Book Review – Richard Miniter’s “Shadow War”
A couple of months ago I finished reading the nonfiction book “Shadow War: The Untold Story of How America Is Winning the War on Terror.”
Even though the book itself was written back in 2004 and much has changed in the War on Terror (we are still calling it that, right?), Mr. Miniter does shed the light on several key parts that most of us average, everyday people never knew.
For starters, this book does not go into the politics about fighting terrorism.
This book isn’t about how President George W. Bush should have handled things or if we, as a country, should stop pursuing the terrorists and give in to their demands. No, this informative book is instead about the espionage and tracking of terrorists as well as revealing key events from 2000 through the deadly train station bombing in Madrid, Spain on March 11, 2004.
As a whole, this book is a quick and easy read. Instead of reading about fantasy attacks depicted in thrilling novels, you’re reading about true events that either took place or were in various planning stages. The fact that this is the real deal made focused my attention on the material, and I found myself going from page to page, anxious to read more about al Qaeda and international terrorism.
It’s easy to lose track of the victories in this war as revealing too much information could easily spoil future operations, such as making Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s (the underwear bomber) comments public. You can feed the press small pieces of information, but much bigger parts of the story will have to wait until the time is right in the future. I’m sure that in the next five to ten years we’ll be seeing some really informative firsthand accounts telling detailed stories about missions carried out by special operation teams as they fight the terrorists here and overseas.
So as a result, it’s mainly the negative news that we keep hearing from the news media. Throw in the fact that A) most of the press is liberal, and B) bad news sells, and it’s no wonder that it seems like everything keeps going wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan. It makes it a lot harder to debate those issues when the average people on the streets are only given skewed stories. Then again, how much do average people care about these issues? Maybe if they hosted American Idol in Afghanistan or made a bunch of reality shows in the Middle East people might start paying attention.
It’s refreshing to find an author who takes the War on Terror seriously and can present at least part of it in a book like this one.
“Shadow War: The Untold Story of How America Is Winning the War on Terror” mainly takes place in a three year span from the new Bush Administration in January of 2001 to the Madrid bombing on March 11, 2004. It’s partially implied that between the internal hostility involved with the “changing of the guard” to a nation divided and distracted on who really won the 2000 presidential election, it was a prime time for al Qaeda to strike. The bureaucracy was still in development when hijacked airliners smashed into the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and field in Pennsylvania on that Tuesday morning almost nine years ago.
But since 9/11, how many terrorist attacks have taken place in the U.S.?
For a worldwide organization that hates this country and our beliefs, why haven’t they carried out more spectacular attacks, like the Bali, Indonesia nightclub bombings on October 12, 2002; the bombings in Istanbul, Turkey on November 15 and 20, 2003; or the massive commuter train bombings in Madrid, Spain on March 11, 2004?
The terrorists have the motive. They have the knowledge of carrying out deadly bombing attacks. They can recruit here within the U.S., especially amongst hardened prison inmates.
Perhaps, just perhaps, our intelligence system is working and we’re able to take the fight to the terrorists overseas, stopping key members and forcing the organization to keep moving and reorganizing itself.
The book also goes into detail when talking about both Afghanistan and Sudan, key hot spots when it comes to al Qaeda and Muslim extremists.
This book ends with an analysis of the Madrid bombing and how that incident changed the country’s presidential elections almost overnight. The author implied that such an event was likely to also happen here during the 2004 presidential elections, but as we know, the anticipated attacks did not occur. The terrorists did not strike during the recent 2008 presidential election, either.
“Shadow War: The Untold Story of How America Is Winning the War on Terror” is a great book for anybody who wants to learn more about the real war on terrorism. It doesn’t get into the theories of terrorism or how we should be doing things. The only minor issue is that some parts of the book do show its age as certain key figures are no longer a threat or expected events did not take place. The chapter on “Terror at Sea,” however, is a different story.
Remember that al Qaeda is very patient and will wait until the time is right to strike, and it’s quite possible that such recent events in the news may be dry runs or even diversions from the real intentions of terrorists.