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Chilling
book gives insight on terrorism Executive/Online Editor It s
not often that something I read makes an impact on me, good or bad, but
there s one book that scared the bejesus out of me. Who
Becomes a Terrorist and Why: The 1999 Government Report on Profiling
Terrorists
is a truly disturbing book to read. As
the title indicates, the book was written in 1999, before the general
public of the United States knew anything about Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida
or hijacked airplanes being crashed into the World Trade Center. When
the book was first released, I would guess it received little, if any,
major publicity. However, if one reads the book now, the information
presented is more than enough to chill to the bone. In
the first pages, the author, Rex A. Hudson, clearly states, Al-Qaida
poses the most serious terrorist threat to U.S. security interests, for
al-Qaida s well-trained terrorists are actively engaged in a terrorist
jihad against U.S. interests worldwide. Keep
in mind this was written in 1999. That s TWO full years before the
attacks of Sept. 11. If
that doesn t disturb you quite enough, then ponder this for a moment. The
book also contains detailed profiles of all the major terrorist threats
to the United States, who their major leaders are, and it even gives
background information on all the leaders, when possible. For
example, bin Laden was the 17th of more than 50 children. After
finishing school, he went on to study management and economics at King
Abdul Aziz University. Now, I know, this isn t really all that
interesting, but if you keep reading his profile, Hudson eventually
begins to talk about, as of 1999, where bin Laden was located, what his
weapons capabilities were, his communications setup, just an
unbelievable amount of information - and all of it compiled from public
information the government released. Who knows how much more information
they had that wasn t released? Hopefully,
you now see why this book scared me so much. All
the information was right there in front of not only the public, but the
friggin government! Yet all of it was ignored until it was too late.
And now that I think about it, the book not only scares me, it makes me
sick. I
definitely would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in
learning more about terrorists and their mindsets. However, this book is
not an easy read. If you do read it, and everyone should, keep this in
mind. Later
in the book, when the author gets into the psychological aspect of
terrorism and cults, there is truly much one can learn about what things
are like for the other side. In fact, the quote at the beginning of the
book sums it up best: While
nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more
difficult than to understand him. - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky |