Customer Reviews:
 'Willful Blindness' - Smart, Provocative and Timely July 27, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
`Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad' by Andrew McCarthy
In `Willful Blindness', Andrew McCarthy weaves the narrative of, not only his experience investigating and subsequently prosecuting Islamic jihad in the US, but a solid, albeit brief, history of the resurgence of jihad (as a means of terror rather than ideals) in Islam, itself. His rude introduction to the jihad came courtesy of the `The Blind Sheikh' - Omar Abdel Rahman:
Bungled bureaucracy, pathetically weak coordination of government agencies and enormously frustrating and embarrassing law enforcement failures allowed The Blind Sheikh to enter and flourish in America. This well known Egyptian rabble-rouser (well known I say to Egyptian, but also U.S. authorities), member of the U.S. `Terror Watch List', and brilliant Islamic scholar was nevertheless allowed to set up shop in NYC and New Jersey. From his new base, the Blind Sheikh preached hatred, incited violence and ultimately terrorism, culminating in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
Fortunately, for the United States we had a team led by Andrew McCarthy who assembled and successfully prosecuted The Blind Sheikh and his terrorist cabal. The story of the daring, and often hair-splitting, Egyptian informant embedded inside the Sheikh's inner ring is worth the price of this book alone! By educating themselves on the roots of Islamic terror and piecing together the connections of the Blind Sheikh's organization, McCarthy and his team were able to wrap up this terror outfit just before another, more ghastly strike, occurred in NYC. The reader is taken behind the scenes to the offices of Janet Reno, the US Attorney General, FBI & CIA headquarters and most important, inside the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern (Sovereign) District of New York where the plots were investigated, debated, thwarted, and this stunning, fair and honorable prosecution was crafted.
`Willful Blindness' tells a gripping tale, while simultaneously making a strong case for why national security matters should be prosecuted outside the realm of the criminal justice system. McCarthy explains why we expose ourselves to terror groups worldwide in continuing to pursue jihadists and other terror fronts in the criminal court and presents the ideas behind a `national security court' or some mix of military tribunal and criminal proceeding. America has the best system of justice in the world, however, this fact has not been overlooked by those trying to destroy us from within. This is a gripping narrative which is thought provoking, smart and timely. I encourage anyone interested in the important matters of our time to invest in this book and read with great interest.
- Johnny
Excellent book! July 6, 2008
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
A masterful expose' of the democrat's 9/10 viewpoint that has taken over the 2008 campaign
 Willful blindness to blowback. June 23, 2008
8 out of 92 found this review helpful
In McCarthy's world, Arab militants apparently come out of a vacuum, or out of some passage from the Koran. What he and his admirers are willfully blind to is the brutality of U.S. foreign policy. Osama mentioned part of a long list of injustices - sanctions on Iraq that killed 500,000 children Iraq Under Siege, Updated Edition: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, U.S. support of Israel's aggression against Palestine Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project). There is barely a word of any of this, and so much more, in the countless books like McCarthy's that seek to demonize our victims. Keep in mind, these allegedly evil people are the same people we were arming, training and applauding when they were killing Russians Terrorism: Theirs and Ours. Authoritarian Islamic fundamentalists are the same people that the U.S. is happy to work with in countries like Saudi Arabia The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity, or in Indonesia The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1965-1989.
The sort of denial that McCarthy perpetuates is not only dishonest, it is dangerous. Most people are more civilized than us, and they don't seek vengence for all the suffering we heap upon them (i.e. - Vietnamese, Guatemalans, Haitians, El Salvadorans, Iranians, etc.), but we may someday receive another attack of blowback and it may be worse than the horror of 9/11. By the way, there is another 9/11 that we are willfully blind to; that is the September 11th that the corporate jihadists Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger inflicted upon Chile Chile: The Other September 11: An Anthology of Reflections on the 1973 Coup (Radical History).
For those who choose to see inconvenient truths about U.S. militarism:
Our Own Private Bin Laden
Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians
Why We Fight
too scary to read at bedtime June 19, 2008
11 out of 14 found this review helpful
Everyone who doesn't want to learn Arabic and wants to keep their Bibles should read this book and think about what it says.
Keep a dictionary handy, however. He uses a few Bill Buckley quality words.
Willful Blindness: A Must Read June 15, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Willful Blindness by former prosecutor, Andrew McCarthy, is a must read for those who wish to inform their decision-making process. Although McCarthy's writing style is obtuse at times, he brings to the table a high level of credibility and this book should be read by all Americans and, especially by those who honestly believe that peace can be achieved through diplomacy or that "western style" democracy is achievable in the middle east. The talkers are necessary, but without our second-to-none military and our industrial capabilities, they have no power to pursuade. Let's all take the blinders off and see the world for the truly dangeous place it has become.
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