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The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda
Free Press
January 2011
On Sale: January 11, 2011
496 pages
ISBN: 0743278933
EAN: 9780743278935
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
TEN YEARS HAVE PASSED since the shocking attacks on the
World Trade Center, and after seven years of conflict, the
last U.S. combat troops left Iraq—only to move into
Afghanistan, where the ten-year-old fight continues: the war
on terror rages with no clear end in sight. In The Longest
War Peter Bergen offers a comprehensive history of this war
and its evolution, from the strategies devised in the wake
of the 9/11 attacks to the fighting in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and beyond. Unlike any other book on this subject,
here Bergen tells the story of this shifting war’s failures
and successes from the perspectives of both the United
States and al-Qaeda and its allies. He goes into the homes
of al-Qaeda members, rooting into the source of their
devotion to terrorist causes, and spends time in the offices
of the major players shaping the U.S. strategic efforts in
the region. At a time when many are frustrated or fatigued
with what has become an enduring multigenerational conflict,
this book will provide an illuminating narrative that not
only traces the arc of the fight but projects its likely future. Weaving together internal documents from al-Qaeda and the
U.S. offices of counterterrorism, first-person interviews
with top-level jihadists and senior Washington officials,
along with his own experiences on the ground in the Middle
East, Bergen balances the accounts of each side, revealing
how al-Qaeda has evolved since 9/11 and the specific ways
the U.S. government has responded in the ongoing fight. Bergen also uncovers the strategic errors committed on both
sides—the way that al-Qaeda’s bold attack on the United
States on 9/11 actually undermined its objective and caused
the collapse of the Taliban and the destruction of the
organization’s safe haven in Afghanistan, and how al-Qaeda
is actually losing the war of ideas in the Muslim world. The
book also shows how the United States undermined its moral
position in this war with its actions at Guantánamo and
coercive interrogations—including the extraordinary
rendition of Abu Omar, who was kidnapped by the CIA in Milan
in 2003 and was tortured for four years in Egyptian prisons;
his case represents the first and only time that CIA
officials have been charged and convicted of the crime of
kidnapping. In examining other strategic blunders the United States has
committed, Bergen offers a scathing critique of the Clinton
and Bush administrations’ inability to accurately assess and
counter the al-Qaeda threat, Bush’s deeply misguided reasons
for invading Iraq—including the story of how the invasion
was launched based, in part, on the views of an obscure
academic who put forth theories about Iraq’s involvement
with al-Qaeda—and the Obama administration’s efforts in
Afghanistan. At a critical moment in world history The Longest War
provides the definitive account of the ongoing battle
against terror.
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