9-11 Report

On Thursday, the National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States (boy, is that a mouthful) issued its highly-anticipated 9-11 report. Though hardly conventional summer beach fare, it's certainly a page-turner and therefore the perfect candidate to commence LF's Book Club, a regular feature that I hope will do for literacy what my previous efforts have done to harm it. However, I can't say I enjoyed this volume as much as I had hoped.

Maybe my expectations were too high but when I see a book has ten authors and took nearly two years to complete, I guess I expect something a little tighter than a dense, disjointed 588 pages. To quote Richard Clarke, "Your government failed you" - and evidently, Creative Writing 101. As suspense, it lacks the professional craftsmanship of a Robert Ludlum or Tom Clancy and can't even compensate with a startling plot twist like the Warren Commission's "single-bullet" theory. What we're treated to instead is a tedious compendium of missed opportunities, tragic bumbling, and bureaucratic stasis. So the government can't catch the terrorists...tell us something we don't know! At least spice things up a bit with a few "Deep Throat"-style mystery characters, or maybe a chapter entitled, "You're So Vain, You Probably Think Your Negligence Was Personally Responsible For The Mushrooming of Al Queda."

Another flaw is the lack of a believable and sympathetic protagonist. Take a character that pops up about midway through the report, "President Bush." Does anyone really see this guy as Leader of the Free World? For much of his time in print, he doesn't even seem interested in the many nefarious terrorist plots being hatched around him. Then the attacks happen and presto! - he's magically transformed into a macho action hero fighting "the evil-doers"? Jack Ryan he ain't (and I don't mean the former Senate candidate that wanted to bang Seven-Of Nine in public). Guys, it's called character development - look into it.

What about the villains? Well, "Osama Bin Laden," with his riches and eccentric lifestyle, is certainly a classic baddie in the mold of Blofeld from the James Bond series. So why, for heaven's sake, is he allowed to repeatedly disappear from the main storyline??!! On one page, we read that "Bush" will capture OBL "dead or alive", but then several chapters pass with hardly any new "Bin Laden" action at all. Did the authors get lazy? Instead of fleshing out details on this fascinating 6'5" Arabian who travels from cave to cave, we're treated to a tiresome stand-off with a tinhorn Iraqi dictator that I'm almost certain is a rehash of something I read in the early Nineties. That, I'm afraid, is the essence of lazy writing. And don't get me started on the "Recommendations" section - if I wanted a how-to book, I'd buy Bob Vila.

By the end, with so many loose ends left to dangle, I get the sense the authors intend to spin this "War On Terror" thing into an indefinite series. Well, pardon me, 9-11 Commission, if I check out while you cash in. This is the last government report I share a sandy evening sunset with.