‘The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden’ is a well-acclaimed book by Mark Bowden. The author gives a spellbinding account of operation that was carried out by American Seals commandos to annihilate the world’s most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden the book provides detailed information of operation and describes how Osama was killed. Bowden has a huge experience of writing on issues of defense and due to his wide experience he was able to write this book. This paper intends to discuss Mark Bowden’s book, ‘The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden’ along with presenting a succinct analysis of the book considering all related aspects.
Mark Bowden gives a perfect description of the story in a realistic manner. The author is known for his earlier bestseller ‘Black Hawk Down’ wherein he portrays disastrous Somalia rican armed forces. American learnt a significant lesson from their failure in Somalia and even they discussed it while planning for Abbottabad operation. Bowden shares his personal experiences, as well as, official accounts of Abbottabad operation since he was in touch with all key players of this operation including president Obama, Michael Morell, deputy director of CIA and national security advisor, Thomas E. Donilon (Bowden, 2012).
Bowden describes how difficult this operation was. The author says that President Obama had options of Drones or SEALs in his mind after discussing the issue with experts. Positive and negative aspects of both options were thoroughly discussed. Drone would have easily done the job but then it was difficult to assess whether Osama was really dead or not. SEALs were able to catch Osama but any miscalculation would have risked their lives. Deputy national secretary Benjamin Rhodes was assigned a task to analyses all programs and also to calculate their risks in order to ensure the success of the Abbottabad operation (Bowden, 2012).
The Finish starts with the description of 9/11attacks. The author gives a detailed description of intelligence operations and portrays how American defense officers were desperately following Osama Bin Laden and his whereabouts. Obama had instructed his forces that if Laden wants to surrender, “he better be naked and on the ground”. When Laden was found by a member of SEALs expressed his happiness in the words, “For God and country — Geronimo. Geronimo. Geronimo” (Bowden, 2012, p. 230).
The book seems go at good speed. Different events taken place in the planning of Osama killing were good enough to catch at attention of the reader. The starts of the book was very surprising for the readers when they discover about the large documents present in Iraq, description of CIA operations including recognition of courier (Bowden, 2012). All evidences collected by the agencies resulted in hunting of Osama in Abbottabad. Bowden, not only informed readers about the decision-making process took place in White house, but also about complete raid operation.
The Finish is very heavily reported story in recent time, and Bowden covered aspects or information that were already in news. All letters obtained during the raid were released in the media by the government soon after the raid. However, Bowden made hard efforts in evaluating and analyzing all information available on the planning of Abbottabad raid. The author made proactive points related with harsh methods used in mining the information related with Osama. Bowden mentioned about intellectual evolution of the president and his questioning on the military force, battle and effective assassination.
Bowden himself had a chance to interview Obama, which gave Bowden more insight on the subject. President said that he would have been happier if Osama was captured alive and not dead. However, at certain time a person does not have any choice and decision needs to be taken based on the demand of the situation. Bowden in his book mentioned that how data analysis of important data done by government agencies especially CIA was ended after successful raid. However, it is important for the government to establish new, smart and effective security system and capabilities to deal with strong opponents or enemies. Supercomputers, latest software, and technology helped in collating even a small piece of information which resulted in success of the raid operation (Bowden, 2012).
Having observed an overview and succinct analysis of the book, ‘The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden’, the paper concludes that Mark Bowden has enlightened readers about the Abbottabad operation and killing of dreaded and world’s most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden. The book reveals various significant strategies and secrets of the Abbottabad mission which resulted in the success of the raid mission.
Reference
Bowden, M. (2012). The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
