As much as our world continues to function thanks to the unique contributions of billions, we the masses are not the shapers of history. Yes, collectively, our desires are occasionally made manifest in the declaring of wars, in the overturning of governments, and in the shifting of cultural values, but few of us will singlehandedly cause governments to launch priceless, international manhunts to find us. Largely, this is thanks to the fact that we are lawful citizens who have done nothing to deserve such monumental scrutiny. But it is also because most of us were spared that unique blend of tragic circumstance that lead wayward souls down the path of nihilistic radicalization. And it's a good thing for the ugly chaos that these few can unleash upon the world is frightening. Sometimes, it is good not to be the shaper of history. Perhaps, if Mr. Bergen's subject, Osama Bin Laden, were alive today, he would agree.
On May 2nd, 2011, on a moonless night in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden's ten-year flight from the United States government came to an end. In mere moments, a team of supremely trained American Special Forces personnel tumbled out of two combat helicopters, stormed his sleepy compound positioned just blocks from a training base for the Pakistani army, and, with two bullets to the chest and a final, decisive shot to the head, killed the world's most notorious terrorist before he'd even left his bedroom. After two wars, three major terrorist attacks and military and civilian casualties in the thousands, Osama Bin Laden, a man who had devoted much of his adult life to Islam, terrorism and hatred for America, was dead and the world, for one night, could breathe a bit easier. But though this dramatic raid understandably claimed the attention of the world and its media which poured over the details of the daring mission, this was merely the culmination of years of tireless effort, to locate and punish the man who had organized, funded and greenlit the infamous Al-Qaeda operation that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. on September 11th, 2001.
Manhunt is the icy reconstruction of that decade-long search for Osama Bin Laden. From his escape in the Tora Bora mountains during the early part of the Afghan war, to his eventual death in Pakistan, Mr. Bergen, an American journalist, details the CIA unit that hunted him, the Al-Qaeda operatives who protected him,the breaks that eventually lead to the locating of the Abbottabad compound and the raid that would eventually end his life. Most dramatically, Mr. Bergen describes the weeks of intense debate among President Obama and his civilian and military advisors on whether or not to risk the lives of American personnel to attack a compound they were only half-convinced contained the Saudi-born terrorist. In this, the author brings to life the many actors in a drama fit for a Hollywood film.
Manhunt is a sublime piece of dramatic non-fiction. Mr. Bergen's relentless, linear account of the hunt for Bin Laden is as concise as it is cinematic. His animation of the complicated and competent minds which turned their focus to Bin Laden's capture is winning, doing respect to men and women who might otherwise be lost in the thunder of the terrorist's death. Mr. Bergen accomplishes all this while wasting none of the narrative's natural tension by lingering too long on any one incident, or focusing overlong on any one player in this surprisingly gripping pursuit of a man who, in his religiously inspired insanity, managed to change the course of the 21st century.
This is noteworthy work from a pleasingly ordered mind. As sleek as it is chilling... This will be made into a movie. It is only a matter of time. (5/5 Stars)
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