The United States of Jihad examines the history of terrorism in the west, particularly focusing on the 9/11 attacks and terrorism since that time. It illustrates very well the threat of lone wolf terrorism here in the United States and goes through every successful terrorist attack (and even some unsuccessful ones) on American soil since 9/11 pointing out that every successful attack was carried achieved through "lone wolf terrorism", though 9/11 itself was not.
Reading this books shows how drastically our criminal justice system and government changed after 9/11. Before the attacks, there was really no special protocol or policies pertaining to acts of terrorism. The attacks on September 11, 2001 woke our whole country up to the threat of terrorism and prompted the creation of special departments dedicated to preventing and dealing with terrorism at both local and national levels. Though we have come a long way in our response to terrorism, we still have a long way to go. The book highlights cases in which the FBI missed crucial information when investigating potential terrorists and even dismissed cases and concerns that were raised to them about people who ended up committing fatal terrorist attacks.
It must also be considered, however, that the FBI receives numerous tips and most of the tips they receive will not lead them to a potential terrorist and it is impossible for them to prevent all lone wolf terrorist attacks and to identify everyone who is a potential threat, although they have succeeded in some cases.
Another thing the book does well is show the significant impact social media now has on lone wolf terrorism. Most terrorists get their inspiration and motives from people they speak to on social media. This is also where they learn how to evade suspicion and create weapons. Because social media is the biggest aid to American terrorists who, though the internet, are able to communicate directly with ISIS members and supporters, it makes it impossible for law enforcement to be able to identify and monitor everyone who would commit an attack.
These are all things I think the book does well, but there are things about it, mainly in his analysis, that force me to drop this from a four star rating to a three star rating. Early on in the book, Bergen writes:
"Islamist terrorism does have some kind of relationship to the religion of Islam, something that cannot be wished away by claims that Islam is simply a religion of peace, or by the desire not to offend, or because it is too easy to underestimate the strength of others' religious beliefs in our increasingly secular world. The worldview of jihadist militants is informed by a certain reading of Islamic texts, and there is more than sufficient ammunition in the Koran...to buttress their assertions that jihad is necessary against the perceived enemies of Islam".
This is something that I tend to agree with, but Bergen seems to contradict himself in the last chapter where he starts getting political and attempts to separate the religion of Islam and Islamic terrorism. He also tries to say that Islamic terrorists are no different than people of other religions who commit acts of violence, giving, as an example, Christians and the crusades. I mean forget that the last crusades were hundreds of years ago, they were very different than the Islamic terrorism of today. We can all understand that members of any religion can be violent, and Islam is not the only religion that has had violence committed in its name, but saying it is no different than some attacks from hundreds of years ago or isolated incidents is simply inaccurate. Also, today, though there may be some hateful groups of different religions here and there, but the one that is currently attacking people in different countries around the world is Islam and trying to downplay it is dishonest.
But, again, the last chapter is where it really starts to get ridiculous, in my opinion. When he starts asserting his opinions, he stops offering research. He claims that "Donald Trump called for an immediate end to all Muslim immigration to the States" which he actually did not do and called the temporary travel ban "un-American", saying that we didn't ban Italian immigrants in the 20's because a few of them joined the mafia. First off all, this is a faulty comparison because the Islamic terrorism threat is significantly larger and a more prominent issue than the mafia. Secondly, he failed to mention that we did put a halt on naturalization proceedings for German, Italian and Japanese immigrants after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and that Obama halted immigration for Iraqi refugees for six months in 2011, which is far more similar to the issue of terrorism than the mafia was.
He also uses the last chapter to remind us that bad people like Dylan Roof exist, gun violence exists and we're more likely to die in a car accident than a terrorist attack, all of which are irrelevant to the issue of Islamic terrorism and do nothing to make it less of a threat. Yes, we're more likely to die in a car accident, but Islamic terrorism is still a problem and people are right to be concerned about it.
Just want to say, I'm not trying to say anything against Muslims, and I don't care if he or anyone else doesn't like Donald Trump, I just have a problem with his false comparisons and trying to divert our attention to other acts of violence in an attempt to show how much of a threat he thinks terrorism isn't. For a book that was so well researched for the most part, it seems a shame he couldn't share much research in the last chapter to help make his point. The only reason I even mentioned any of this is because when he started giving us his opinions and analysis, he stopped giving us the research.
Overall, this book was informative and I would recommend it if you are interested in learning about lone wolf terrorism and how terrorism and our response to it has evolved over the last few years, but I would ignore the last chapter because it's not research, it's just him trying to support his political agenda.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
Author's website: http://peterbergen.com
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