As much as history has been shaped by pivotal moments in time, nexuses of people and events that have together written the future, individual humans have also had the power to reorder our world. Through will and happenstance, power and timing, men and women, properly positioned, have redefined the destinies of nation: Henry VIII with England, Napoleon with France, Hitler with Germany. Even a moment's thought causes a dozen examples to tumble out of the past. But what of the present? Has the world grown too large, too diverse, for individuals to set the policies of nations, or can even the wisest heads be lost over the provocations of the few? In this troubling and troubled biography of a terrorist mastermind, Mr. Miniter argues that, far from dead, the Great Man theory of history is alive and well in the 21st century. Only, in this case, the subject has more in common with darkness than he does with greatness.
From the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center to 9/11, from the reprehensible East African Embassy bombings to the grotesque execution of Daniel Pearl, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has been the author of a dozen murderous plots against the United States which, together, have taken the lives of thousands. Initially operating on his own, as much for glory as for ideology, KSM, as he is known in the intelligence community, graduated in the late 1990s to the top ranks of Al-Qaeda where, for the next six years, he directed that organizations most effective operations against the West. Since his capture in 2003, Al-Qaeda has been more bark than bite, leading Mr. Miniter, along with many other intelligence agencies, to conclude that KSM's intelligence and cunning fuelled Al-Qaeda, a reconfiguration that shifts Osama Bin Laden from mastermind to figurehead and spiritual leader.
But who is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? What propelled him to take up such a destructive profession? How could a young man educated in Virginia grow to so despise the country that gave him safe harbor? Mr. Miniter explores these issues and more in this confrontational biography of the Al-Qaeda operative and key strategist. Drawing on interviews with some of KSM's teachers and interrogators, the author reconstructs Mohammed's life, from his impoverished childhood in the Middle East and Asia, through his adolescent years in the united States, to his adult life as a masterful weaver of schemes and plots which, the author argues, were motivated by the furtherance of KSM's own fame and glory more than any ideological purpose. He was a mass-murderer born into a most profitable time for his kind. Until his 2003 arrest in Pakistan, he was at the top of his field, much to the cost of his victims.
Mastermind is a fascinating read that struggles to overcome its flaws. Mr. Miniter has rendered a captivating portrait of one of the 21st century's most murderous non-state actors. His depiction of KSM as a seeker of glory over ideology appears to fit nicely with KSM's arrogant behavior during his detainment in Guantanamo Bay prison. More over, the author's investigative efforts, to uncover KSM's history, both in the United States and abroad, are commendably thorough, provoking as many thoughtful questions about KSM as the laws and the ethics of the country that, for a time, generously welcomed him onto its shores.
However, as much as Mr. Miniter succeeds in capturing his subject, both the author's politics and the extent to which he allows them to color this work condemn it. Mr. Miniter is not only an advocate for torture as a weapon in the arsenal of the United States against its enemies, he is an avid believer in seemingly all of KSM's many lies and taunts, threats and claims. This despite depicting the man as an avid schemer and self-aggrandiser... These, along with his criticism of the press' coverage of KSM's legal maneuverings, are suggestive of a deep cynicism on the part of the author that leaves the work feeling far more polemical than biographical. One gets the sense that the author is more interested in bearing his grudges than he is the truths his investigative efforts have uncovered.
A solid biography permanently damaged by the author's facile attacks on the positions of those who disagree with him. Mr. Miniter should have saved his criticisms, valid and otherwise, for another, more partisan forum than this, an important biography of a pivotal figure in our recent history. (2/5 Stars)
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