-----Original Message----- From: Hakki Alacakaptan <nucleus at superonline.com>
>The Village Voice has interviewed Guillaume Dasquié, the spook-co-author of
>Bin Laden:The Forbidden Truth.
>http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0201/ridgeway.php
The first chapter is available on the web at http://www.intelligenceonline.com/dossiers/iof/p_livre.asp - in French of course. It's mostly about Laila Helms, Richard Helms' niece and her close relationship with the Taliban. There isn't anything especially shocking there, at least if your not the kind of person likely to be surprised that Taliban had friends in the Republican party.
The book, "Ben Laden : La vérité interdite", is selling for 20 Euros - a bit steep for a student - and it's not in my library. On Amazon France, response is mixed. Apparently he made a major factual error about the heritage of some Saudi Prince, that's the only concrete criticism it's had there. Apparently, Osama's brother Yeslam Bin Laden is a Swiss citizen who is suing to have 80 pages removed from the book and has had the book pulled from shelves in Switzerland.
The most damning thing I've seen come of it is the revelation that apparently, the US explicitly threatened a military attack on Afghanistan before Sept 11 if Afghanistan didn't tow the US line on Bin Laden and certain oil concessions. This is according to the ex-foreign minister of Pakistan, in a round-table discussion broadcast on France 3 in October. I haven't seen anything on French TV about it, but with my anglophone wife here, I mostly end up watching BBC and CNN, so I wouldn't know. If true, this at least lends credence to the idea that the attack was not unprovoked.
There's a fair amount of buzz about the book in the French-language press, but nothing ground-shaking. Maybe when exams are over, or if it comes out in a cheap format, I'll read it, but right now I'm out of luck. If someone else here has read it, I'd like to hear if it's worth my while.
Scott Martens