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The Finish: The Killing Of Osama Bin Laden (2012)

by Mark Bowden(Favorite Author)

3.71 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0802120342 (ISBN13: 9780802120342)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Atlantic Monthly Press

review 1: Skip this book unless you would have read it if the title had been “The White House’s Role in Killing Bin Laden – As Told by White House Staff”. If you scan the table of contents, you will see this is not really about how the Bin Laden was found or the mission to kill him. More than 60% the book is the run-up and the preparation for the raid as witnesses and lived by Obama and his staff. The book extensively quotes Obama and his people and this was his main source for original material in the book. The remaining parts of the book are how Bin Laden became the leader of his terrorist group, including quotes from several of his letters (which I found the best part of the book). Also, there are some details about the early CIA team that hunted Bin Laden and finally a s... morehort chapter about the mission itself. The author, Mark Bowden, openly admits his limited access to key figures and explains that the bulk of his information and sources, other than his White House contacts, were taken from reading the other few books published on this topic. Reading this book, you get the sense that after about a two week period when he has access to White House staff, he spends another week reading the other Bin Laden books and then knocks out this book over a long weekend.Another significant problem with this book is how it comes across as a political commentary rather than a fact based story. Obama deserves credit for being the Commander and Chief who over saw the final stage of the hunt for Bin Laden. Also he made a courageous decision to approve the mission to go after him Bin laden. Unfortunately this book goes far past giving the White House credit. Bowden comes across as White House sycophant who traded access to Obama a “fanboy” tale about do no wrong White House. His constant praise for everything Obama and needless and almost uniform criticism of his predecessor needlessly makes overtly political. Regardless of your political persuasion, I have no idea why he felt it was important to litter the book with his own politics. Bowden goes so far as making the ridiculous assertion that had Mitt Romney been president he probably would have not approved this raid (a needless hypothetical statement that added zero value to the story, other than a further display of Bowden’s political bias). This book reads as if the White House had final editing rights, however (and ironically) I doubt this is true since had Obama’s PR staff had this editorial access they would convinced Bowden to tone down his overt hero worship just to make a more believable (and a more positive reflection on the White House).Strangely, in the final Chapter of the book, Bowden starts to add some balance, with a quote from a CIA Bin Laden hunter who claimed Obama’s extra focus on the hunt for Bin Laden made no practical difference on finding him. Bowden draws attention to how in Obama’s public White House speech, on the night of the raid, there was a lot of “I this and I that”. Also, Bowden states that in the end Joe Biden was the only key figure against the raid. However, holding these comments to the final chapter seems bizarre. It was as if Bowden did a final read of the book and realized he needed to add balance, but instead of changing what was already written he just tagged a final chapter on the book so he could say to his “did you read the final chapter?”.This book is not being sold as a political commentary or a White House account of the Bin Laden search and kill mission, thus I can only imagine that many other buyers of this book, like me, will feel duped.
review 2: Meh, it was fine.While I read my share of "pop" non-fiction, this stuck me as a bit hastily thrown together and definitely looking to capitalize on the high-level of public interest in the Osama bin Laden raid. Which I guess I can't fault Bowden for too much, but the various asterisks at different parts of the book explaining that the information discussed was inaccurate or out of date were disappointing.Also, perhaps this is just a pet peeve of mine, but it drives me NUTS when a non-fiction book is written as if you are inside the head of the people being discussed ("And that night, walking home, he felt like he had won."). It always feels forced to me, like the author wishes they were writing a novel about characters instead of interviewing real people and telling an unembellished account of whatever topic you're writing about. Bowden relied on this style of writing a lot, and it definitely got under my skin.All of this being said, I do think this book did a good job of laying out the incredible military-intelligence capabilities that the government has developed for tracking terrorists and trying to foil plots since 9/11. I think it is something I knew in the abstract, but listening to the descriptions of how persons of interest were tracked, how data could be sifted through and recombined to yield additional information, how each and every scrap of intel appears to be run to ground... well, let's just say that it definitely makes you feel like the probabilities of another September 11th are vanishingly small. less

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