The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

Here’s one of my pet peeves. This book is called The Looming Tower. Why is it called The Looming Tower? What does The Looming Tower refer to? Maybe, the book called The Looming Tower will tell me?

On pages 394-5, referencing a videotaped speech given by Osama bin Laden to the young men in his movement:

He urged them to become martyrs, to give up their promising lives for the greater glory that awaited them. “Look, we have found ourselves in the mouth of the lion for over twenty years now,” he said, “thanks to the mercy and favor of God: the Russian Scud missiles hunted us for over ten years, and the American Cruise missiles have hunted us for another ten years. The believer knows that the hour of death can be neither hastened nor postponed.” Then he quoted a passage from the fourth sura of the Quran, which he repeated three times in the speech -- an obvious signal to the hijackers who were on their way: “Wherever you are, death will find you, even in the looming tower.”

That’s it. As far as I can tell, it is the only reference to The Looming Tower in all 550 pages of The Looming Tower. Okay. It’s from a speech videotaped by Osama bin Laden. A reference to a passage in the Quran. And (maybe) a reference to the twin towers of the World Trade Center. 

Maybe because when I do some Googling (and God help you if you want to Google “Why is it called The Looming Tower?” or “What does The Looming Tower refer to?” and not get a thousand responses saying that The Looming Tower is either a book written by Lawrence Wright or a TV mini-series produced by Hulu) I get several different translations for that particular verse in the Quran, including “massive towers,” “lofty towers,” “towers of lofty construction,” and “strong forts.”

Was bin Laden speaking English in his videotaped speech? I would assume not. So was he even saying “the looming tower”? Maybe Wright should have named his book The Strong Fort?

But that’s just a pet peeve of mine. The book itself is an absorbing read and, evidently, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, telling the story of how Al-Qaeda and 9/11 came to be, and many of the bureaucratic snafus that kept America from stopping it.

My three big takeaways that I scribbled on the last page:

1. The key role money played. Osama bin Laden was a billionaire, owner of a giant construction company that was in good with the Saudi royal family and helped build all kinds of infrastructure in the Middle East. It was this money that made Al-Qaeda possible, as it allowed bin Laden to give his followers “jobs” in his movement. He paid them to be warriors and martyrs. When he stopped paying them, they tended to quit.

2. Osama bin Laden was actually crazy. He was certainly believed to be by many of the people who encountered him.

3. The CIA and the FBI would not play together. The CIA held back a lot of information that the FBI could have acted on because their culture defined information as power, and the people in charge of the CIA were unwilling to cede such power to another agency. 

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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.