Tag Archives: al Qaeda

The Big Wedding was Al-Q’s code name for what we now know as 9/11. It was so-called for the suiciders who would fly or ride the planes into the buildings like bridegrooms going to their martyred marriages in heaven with their waiting virgins. "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda And The Road to 9/11," which recently won the Pulitzer Prize, delivers many such littleknown details, as well as a history of the men who created and still lead Al-Q. The O man, himself, is stranger than you may have known, certainly more so than I realized. A mass murderer who took an active part in the rearing and education of his more than twenty children from four wives. His pathology quickly becomes more disgusting than interesting, so the Arabic-speaking author Lawrence Wright weaves in the stories of the men and women of the FBI and CIA who tried to run him to ground. In the end, the tragedy of 9/11 was that so many parts of the government had sufficient detail of the coming attack to thwart it. But bureacratic jealousies, a few written and unwritten laws, and personality differences kept anyone from having the full picture. The CIA comes off looking the worst, as they knew two of the hijackers, both known members of Al Q, were in the country, but never told the FBI about it. A good read, hard to put down, told in narrative-style like a good novel, supported by hundreds of interviews and more.