Good Muslim, Bad Muslim ---- Mahmood Mamdani 4.25/5

This book tries to establish the evolutionary relationship between three distinct entities, namely: USA, Islam and the Global war against terror, as can be seen from the cover of the page. It is an objective dialogue by the author to present the chain of events that begun much earlier than 9/11 and have most recently got exacerbated in the form of subjugation of Iraq. The author is a Ugandan Muslim and has tried his level best to approach this topic without any bias. It must have really been tough to write this book as the topic is seemingly easy to reach hasty conclusions, as can be seen in the world around us now a days.

The book begins with the topic of “Fundamentalism” and origin of the word. It is interesting to know that the root of the word in its current meaning can be traced back to the Presbyterian movement of Princeton of early 20^th century. The perspective offered by the author is: “ …a struggle inside religion, not between religions, as critique of liberal forms of religion…” This represents the original right wing approach that the word emphasized upon. It later explains the meaning of the word “Jihad”, a word which arguably can be most misinterpreted world in theological history till now.

The book is divided into mainly 3 parts: Cold war until the Vietnam debacle, American foreign policy after Vietnam and Outright aggression by America after 9/11. The most prominent aspect is the rising ideology of Proxy wars which took the forefront during Reagan Administration. It was an eye opener to see rise of Wahhabism and militant ideology of Islam, with the spread of proxy wars. The role played by CIA in supporting HAMAS and Hizbollah as well as the “bleeding to death” strategy during the Iran-Iraq war is also worth noting.

The book at times does drag down as the author meticulously tries to cite the references and instances to point towards the deviant role played by America. What the book lags in pace is made up by extensive availability of gravity in the content and the apparent “forged” reality that most of us believe. This book is definitely a “must read” for anyone who wants to know the dubious role of CIA in doing more harm to USA than the so called “Islamic Terrorists”.