Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad Reviews

• an important, timely read

  
  By A6PGY3XAJSYH2 on 2008-04-07
  Andrew McCarthy writes with clarity, depth and self-effacement about the lead up to and the successful 1995 prosecution of Omar Abdel Rahman, the Blind Sheikh, and his terrorist followers. As lead Assistant United States Attorney, McCathy's knowledge and attention to detail fascinate. The intricacies in mounting the prosecution, avoiding the pitfalls and foibles of the FBI and New York's Joint Terrorism Task Force, keeping a difficult informant from refusing to cooperate, struggling with the rules of admissible evidence, rival the best in any police procedural mystery; this is not Sam Waterston spouting the script of "Law and Order," this is the argot of a real life Federal prosecutor and it is daunting. No Hollywood script can capture the nuance and judgment needed to bring a case like this to its successful conclusion.
  
  McCarthy, a talented writer, draws deep insights from his experience into the shortcomings of prosecuting terrorists as criminals. He ends with a thoughtful exposition of the disconnect between national security and criminal law. He is a voice of clarity, reason and experience in the dialogue now going in America on issues of law and national security.
  
  

• A Must Read

  
  By A1VZEVB8NFN28Q on 2008-05-19
  This is an entertaining and informative book about the prosecution of terrorists in the 1990s, and specifically those who attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. You get a window into the inner workings of government and this knowledge will help you frame the current argument about where (US or GITMO) and how (courts vs battlefield) to defeat the current threat. Armed with the history of what happened in the 1990s, you will be able to separate logic from fantasy in today's highly-charged political environment. McCarthy even offers food for thought on the damages that could happen if we bring the war to our courts.
  
  

• Willful?

  
  By A1XT75G7IBITFM on 2008-04-16
  Ohmygosh, I just read this on the train and I'm glad I was moving when I did. I share friendships with many journalists who are not "liberals" with "agendas," both in the US, the UK and South Asia (India and Pakistan). My impression of Andy's book is that it lay somewhere on the continuum between Vincent Bugliosi's iconic memoir and analysis of the Manson case, "Helter Skelter," and Cracker Jack candy and gorp-entertainment for the right-wingers to gobble up. I will say that Andy is somewhat successful at avoiding the usual prosecutor/police procedural trope and heroics, yet the plunge in the other end of the pool without the float of context and analysis, and tossing away ideology, is a bit weird. It's almost a bugle call to arms against an evil empire of classic Hollywood vintage. Or perhaps Andy has has "channeled" Richard The Lionhearted and we must follow against the evil, ragged and Unholy Arabs. In short, I don't think it adds anything to the decourse beside this basic "Helter Skelter" review. I am sure the right wing will eat it up, however, and there it seems to have found it's only audience.
  
  

• Willful Blindness (Hardcover) by Andrew C. McCarthy

  
  By A36RFMJ8200L23 on 2008-06-08
  Thank you Andrew C. McCarthy.
  
  I did not know the long history and total dedication as related here.
  
  Again Thanks
  
  

• Willful Blindness Review

  
  By A31YBVW9AUDAV7 on 2008-05-19
  Very difficult book to put down! A VERY important message for ALL: should be required reading for ALL members of the House & Senate!!!
  
  Anyone who fails to heed the message of this book does so, not only of their peril, but the peril of all free peoples everywhere!
  
  We are FOOLS to believe that the Fanatical Islamics will abide by ANY measure of human dignity, honesty, family values, or fair play. Those doing so are DELUDING themselves! This Fanatical Islamic group is DEMONIC and the ONLY authority they recognize is ... SUPERIOR FIRE POWER!
  
  Trying them in an American Court of Law is LUDICROUS!!! A Military Tribunal, yes. A Court of Law? NO!!!
  
  My opinion in a nutshell.
  
  Bob Van Keuren
  Williamsburg, Kentucky
  
  
• Brilliant insite
  By A3UENEWFMPN53T on 2008-06-02
  This is an excellent book for those who want to find out why the US does not take terrorism seriously. It is not a legalism, it is terrorism.
  
  
• too scary to read at bedtime
  By A33O2KPYVB0UT on 2008-06-19
  Everyone who doesn't want to learn Arabic and wants to keep their Bibles should read this book and think about what it says.
  
  Keep a dictionary handy, however. He uses a few Bill Buckley quality words.
  
  
• Willful Blindness: A Must Read
  By A3DEHQF6WPW7LV on 2008-06-15
  Willful Blindness by former prosecutor, Andrew McCarthy, is a must read for those who wish to inform their decision-making process. Although McCarthy's writing style is obtuse at times, he brings to the table a high level of credibility and this book should be read by all Americans and, especially by those who honestly believe that peace can be achieved through diplomacy or that "western style" democracy is achievable in the middle east. The talkers are necessary, but without our second-to-none military and our industrial capabilities, they have no power to pursuade. Let's all take the blinders off and see the world for the truly dangeous place it has become.
  
  
• It didn't have to end like this.
  By A2KMBEHIAAJ96J on 2008-10-15
  It didn't have to end the way that it did, with 3000 dead and a smoking hole in lower Manhattan. We were warned. We had gotten our wake-up call. It was our choice to go back to sleep.
  
  What makes Andrew McCarthy's book a must read for everyone is that he is not a journalist telling someone else's story. He is the lead prosecutor in the case against the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and this is his first-hand account of that high-profile prosecution and the events leading to it.
  
  After reading Willful Blindness the inescapable conclusion is that all of the societal structures that are supposed to serve us have broken down. The Intelligence Agencies failed to warn us; Law Enforcement failed to protect us; the Press failed to understand the implications and meaning of the events they reported on; the Courts, obsessed with legal abstractions, mis-judged the very real danger we faced; our political leaders were too timid, self-absorbed, and focussed partisan advantage to fulfill their first and most fundamental obligation: to defend the nation above all else. Only the Military, our last line of defense, has succeeded in raising the shield. Yet, even now their efforts to protect us are underminied by those same elements of society that so singularly failed in their past duties.
  
  It is tempting to shrug and say, "Hindsight is always 20/20." A better cliche to adopt as our slogan is Santayana's famous dictum, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." We closed our eyes and chose to forget what happened in 1993, only to see history repeat itself - with a vengeance - in 2001.
  
  The cast of characters today is familiar to us all. Ramsay Yusef, who planned the first bombing and who was thwarted in his plan to simultaneously blow-up 11 airliners over the ocean - but only just. Kalid Sheik Mohammed - the Mastermind of the second bombing and ultimate destruction of the World Trade Center - who escaped civilian prosecution in 1993 but is presently held prisoner at the military base at Guantanamo Bay - to the consternation and frustration of the ACLU. Lynn Stewart, the radical lawyer convicted and disbarred for abusing the privilege accorded legal counsel to unmonitored access to an accused, who used her lawyer's priviledge to transmit operational orders from the "Blind Sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman to his followers outside the US. Her presence on the streets of this nation today, as a free woman - the result of a Judge's decision not to imprison her for the crime for which she was convicted - is a reminder that the legal system fails us still.
  
  Andrew McCarthy has rendered invaluable service to this country, first as a Justice Department Prosecutor, and now as the voice of warning. Will we listen to him, or will we remain wilfully blind?
  
  
• Willful blindness to blowback.
  By A1TUDEC66M9FO3 on 2008-06-23
  In McCarthy's world, Arab militants apparently come out of a vacuum, or out of some passage from the Koran. What he and his admirers are willfully blind to is the brutality of U.S. foreign policy. Osama mentioned part of a long list of injustices - sanctions on Iraq that killed 500,000 children Iraq Under Siege, Updated Edition: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, U.S. support of Israel's aggression against Palestine Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project). There is barely a word of any of this, and so much more, in the countless books like McCarthy's that seek to demonize our victims. Keep in mind, these allegedly evil people are the same people we were arming, training and applauding when they were killing Russians Terrorism: Theirs and Ours. Authoritarian Islamic fundamentalists are the same people that the U.S. is happy to work with in countries like Saudi Arabia The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity, or in Indonesia The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1965-1989.
  The sort of denial that McCarthy perpetuates is not only dishonest, it is dangerous. Most people are more civilized than us, and they don't seek vengence for all the suffering we heap upon them (i.e. - Vietnamese, Guatemalans, Haitians, El Salvadorans, Iranians, etc.), but we may someday receive another attack of blowback and it may be worse than the horror of 9/11. By the way, there is another 9/11 that we are willfully blind to; that is the September 11th that the corporate jihadists Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger inflicted upon Chile Chile: The Other September 11: An Anthology of Reflections on the 1973 Coup (Radical History).
  
  For those who choose to see inconvenient truths about U.S. militarism:
  Our Own Private Bin Laden
  Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians
  Why We Fight
  
  
• Excellent book!
  By A5WN5RO16IKA9 on 2008-07-06
  A masterful expose' of the democrat's 9/10 viewpoint that has taken over the 2008 campaign
  
  
• IF YOU DON"T BELIEVE
  By A2L7VJV9RRSQ2F on 2008-05-16
  This guy can write!
  
  If you are a non-believer they are compelled, by Allah, to kill you. If you are a nonbeliever in what Andrew McCarthy writes about you will be killed. This is a fight of ideals no different than Communism or Fascism or what ever "ism."
  
  Hang on cause this show isn't over.
  
  
• Jihad
  By A3AZRIUOMOTUCV on 2008-06-05
  Excellent account from the DA. This book should be read and discussed by every American.....good read!
  
  
• 'Willful Blindness' - Smart, Provocative and Timely
  By A2IX287WGSY5MW on 2008-07-27
  `Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad' by Andrew McCarthy
  
  In `Willful Blindness', Andrew McCarthy weaves the narrative of, not only his experience investigating and subsequently prosecuting Islamic jihad in the US, but a solid, albeit brief, history of the resurgence of jihad (as a means of terror rather than ideals) in Islam, itself. His rude introduction to the jihad came courtesy of the `The Blind Sheikh' - Omar Abdel Rahman:
  
  Bungled bureaucracy, pathetically weak coordination of government agencies and enormously frustrating and embarrassing law enforcement failures allowed The Blind Sheikh to enter and flourish in America. This well known Egyptian rabble-rouser (well known I say to Egyptian, but also U.S. authorities), member of the U.S. `Terror Watch List', and brilliant Islamic scholar was nevertheless allowed to set up shop in NYC and New Jersey. From his new base, the Blind Sheikh preached hatred, incited violence and ultimately terrorism, culminating in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
  
  Fortunately, for the United States we had a team led by Andrew McCarthy who assembled and successfully prosecuted The Blind Sheikh and his terrorist cabal. The story of the daring, and often hair-splitting, Egyptian informant embedded inside the Sheikh's inner ring is worth the price of this book alone! By educating themselves on the roots of Islamic terror and piecing together the connections of the Blind Sheikh's organization, McCarthy and his team were able to wrap up this terror outfit just before another, more ghastly strike, occurred in NYC. The reader is taken behind the scenes to the offices of Janet Reno, the US Attorney General, FBI & CIA headquarters and most important, inside the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern (Sovereign) District of New York where the plots were investigated, debated, thwarted, and this stunning, fair and honorable prosecution was crafted.
  
  `Willful Blindness' tells a gripping tale, while simultaneously making a strong case for why national security matters should be prosecuted outside the realm of the criminal justice system. McCarthy explains why we expose ourselves to terror groups worldwide in continuing to pursue jihadists and other terror fronts in the criminal court and presents the ideas behind a `national security court' or some mix of military tribunal and criminal proceeding. America has the best system of justice in the world, however, this fact has not been overlooked by those trying to destroy us from within. This is a gripping narrative which is thought provoking, smart and timely. I encourage anyone interested in the important matters of our time to invest in this book and read with great interest.
  
  - Johnny
  
  
• Book review for Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad
  By A3DQ7MR7L398CB on 2008-09-04
  A must read. Good overview of events, detail coverage of individual people involved yet very readable. Concludes with an excellent review of the dangers America faced and still faces.
  
  

• Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning
• Moment of Truth in Iraq: How a New 'Greatest Generation' of American Soldiers is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope
• Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor
• The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality
• War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism