Sometimes a slog, but a rich trove exposing a terrorist organization that persists even after its founder’s demise.
International security and terrorism expert Lahoud pores through documents retrieved from Osama bin Laden’s compound at the time of his death.
When special forces forces penetrated bin Laden’s Pakistani fortress, they were told to keep the raid under 30 minutes. With Adm. William McRaven’s approval, they spent an extra 18 minutes to round up papers, computers, and the like—about 100,000 Arabic-language files that yielded “6,000 pages of relevant materials.” These documents, notes the author, “allow us to put together a chronological account of the key events that defined al-Qaeda in the decade between 9/11 and the founder’s demise in 2011.” Much of the material involves mundane, even tedious, details of what amounts to an HR department with critical operational information: For example, they show that bin Laden was detached from daily command of al-Qaida during the years when he was hiding in the caves of Tora Bora, and they reveal a complex pattern of negotiation and calculation relative to Iran, which proved to be a counter to al-Qaida at many turns and therefore an unacknowledged ally of the U.S. Many al-Qaida leaders died early on in battle or by drones in Afghanistan, forcing bin Laden to reach out to recruit successors, so that “in 2004, Usama’s remaining associates were second-tier leaders.” Other matters of interest include plans for further terror attacks in the U.S. and in Saudi Arabia. The latter has long been accused of complicity in 9/11, given the number of Saudis involved, but Lahoud recounts that by 2008, Saudi authorities had arrested “more than 5,000 political prisoners of the jihadi variety.” Along the way, Lahoud suggests that the pornography recovered from bin Laden’s computer might have been a legacy from a previous owner, since by that time he was so financially strapped that he had to buy used, virus-laden equipment.
Sometimes a slog, but a rich trove exposing a terrorist organization that persists even after its founder’s demise.Pub Date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-300-26063-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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