Watched Lawrence Wright My Trip to Al-Qaeda. A must watch. A bit on the dry side, but the end lesson is excellent.

For those of you who know of it or watched it, assuming Wright is correct in his assumptions / observations, what do you recommend as a solution?

It seems were entering a land of mass unemployment, deep rooted religious conflict, and depression. We're entering this land with revenge in mind. How can entering
their land, when our mere presence swells their ranks, bring us closer to our goals?

Hypothetically setting up a democracy and free state would open the borders to the country's untapped resources. Commerce would insue, bringing with it a higher
standard of life and shrinking violent groups. This is a great idea, but it is in direct conflict with Islam. No interest in Islam. No interest = no banks; no banks = no loans; no loans = no commerce.

If Wright is correct, how does one win the war in Afghanistan?

This has been posted before. Arfcom's reaction was mixed. I agree with you, i thought it provides an interesting perspective on our enemies. Plenty around here were less impressed. Lots of crazy knee jerking and shit flinging.

Can you Cliff's Note the content please?

Wright was spot-on in his book "The Looming Tower" which I recommend to everyone along with "Ghost Wars" by Steven Coll as excellent books on the road to 9/11.

I would be hard pressed to reduce it to cliff notes. Its more of a "journey" piece. The central theme, really, is the journalists inner conflict with regard to maintaining objectivity while dealing with subjects that he, at times at least, considered to be terrorists and enemies of the United States.

Aside from that, it does a really good job of exploring the nature of middle east/ islamic societies and what forces lean young islamic men toward extremism, and eventually terrorism.

I thought it was really valuable in a "know thy enemy" sort of way, although many butthurt derpers angrily dismissed it because it took a (fair) shot at FNC.

I thought he was pretty even-handed in "The Looming Tower." Ultimately, I get what drives these guys I think.  Its not hard. We do ourselves a disservice when we accept cartoonish charactures of dasterly villians that our vacuous news media seems to churn out.  The foreigners aren't much better, just more subtle.

I thought it was pretty decent. I watched it the other night with my wife. She's finally taking the time to learn about what is going on in the world outside her bubble.

I watched it on line. I thought it was overly theatrical but it does give an interesting insight into them.

Heres the old thread on it.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=1089879

edit: fix link