used the flight to israel to finish the book. i find that it is a much more productive use of time to sleep and read, rather than sleep and watch a movie on the way-too small screen. 

the looming tower tells the story of al-qaeda from its inception till 9/11. it starts from the beginning. beginning being the idealogical/theological/sociological roots of the fundamentalist islamist movement starting in the early 20th century.

the book is a result of a 5 year research by lawrence wright. during these 5 years lawrence conducted interviews with 10s of people, some of them ex-friends and ex-colleagues of osama bin-laden. i found it better researched and more elaborate than other books about al-qaeda that came out quickly after 9/11.

last week, by pure zapping coincidence i stumbled upon a movie named "the siege" that was written by lawrence wright in the 1990s. it is a pretty bad movie, but very prescient. it tells the story of a series of terror attacks in NYC that lead to violating human rights and taking away civil liberties.  so it seems lawrence has an understanding of the fundamentalist islam and its dangers that is going back at least a decade. 

the book paints a picture of frustrated, bored, humiliated, misguided young muslim men, and how the message of radical, charismatic and violent leaders such as sayyid qutb, ayman zawahiri and osama bin-laden attracts them.

al-qaeda comes off as a rather amateurish group, which was lucky to be facing a sleeping US intelligence, more busy with bureaucracy than with fighting terror. but you also get the sense that if it wasn't osama and al-qaeda it would have been another group, another time. a sense on inevitability.  it also seems that the danger is much broader than al-qaeda, and that the solution is a very long term one. a solution not achieved by winning the war against terror, but rather by achieving a radical change in the fabric of the muslim society. it will not be resolved in our life time.