Reddit reviews Triple Cross: How bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI

> Then you should read up on the conduct and aims of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Some conduct from Afghanistan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khataba_raid

Some conduct from Iraq http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings

I have been reading up, perhaps you should do a little more reading?

>And on the topic of endless war, bear in mind that it is ideologues like Ayman Al Zawahiri who were the ones to shape the origins of the endless war

I disagree. Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri reacted to American meddling and America was unable to capture them for over ten years due to spectacular incompetence. Please read "Imperial Hubris" by Mike Scheuer. Their radicalization was a direct result of America's meddling in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. It is a perfect case of blowback. I suggest that you read Chalmers Johnson's great book by that name.

>9/11 was a paradigm shift in conflict, proving the power of non state actors with a strategic vision and their influence to guide current events.

No, 911 did not have to be a paradigm shift in conflict. The US war state decided to use it as the pretext for global war, when good police work was what was needed. 911 was also another example of how the oversized security/war state is so unwieldy as to be incompetent. It was a one-off event that never should have happened and never could again. It only worked on 911 due to the incompetence of the FBI and the CIA, who had the hijacking plan from when they grabbed Yousef's computer in the Phillipines in 1994, but they never thought to tell the FAA that maybe that ought to change flight crew instructions....It worked perfectly according to Ramzi Yousef's plan, dragging the US into quagmires in Afghanistan and the Mideast where its whiz-bang military was useless and its flailing around alienated the Muslim world. To learn why 911 was an American failure I suggest that you read Peter Lance's book "Triple Cross"

>Politically motivated terrorism in the form of Islamic militancy is still relevant as evidenced by recent events in Nigeria and Kenya.

I don't know much about Boko Haram or the situation in Nigeria, so I will leave that one alone. The situation in Kenya was absolutely blowback from America's two decades of meddling in Somalia. Please listen to this interview of Thomas Mountain to educate yourself a bit. If the US would quit stirring up the hornets nest, the hornets would settle down.

>What the war on terror needs is constant strategic review and adjustment rather than completely abandoning the fight or the "it just ain't so mentality", it's this kind of thinking that underestimated these groups and allowed 9/11 happen.

I totally disagree. What the "war on terror" needs is to be abandoned. Terrorism is crime and needs to be treated as crime. If the US would stop arrogating universal domination to itself, it could have cooperation from everyone, including Iran and Pakistan. As I said before, what allowed 911 to happen was pathetic police work (because the emphasis was always on war). It also happened because of America's support of Israel's abuse of the Palestinians and because of America's military presence in the Mideast.

Read the books and articles listed, then I will give you some more.