Word: tora
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Gist: In a rare and personal report on the much-speculated-upon Battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan, former Delta Force commander Dalton Fury attempts to lay to rest the inconsistencies, inaccuracies and falsities which he says were perpetuated amid the hunt for Osama bin Laden in December 2001. Fury blames an "excitement-starved general public," a clueless intelligence community, an even more clueless press corps and the need to keep Delta Force operations classified for a misguided account of the operation that he calls "fantastic and exciting stuff, but utter hogwash...
...When the raid was all over, I could not help but think that here we were in Tora Bora a year after our first violent attacks in these mountains, but instead of having bin Laden within reach, as we did back then, we were now grabbing any little person who might have spoken to him at some time. ...The intel on Osama bin Laden remained...
...While it would be difficult to argue against these soldiers' bravery and strength, the story suffers from a hesitancy to critically reassess the events of the Tora Bora battle - a hesitancy to which Fury finally succumbs in the penultimate chapter, admitting that "we were naïve back in December 2001 to think that Westerners could invade a Muslim country and rely on indigenous fighters to kill their Islamic brothers with tenacity and impunity." What readers are ultimately left with, though, is the barest outline of bin Laden, the man who has become an international punchline while making a joke...
...which begs the question, is it worth the ghost hunt we've been on since September 11? There has not been a credible sighting of Osama bin Laden since he escaped from Tora Bora in October 2001. As for al-Qaeda, there are few signs it's even still alive, other than a dispersed leadership taking refuge with the Taliban. Al-Qaeda couldn't even manage to post a statement on the Internet marking September 11, let alone set off a bomb...
...Tajikistan. The ensuing days would change Hamdan's life forever. At loose ends and casting about for a cause, one of the jihadis suggested that they go see a man named Osama bin Laden. Hamdan's group arrived at bin Laden's camp in the caves of Tora Bora only days before Ramadan, Islam's holiest time of the year. For three days they listened to bin Laden preach about the religious imperative of reversing America's presence in the Persian Gulf and of changing the approach to fighting Islam's enemies. "[Bin Laden] said we must carry out painful...