180 WEEKS IN THE WAR ON TERROR

A collection of newspaper columns written in the wake of the 9/11 attacks examines the war on terror and the political troubles of the Arab world.

Stalinsky meticulously chronicled the war on terror that followed the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks in a weekly column for the New York Sun. This book is an assemblage of those columns from 2004 to 2007, an eclectic mix that covers a broad spectrum of topics of a political and cultural tincture. The author particularly focuses on the extent to which ideological extremism pervaded the Middle East, not only on the fanatical periphery of Arab life, but also within its core political and journalistic institutions. For example, Stalinsky doggedly documents seething antisemitism in news programs on Arab and Iranian television and the incitements to prejudice and violence espoused on Al Jazeera, often considered a neutral news outlet in the Western world. In addition, the author examines the prevalence of virulently hateful conspiracy theories throughout the Middle East as well as the ways in which Arab political reformers heroically attempted to debunk them. Many of those theories revolved around the 9/11 attacks, the event that forms the thematic core of this volume: “As each year passes following the attacks of September 11, 2001, conspiracy theories surrounding that day continue to appear on Arab and Iranian TV. While it will be commemorated as a solemn day in America as in much of the world, unfortunately, in the Middle East, it will be continued to be blamed on others.” Stalinsky’s reports are lucidly written and tautly argued, and he provides an important peek into a world awash in a dangerous combination of misinformation and discriminatory contempt. But since the columns weren’t originally composed to be presented as a journalistic whole, they finally become quite repetitive. Moreover, given the profound failures of the war on terror initiated during the George W. Bush administration, the author’s support for it seems at best dated, if not deeply myopic. Still, this remains an astute collection of cultural analyses and an intriguing look back into the still fresh past.

Despite its limitations, a worthwhile grouping of journalistic assessments of the war on terror.