American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us
by Steven Emerson
List Price:
Our Price: $0.01
You Save: $15.98 (100%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Steven EmersonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-01-28
ISBN: 0743234359
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Free Press
Book Reviews of American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us
Book Review: Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor-Your Jihad
Summary: 5 Stars
What could be more American, more rousingly patriotic than a political convention held smack in the middle of Kansas City, USA? You know, the kind where you can stroll amongst the various booths in the lobby, then excitedly bounce up and down in your seat cheering the inspirational speakers. And maybe afterwards meet up with fellow activists and plot strategy at, say, a nearby Ramada Inn. Oh yes, forgot to mention, this was an Hamas convention, focusing on future "crusader-Zionist-infidel conspiracy" targets around the world , with discussion groups devoted to "car-bomb lessons," "how to handle improvised explosives" and the "interrogation and execution of collaborators."
Yes, all true in the suicidal pre-9/11, bendy-border, got-my-visa-in-a-Cracker-Jack-box America, as meticulously and courageously detailed by Steven Emerson.
While reading Emerson you keep wanting to smack the heel of your hand to the middle of your forehead-Nuuh! What UNBELIEVABLE dangers were allowed to grow up around us! The book's cover shows a map of America, pinpointing communities that unwittingly hosted terrorist headquarters, conventions, conferences, rallies, training camps, internet servers, money-laundering businesses, `charitable' groups and, yes, God strike me dead, `summer retreats for adults and children.'
Besides Kansas City, what communities? Well, just a few out-of-the-way places, like: New York; Chicago; Los Angeles; Washington, DC; San Francisco; Philadelphia; San Diego; Dallas; Boston; Cleveland; Detroit; Denver; Seattle; Oklahoma City; Laurel and Potomac, Maryland; Brooklyn, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale and Boca Raton, Florida; Sacramento, Santa Clara and Anaheim, California; Tucson, Arizona; Bridgeview, Illinois; Herndon, Springfield and Falls Church, Virginia; Arlington and Richardson, Texas; Plainfield, Indiana; Oxford, Mississippi; and Manhattan, Kansas.
Emerson's investigation into all this began on Christmas Day, 1992, when he was drawn into the Oklahoma City Convention Center by a buzz of activity involving men wearing traditional Middle Eastern attire, and then noticed books and videos on sale "preaching Islamic jihad." Gaining further admittance as a `recent convert,' he heard speaker after speaker "preach violence," while the audience chanted `kill the Jews!' and `Destroy the West!' Hmm.
Since this was nine years before the 9/11 attack we might wonder exactly where were our half-dozen or so biggest mega-million-dollar national security and law-enforcement agencies, for example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation? At this point it is hard to avoid the Dave Barry line: "I'm not making this up."
While observing a Muslim conference in Detroit in December 1993, Emerson tells how, "After five days of listening to speakers urging Muslims to wage jihad," he was startled to see introduced as a guest speaker a senior FBI agent from the Detroit office, who then delivered some perfunctory remarks that were greeted by hostility and sarcasm. When Emerson later asked FBI officials how this could possibly be, they first denied it, then admitted that the agent had gone there thinking it was `some kind of Rotary club.' (Name couldn't have been Clouseau?)
What could account for such obliviousness, such a narcoleptic lack of urgency?
Not long before 9/11 Emerson attended a security meeting of top government officials, afterward emailing a friend: `We are doomed.' Because the prevailing attitude seemed to be, `We are such good people that nobody would ever want to attack us.' (Not unlike the zippity-do-da fall-of-Baghdad expectations?)
Americans had also become "numbed" by terrorist infiltration methods that take advantage of our very porous system (Emerson, Congressional testimony, 12/01)--which leads to what may be the most chilling development of all.
It is not just that terrorists have penetrated our borders, but that America is being colonized by dozens of unassimilated cultures, to such an extent that foreign terrorists and criminal gangs can immerse themselves in neighborhoods where once suspicious behavior now goes unnoticed.
Meanwhile most of America's political, corporate, media, educational, religious, and creative, e.g. Hollywood, elites have become enthralled with (no doubt some just plain terrified of criticizing) "diversity," "multiculturalism" and mass legal and illegal immigration. Is their now any major politician who does not daily bow down and chant "Our strength is in our diversity!"? Curious, since numerous studies have shown that nations with the greatest diversity are also the most war-torn. Exhibit A: Iraq.
Only the intervention of average voters seems capable of turning these grave security threats around. This of course is made much less likely with a two-party monopoly system that almost never allows popular votes on the issues of lower legal immigration or greater border enforcement--in spite of (or because of ?) decades of opinion polls showing a clear majority of voters strongly favoring both reforms.
Emerson stresses that most Muslim immigrants are decent hard-working people. No doubt, but experts, some of them Muslim, Emerson reports, estimated that 50 to 80 percent of the 1200 Muslim mosques in the US had been taken over by extremists.
Is Emerson alarmist? Although estimating the number of "sleeper cells" and the like needs constant reevaluation, his basic thesis has been all too tragically vindicated. In June of 1997, after considering `the mounting evidence of the strength of al Qaeda and other groups,' he warned in an interview, `get ready for twenty World Trade Center bombings.' Pretty much what happened--only all at once.
After 9/11 we kept hearing "Everything has changed." But has it?
It is somewhat as if violent criminals had invaded, burned and ransacked our homes, butchering members of our family, and we respond by demanding random ID checks from the Avon Lady and mounting gun turrets on the roof--all the while we hop into bed each night continuing to leave our back doors yawning open in the breeze, beckoning to the dark unknown.
Emerson's excellent reporting clearly demonstrates what happens when a nation comes to think of itself as an exception to history and virtually throws open its borders. On the individual corporal level we can imagine what would happen if someone were to cast aside their own protective immune system--so embarrassingly passé, so intolerant!
For all these reasons I strongly recommend Steven Emerson's AMERICAN JIHAD.
Summary of American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us
...the federal government detained several hundred people suspected of terrorist involvement, and continued to search for hundreds more. Some were overseas, some were on the run, but most were already at home -- in America.
Who are these people? Where did they come from? And how could there be so many terrorists or suspected terrorists living among us without action being taken? In American Jihad, Steven Emerson, the world's leading authority on domestic Islamic terrorist networks, tells the full story of the rise of those who wish to destroy the United States from within.
From the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, to foiled attacks on the New York City subway system, to a stunning range of murders across the country, there were numerous warning signs that the "American Jihad" had been gaining momentum. With an up-to-the-minute afterword that explains the stops and starts of the post-9/11 investigation, American Jihad reveals the full story that only Emerson knows -- and the reasons America failed to stop the most devastating attack in history on our own soil. This is a frightening and crucial book for anyone who needs to understand the threat within our borders.
Some have said that the events of September 11 took every American by surprise. That's not true. There were Cassandras among us warning about the dangers of Islamic terrorism--and one of their leaders was Steven Emerson, who must be ranked among the most fearless reporters in the world. As a self-made expert on Islamic terrorism, he has invited the hatred of violent murderers. (At least one group has marked him for assassination; he was offered enrollment in the federal witness protection program, but refused). For more than 10 years, Emerson has soldiered on, studying groups that operate in the United States for the express purpose of funding and managing deadly organizations. American Jihad summarizes what he has learned, and it isn't comforting. Emerson shows how the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has grown an extensive network in the United States, how the group Islamic Jihad set up shop at the University of South Florida, and how an Islamic center in Tucson helped recruit two of Osama bin Laden's top deputies. He also provides circumstantial evidence that bin Laden himself once applied for an American visa--"even the possibility is tantalizing, and chilling," he concludes. He urges Americans to fight back, but worries that time is short: "We are still vulnerable." This is an important book, and a sobering one. --John Miller
Terrorism Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Terrorism Books
Al-Qaeda: The Many Faces of an Islamist Extremist Threat, ReportUnited States House of Representatives; Published: 2006-09-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $28.99
Primer to Design Safe School Projects in Case of Terrorist Attacks: Providing Protection to People and BuildingsFederal Emergency Management Agency; Published: 2004-04-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $36.14
Price in other shops:
Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infectionsby Madeline Drexler
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2003-02-25; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.80
Price in other shops:
Terrorism Today: The Past, The Players, The Future (3rd Edition)by Clifford E. Simonsen, Jeremy R. Spindlove
Prentice Hall; Published: 2006-03-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops:
The New Global Terrorism: Characteristics, Causes, Controlsby Charles W. Kegley
Prentice Hall; Published: 2002-10-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $50.00
Price in other shops:
The TerroristBrasseys, Inc.; Published: 1988-06; Hardcover; Book
The Suicide FactoryHarperPerennial; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns Americaby Brigitte Gabriel
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2008-01-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.50
Price in other shops:
Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns Americaby Brigitte Gabriel
St. Martin's Press; Published: 2006-09-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.43
Price in other shops:
Brotherhood of Warriors: Behind Enemy Lines with a Commando in One of the World's Most Elite Counterterrorism Unitsby Aaron Cohen, Douglas Century
Harper Perennial; Published: 2009-04-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.48
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/ 11by Lawrence Wright
Vintage; Published: 2007-08-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.65
Price in other shops:
Understanding Homeland Security: Policy, Perspectives, and Paradoxesby John B. Noftsinger, Kenneth F. Newbold, Jack K. Wheeler
Palgrave Macmillan; Published: 2007-05-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $25.00
Price in other shops:
Managing Crises Before They Happen: What Every Executive and Manager Needs to Know about Crisis Managementby Ian I. Mitroff, Gus Anagnos
AMACOM; Published: 2005-06-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.43
Price in other shops:
System Under Stress: Homeland Security and American Politics, 2nd Edition (Public Affairs and Policy Administration Series)by Donald F Kettl
CQ Press; Published: 2007-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $26.80
Price in other shops:
Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitableby Steven Fink
Backinprint.com; Published: 2000-06-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.44
Price in other shops:
Public Crisis Management: How and Why Organizations Work Together to Solve Society's Most Threatening Problemsby Michael Hillyard
iUniverse; Published: 2000-07-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.19
Price in other shops:
The McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook: The Definitive Guide for Law Enforcement, EMT, and all other Security Professionalsby David Kamien
McGraw-Hill; Published: 2005-10-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $70.49
Price in other shops:
Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movementby Michael Barkun
The University of North Carolina Press; Published: 1996-12-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $23.00
Price in other shops:
American Extremistsby John George, Laird Wilcox
Prometheus Books; Published: 1996-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.67
Price in other shops:
Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, 3rd Edition (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society, Vol. 13)by Mark Juergensmeyer
University of California Press; Published: 2003-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.55
Price in other shops: