would like to read.
The description in the opening post is EXACTLY how I imagined things would have happened. Its plausible. It does not involve Gordon Freeman and Moulder, but human nature and clashing policies that bind the various departments involved.

Cheers for the recommendation

[CptColumbo]

This is a book I would like to read.
The description in the opening post is EXACTLY how I imagined things would have happened. Its plausible. It does not involve Gordon Freeman and Moulder, but human nature and clashing policies that bind the various departments involved.

Cheers for the recommendation
Wow, so winning the Pulitzer Prize wasn't enough of an endorsement? You needed it to be recommened on the JREF forum. What an honor. :)

I love this forum! The Oprah Book Club can [rule 10] off!

[Undesired Walrus]

There was an interview with Wright on NPR yesterday. He mad some interesting observations on how Al-Queda has no real plan for what to do if they win, at the moment their plan is only one of destruction. Also that their primary target are those nations in the Middle East that they see as non-Muslim, but whenever they try to take over they are put down violently (Egypt and Syria). So the US is really a secondary target, but one that they can operate more freely in.

Can't say I agree they operate in America freely. I'd say London and Germany are their two favourite places to recruit for homegrowns. As KSM said to Yosri Fouda, 'You are young, you speak English, and you live in London. You would make the perfect terrorist'

Al Qaeda seem to be winning, because they are tapping into the emotions reverberated in Imagine.

'Imagine no possessions, it's easy if you try.....
Imagine no countries, it isn't hard to do....
A brotherhood of man...

Leaving aside 'Imagine no religion' and you have a powerful emotional weapon. Their brotherhood is a lot more appealing than Ted Haggard prancing about to a bunch of middle class white nutcases.