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Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror
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Though U.S. leaders try to convince the world of their success in fighting al Qaeda, one member of the U.S. intelligence community would like to inform the public that we are, in fact, losing the war on terror. Further, until U.S. leaders recognize the errant path they have irresponsibly chosen, he says, our enemies will only grow stronger.
According to the author Michael Scheuer, the greatest danger for Americans confronting the Islamist threat is to believe—at the urging of U.S. leaders—that Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do. Blustering political rhetoric “informs” the public that the Islamists are offended by the Western world’s democratic freedoms, civil liberties, inter-mingling of genders, and separation of church and state. However, although aspects of the modern world may offend conservative Muslims, no Islamist leader has fomented jihad to destroy participatory democracy, for example, the national association of credit unions, or coed universities. Instead, a growing segment of the Islamic world strenuously disapproves of specific U.S. policies and their attendant military, political, and economic implications.
Capitalizing on growing anti-U.S. animosity, Osama bin Laden’s genius lies not simply in calling for jihad, but in articulating a consistent and convincing case that Islam is under attack by America. Al Qaeda’s public statements condemn America’s protection of corrupt Muslim regimes, unqualified support for Israel, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a further litany of real-world grievances. Bin Laden’s supporters thus identify their problem and believe their solution lies in war. Scheuer contends they will go to any length, not to destroy our secular, democratic way of life, but to deter what they view as specific attacks on their lands, their communities, and their religion. Unless U.S. leaders recognize this fact and adjust their policies abroad accordingly, even moderate Muslims will join the bin Laden camp.
Though U.S. leaders try to convince the world of their success in fighting al Qaeda, one member of the U.S. intelligence community would like to inform the public that we are, in fact, losing the war on terror. Further, until U.S. leaders recognize the errant path they have irresponsibly chosen, he says, our enemies will only grow stronger.
According to the author Michael Scheuer, the greatest danger for Americans confronting the Islamist threat is to believe—at the urging of U.S. leaders—that Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do. Blustering political rhetoric “informs” the public that the Islamists are offended by the Western world’s democratic freedoms, civil liberties, inter-mingling of genders, and separation of church and state. However, although aspects of the modern world may offend conservative Muslims, no Islamist leader has fomented jihad to destroy participatory democracy, for example, the national association of credit unions, or coed universities. Instead, a growing segment of the Islamic world strenuously disapproves of specific U.S. policies and their attendant military, political, and economic implications.
Capitalizing on growing anti-U.S. animosity, Osama bin Laden’s genius lies not simply in calling for jihad, but in articulating a consistent and convincing case that Islam is under attack by America. Al Qaeda’s public statements condemn America’s protection of corrupt Muslim regimes, unqualified support for Israel, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a further litany of real-world grievances. Bin Laden’s supporters thus identify their problem and believe their solution lies in war. Scheuer contends they will go to any length, not to destroy our secular, democratic way of life, but to deter what they view as specific attacks on their lands, their communities, and their religion. Unless U.S. leaders recognize this fact and adjust their policies abroad accordingly, even moderate Muslims will join the bin Laden camp.
352 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2004
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About the author
Michael Scheuer
14 books97 followersMichael F. Scheuer is a former CIA employee. In his 22-year career, he served as the Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (aka "Alec Station"), from 1996 to 1999, the Osama bin Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorist Center. He then worked again as Special Advisor to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004.
Scheuer resigned in 2004. He is currently a news analyst for CBS News and a terrorism analyst for The Jamestown Foundation's online publication Global Terrorism Analysis. He also makes radio and television appearances and teaches a graduate-level course on Al-Qaeda at Georgetown University. He also participates in conferences on terrorism and national security issues, such as the New America Foundation's December 2004 conference, "Al Qaeda 2.0: Transnational Terrorism After 9/11."
Source: Wikipedia
Scheuer resigned in 2004. He is currently a news analyst for CBS News and a terrorism analyst for The Jamestown Foundation's online publication Global Terrorism Analysis. He also makes radio and television appearances and teaches a graduate-level course on Al-Qaeda at Georgetown University. He also participates in conferences on terrorism and national security issues, such as the New America Foundation's December 2004 conference, "Al Qaeda 2.0: Transnational Terrorism After 9/11."
Source: Wikipedia
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May 17, 2008
A Muslim, native-Pakistani law professor of mine published an article which paralleled one of the main observations of this book, and it is an observation which I agree with wholeheartedly. As my law professor wrote, America's discourse on Islamic terrorism is couched in language which portrays the terrorists as 'essentialist terrorists.' The language used both explicitly and implicitly denies that the those who use violence in such manners have any reason for doing what they do (whether such reasons are valid or not is a separate inquiry never reached by those characterizing terrorists as 'essentialist terrorists'). Instead, terrorists are labeled as crazy, evil, or just plain violent. To treat them this way is to suggest that these people somehow operate fundamentally differently, psychologically, than we ourselves do - a patently absurd concept.
When we engage in actions, it is so ridiculously common to attribute a cause to our actions as to make the assertion that we NOT do so a thesis so controversial as to raise hundreds of articles in journals devoted to philosophy of the mind. This 'folk psychology' is simple, common-sense, and used by basically everyone. All it amounts to is this:
Action: I opened my backpack and pulled out a notebook.
Reason: I wanted to take some notes in my notebook.
Action: Sally got a glass of water.
Reason: Thomas asked Sally if she might fetch him a glass of water.
When we deny that terrorists also have reasons for their actions, we deny that their minds work like ours, making them easy to demonize as being sub-human. It also denies the fact that virtually every terrorist tells us, explicitly and in surprising detail exactly WHY they felt the need to do the things that they did - what they feel their reasons are. When we demonize the enemy and deny that they have any reason for doing what they are doing, we fundamentally fail to reach the grounds by which the conflict can be brought to a halt - discussing with them their reasons, finding out whether those reasons are valid, and doing something about those reasons if they are.
For laying out that amazingly simple thesis - a thesis surprisingly lacking in most American political discourse in recent years - this book earns some hefty praise.
When we engage in actions, it is so ridiculously common to attribute a cause to our actions as to make the assertion that we NOT do so a thesis so controversial as to raise hundreds of articles in journals devoted to philosophy of the mind. This 'folk psychology' is simple, common-sense, and used by basically everyone. All it amounts to is this:
Action: I opened my backpack and pulled out a notebook.
Reason: I wanted to take some notes in my notebook.
Action: Sally got a glass of water.
Reason: Thomas asked Sally if she might fetch him a glass of water.
When we deny that terrorists also have reasons for their actions, we deny that their minds work like ours, making them easy to demonize as being sub-human. It also denies the fact that virtually every terrorist tells us, explicitly and in surprising detail exactly WHY they felt the need to do the things that they did - what they feel their reasons are. When we demonize the enemy and deny that they have any reason for doing what they are doing, we fundamentally fail to reach the grounds by which the conflict can be brought to a halt - discussing with them their reasons, finding out whether those reasons are valid, and doing something about those reasons if they are.
For laying out that amazingly simple thesis - a thesis surprisingly lacking in most American political discourse in recent years - this book earns some hefty praise.
July 28, 2012
Dated at this point. Adherents of Catch-Phrase spouting, Chronic Labelist conservatism have entirely missed the point of the book. "Mikey Scheuer, in this babbling buffoonistic tome that not only gives aid and comfort to our enemies but also to the usual "Blame America Hate Israel" goons gathered around the Soros-Moore-MoveOn.Org kool aid pail, chooses to blame American Middle East policies and our support of Israel for why Osama is mad at us."
With Imperial Hubris, "Anonymous" - who we now know as fomer CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's "bin Laden Issue Station/ Alec Statiom" - gives us a piece of his mind on the failings of the United States to deal adequately with the problem of radical Islam. The result is an incredibly long-winded, horribly written, rambling piece full of contradictions.
This book suffers most noticeably from poor editing. It is repetitive to the point of being downright annoying. Awkward, unclear sentences and rambling passages make it all the worse. Schueur's heavy reliance on newspaper and magazine articles give his work an air of psuedo-scholarship - but only an air. While it is true that his project was to demonstrate that the US government has not done its homework by checking publicly-available information, Schueur's use of the writings of journalists as un-challenged truth is problematic.
Most troubling are Schueur's contradictory recommendations. While he states that radical Islamists hate the United States for its detrimental Middle East policies, with the exception of changing our reliance on Middle East oil, he never really recommends that the US alter its foreign policy. Instead, he calls on the US to more fully engage in the war in which it is embroiled - even if it does not yet believe it is at war. Schueur repeats over and over again that Muslims hate America (lumping all Muslims together, by the way) because of its hurtful policies, and then states that the best way to win this war is to pull a Sherman on the Middle East and raze the physical and economic infrastructure of Islam. I'm not an expert on the Middle East by any means, but that sure sounds like way to engender a lot of hatred.
Lastly, and perhaps this is being picky, but Schueur has read entirely too much Civil War history, and has an annoying habit of making sketchy analogies between that war and this one. Sherman, Lee, Lincoln, or Grant make an appearance on nearly ever page, or so it seems. It gives the entire work an air of buff history and makes it seem like the ramblings of a self-important (yet neatly self-effacing) bitter civil servant.
Broadly the book is a criticism of not only current US policy but also US perceptions of the threat faced by Bin Laden. Some commentators have argued that Sept 11 has resulted in the disgust felt by conservative Muslims at US society its moral looseness and free enterprise tradition. Scheuer effectively shows that this is piffle and the real motivation behind Bin Laden's movement is that of a defensive Jihad. He has been able to convince the Muslim world that America has meddled and continues to meddle with the freedom of those who believe in Islam. Scheuer argues that the United States unquestioning support of Israel, its support of corrupt non democratic regimes in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are the issues which have galvanised terrorists rather than mini skirts and re-runs of Sex and the City.
Scheuer seems to be a conservative who admires Reagan and his criticism of the Neo Cons who have supported the attacks of Afghanistan and Iraq reflects America's isolationist history rather than do good leftism. (He quotes historical thinkers who argued against America being caught up in crusades and suggest that foreign policy should be limited to national interest) Scheuer thinks that the suggestion that a democratic regime can be established in Afghanistan is a fantasy. In fact he thinks that both the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq have been huge propaganda wins for Bin Laden.
The problem with a lot of what he says is that it is largely speculative. One of the most repeated beliefs of the author is the assertion that America will find itself in the same position that the Soviet Union did in Afghanistan. There are a number of arguments advanced to suggest that this will happen. The first is that the American sponsored invasion to remove the Taliban succeeded but it destroyed only a small number of Taliban fighters and none of the leadership. That the leader who has been supported by America is secular, is supportive of women's rights and supports an American notion of representative democracy. The majority of Afghans are deeply religious, they do not support western secularism and apart from those who live in the capital none have much of an affinity for the rights of women. Lastly the majority of the people of Afghanistan are Pashtans. The Taliban was a Pashtan dominated organisation but the current rulers of Afghanistan are members of minority tribes who formed the Northern Alliance. Now it may well be that the Taliban leaders who survived might be able to mount a successful insurgency based on resentment by the majority of Afghans about the imposition of a secular state by the Americans. On the other hand maybe it will not happen. The fight against the Soviets was bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US. Weapons were paid for by the US and supplied through Pakistan. Large numbers of Arab volunteers many from Saudi Arabia travelled through Pakistan to fight against the Soviets. In the war which saw the Taliban achieve dominance Pakistan supplied weapons and " volunteers" which enabled them to win.
The current climate is unlikely to see any of the major powers support the remnants of the Taliban with weapons and logistical assistance. One thus wonders if a resistance is possible. The reality is that rather than speculate it is more appropriate to look at what is happening on the ground. However this book contains little information about the level of insurgency which is going on in Afghanistan at the moment and the book remains a theoretical work. As such it is hard to say that the book has supported the assertion that the West is losing the war on terror. The book does however present a compelling case to say that the war on terror has become sidetracked by the invasion of Iraq and the focus on terror rather than on Islamic insurgency directed against the US is counter productive. Suggesting that terror is the problem rather than one form of insurgency has shackled the US to supporting Russia and China in two dirty domestic wars. Other writers have suggested that following the Sept 11 attacks the United States set in chain the location and breaking up of El Qaeda Cells. Across the world arrests were made not only by the US but by the British, German and French Governments. Safe houses were closed down, bank accounts frozen. It would be interesting to know how the tide is going and whether Bin Laden has the same ability now that he had in 2001. This book does not convincingly suggest that he has more.
Scheuer yammers away repeatedly about Bin Laden's "limited goals," and justifies this view with an egregious and often fictitious list of grievances (which includes America's purchase of Muslim oil at "below market prices"; pp xi. xviii, 210, 212, 258, American "support for Serbs against Bosnian Muslims"; p 130, Israel's ambition to "extend its borders to the Euphrates"; p 14). Scheuer rightly condemns "tyrannical" Arab governments currently supported or recognized by the U.S., but he utters not a single word of criticism against the kind of alternative government groups like Al Qaeda have in mind. Consequently, he notes without a hint of irony how these governments "oppress Muslims trying to install Sharia law" (p 12) and praises the Taliban for giving Afghanistan what he believed to be this country's first chance at "peace and security" (p 33).
Huh? The Taliban gave Afghanistan security?I hear time and time again from the news media, and from those who parrot what they say, that before the Taliban rose to power Afghanistan was in a state of chaos and anarchy. In this Hobbesian “state of nature” (yes political philosophers, I acknowledge the popular misinterpretation of “Hobbesian”), brutality and misery abounded. But when the Taliban appeared out of “nowhere” the people rejoiced and basked in the security provided by the benevolent religious students. To sum up, with less sarcasm and hyperbole, many journalists and commentators believe that a war-weary population universally terrorized by warlords and militias throughout Afghanistan welcomed the Taliban and the security they provided.
However, the facts on the ground contradict this ridiculous lie. I call it a ridiculous lie because the “pre-Taliban chaos” myth is basically Pakistani ISI and Taliban propaganda. Furthermore, The US State Department actually helped promote this propaganda. William Maley notes “…the US State department had responded to the Taliban takeover of Kabul in a way which was frightening in its sheer naiveté”.
So what is my argument? It is the same argument that has a high level of consensus among those who have Afghanistan included in their claimed areas of expertise: that the vast majority of the country was not in a state of anarchy.
So where was there anarchy? Actually just in Kandahar city and the surrounding area. According the Anthony Davis this was the only part of the south where chaos and anrchy were endemic. Davis notes “the later tendency to portray the religious students as having swept the south on a wave of popular adulation with scarcely a shot being fired has strayed from the factual record” . Davis goes on to analyze the areas outside of the Kandahar region: “in most other areas the Taliban laid down ultimata and fought their way into regions that were at peace, and in many instances – Qari Baba’s Ghazni and Ismail Khan’s Herat – recognized as being relatively well administered. Ironically, administration, services and schooling in these regions were far in advance of anything delivered by the Taliban. Their energies were focused exclusively on war” .
What is indisputable is that Herat and western Afghanistan, Mazar-i Sharif, Kunduz, Taloqan and the entire north, Bamiyan and the Hazarajat, The Shomali Plains, the Panjshir, as well as many other cities and regions were not in need of “rescue” by the Taliban. And the Taliban rescue of many of these areas was quite strange indeed. In Mazar-i Sharif the Taliban raped and murdered thousands of civilians, with the Hazaras being specifically targeted, but with Tajiks and Uzbeks also being victimized. The Taliban commanders who took Mazar claimed that Taliban leader Mullah Omar had given them permission to take revenge and carry out massacre for two hours. They turned a couple of hours into several days. In general, during the northern campaigns Taliban soldiers targeted and killed Uzbeks and other civilians in what UN investigators say were ethnically motivated actions.
Before the arrival of the Taliban much of the north was run by Rashid Dostum. Before the Taliban invaded, the north was mostly unaffected by the civil war. Dostum’s area of control in the northwest had commercial relations with Central Asia, functioning schools, as well as thriving local media (Shahrani 2002: 719). By 1997 Dostum was collecting taxes as well as operating a legal courts system. Dostum even printed bank notes between 1994 and 1996 Dostum’s administration also operated health and educational systems, including the only functioning university in Afghanistan at the time. The administration was relatively effective because Dostum had left in place most of the administrative structures in its areas of control remaining from the Soviet era.
Conrad Schetter puts Dostum’s area of control in the same category as Ismail Khan’s. Dostum and Ismail Khan actually had administrative structures on a broad regional basis, albeit fragile. They were not just a city or valley stronghold. Another stable area was Rabbani’s area of control in Badakhshan. But I won’t get into a discussion here since I am a little short on sources for the north-east.
So how about the Hazaras? I would argue that the Hazarajat was not in any state of anarchy. And according to Human Rights Watch, the Hazaras were most unappreciative of the benevolent Taliban rescuing them from anarchy. I guess that’s why the 2001 HRW report is titled “Massacres of Hazaras in Afghanistan.”
OK, so the Hazaras and Uzbeks had relative security before the Taliban and did not welcome the Taliban’s arrival. How about Tajiks? Well, stable and prosperous Herat has been dealt with. How about the Panjshiri Tajiks? They revere Massoud and hated/hate the Taliban. The only conflict in the Panjshir was when the Taliban would aerial bomb the place. And out in the Shomali plains the Taliban followed a “scorched earth policy.” Orchards and crops were destroyed, houses burned, irrigation bulldozed, people executed, etc… I’m not even going to bother to come up with a citation for this. It is a universally acknowledged fact that the Taliban destroyed the area.
But I will cite one story, the story of the Taliban’s sex-slave trade in girls, particularly Tajik girls from Shomali plains. It’s sickening. According to the UN, The State Department, and other sources, Tajik girls from Taloqan and the Shomali plains as well as Hazara girls from Mazar were sold as sex-slaves to Pakistani and Arab brothels (Dubai in particular). There are also human trafficking NGOs who have “good” info on this.
Well, on to the more complicated issue of Kabul. Kabul was most definitely not in a state of anarchy as was Kandahar. But you will probably point out that there was factional fighting that claimed many lives in Kabul. This is true. However, it was less true by the time the Taliban arrived. The lines of control had mostly stabilized. We could argue over the meaning of “anarchy” until we are blue in the face. So I’ll move to the perception of the Taliban by Kabulis. Taliban fighters believed their own propaganda and were surprised and disappointed that Kabulis did not view them favourably as had Kandaharis. The minorities strongly opposed the Pashtun Taliban. The non-Pashtuns (and many Pashtun as well) viewed the Taliban’s idea of a state to be “extremely violent, intolerant and primitive” (Rais 1999: 6). So in a bid to win over Kabulis the Taliban rocketed Kabul’s civilian areas. “Long gone were the days of Taliban moral ascendancy when their leaders had vowed they would never rocket civilian populations”.
I’ll leave it to William Maley to sum up the Taliban’s campaign in a paraphrase of Tacitus: “While the Taliban attempted to legitimate their power by reference to their provision of ‘security’, with the passage of time it became clear that….they had made a wilderness and called it peace’.
So why does this myth persist? I would guess it is a combination of several factors:
#1 Poor journalism.
#2 Deliberately deceptive journalism.
#3 Successful early Taliban and Pakistani ISI propaganda.
#4 Domestic political priorities in Europe, USA and Canada whereby people will use anything to attack their political opposition (i.e., “The Taliban delivered security but you can’t do that even after 6 years in the country).
#5 Islamists outside Afghanistan who champion the Taliban as a way of voicing protest against Western and Middle Eastern government’s policies.
#6 Intellectual laziness.
To help his readers better "appreciate the Muslim perspective" (p 125-126) Scheuer stoops to some of the worst kind of moral relativism: "I would argue that Bin Laden believes in the same moral universe (as Abraham Lincoln), and that Muslims love, respect, and support him because he speaks and defends that reality." This is not the kind of talk one would expect from a self-styled "conservative," much less a "Catholic." Given Scheuer's failure to distinguish between the religious values of Lincoln and Bin Laden, it's no small wonder that this book is so popular among hard leftists who regard Evangelical Christians opposing gay marriage as no better than Muslim supremacists who think homosexuals should be killed.
Scheuer justifies the "defensive" nature of the current jihad by virtue of Al Qaeda's support for insurgencies that only involve land once ruled by Muslims, but anyone who has seriously perused through a world history book knows that Spain, India, and much of Eastern Europe were all Muslim territory at one time. In fact, Bin Laden has repeatedly expressed an interest in "Al Andalus" (Moorish Spain). Nonetheless, Scheuer reassures his readers early in the book that expansionist or "offensive" jihad is no longer a problem because it can only be executed under the authority of a caliph, and that the caliphate was abolished in 1924. And yet, it is Scheuer himself who acknowledges Bin Laden's goal of re-establishing the caliphate across the entire Muslim world! I find it profoundly disturbing that a former high level agent can succumb to this level of cognitive dissonance. How many more nuts like Michael Scheuer are still in the CIA?
He contradicts himself saying bin Laden doesn't really care about what is going on outside of the Middle East but says also that bin Laden (and basically all Muslims) are interested in world domination. He says bin Laden offered to show Americans the correct (Islamic) way and since we turned him down by not jumping at the chance (not rushing to Mosques to be instructed in the Islamic way, not grabbing up those burkas and Korans) we are going to be terrorized (insurgensized?) till we take down those crosses, get on those veils and get down on our prayer rugs. We are going to have our buildings and landmarks destroyed; we are going to be infected with terrible things (anthrax?) and we are going to be irradiated and incinerated in short order (as soon as bin Laden can come up with the stuff he needs and a good workable plan). (Scary - I mean it!)
He somehow claims Britain, not Turkey's first secular leader, Atatürk, abolished the Caliphate in 1924. For someone claiming Middle Eastern CIA analyst expertise, that's a credibility-damaging error in my book.
Some views of the author are too bizarre to belong to analyst. He repeatedly claims that America supports Saudi and Kuwaiti monarchs to keep the oil price below market level. It is well known, however, that thanks to OPEC cartel efforts, crude price is actually much above the market level.
Boiled down to a 50 page manifesto, this work may have offered something. As it currently stands, it offers little. Thoughtful Americans have been grappling with the issues Schueur raises for years now. Unthoughtful ones will likely never read the book. And government officials are too caught up in their myopic worldview to ever change.
With Imperial Hubris, "Anonymous" - who we now know as fomer CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's "bin Laden Issue Station/ Alec Statiom" - gives us a piece of his mind on the failings of the United States to deal adequately with the problem of radical Islam. The result is an incredibly long-winded, horribly written, rambling piece full of contradictions.
This book suffers most noticeably from poor editing. It is repetitive to the point of being downright annoying. Awkward, unclear sentences and rambling passages make it all the worse. Schueur's heavy reliance on newspaper and magazine articles give his work an air of psuedo-scholarship - but only an air. While it is true that his project was to demonstrate that the US government has not done its homework by checking publicly-available information, Schueur's use of the writings of journalists as un-challenged truth is problematic.
Most troubling are Schueur's contradictory recommendations. While he states that radical Islamists hate the United States for its detrimental Middle East policies, with the exception of changing our reliance on Middle East oil, he never really recommends that the US alter its foreign policy. Instead, he calls on the US to more fully engage in the war in which it is embroiled - even if it does not yet believe it is at war. Schueur repeats over and over again that Muslims hate America (lumping all Muslims together, by the way) because of its hurtful policies, and then states that the best way to win this war is to pull a Sherman on the Middle East and raze the physical and economic infrastructure of Islam. I'm not an expert on the Middle East by any means, but that sure sounds like way to engender a lot of hatred.
Lastly, and perhaps this is being picky, but Schueur has read entirely too much Civil War history, and has an annoying habit of making sketchy analogies between that war and this one. Sherman, Lee, Lincoln, or Grant make an appearance on nearly ever page, or so it seems. It gives the entire work an air of buff history and makes it seem like the ramblings of a self-important (yet neatly self-effacing) bitter civil servant.
Broadly the book is a criticism of not only current US policy but also US perceptions of the threat faced by Bin Laden. Some commentators have argued that Sept 11 has resulted in the disgust felt by conservative Muslims at US society its moral looseness and free enterprise tradition. Scheuer effectively shows that this is piffle and the real motivation behind Bin Laden's movement is that of a defensive Jihad. He has been able to convince the Muslim world that America has meddled and continues to meddle with the freedom of those who believe in Islam. Scheuer argues that the United States unquestioning support of Israel, its support of corrupt non democratic regimes in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are the issues which have galvanised terrorists rather than mini skirts and re-runs of Sex and the City.
Scheuer seems to be a conservative who admires Reagan and his criticism of the Neo Cons who have supported the attacks of Afghanistan and Iraq reflects America's isolationist history rather than do good leftism. (He quotes historical thinkers who argued against America being caught up in crusades and suggest that foreign policy should be limited to national interest) Scheuer thinks that the suggestion that a democratic regime can be established in Afghanistan is a fantasy. In fact he thinks that both the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq have been huge propaganda wins for Bin Laden.
The problem with a lot of what he says is that it is largely speculative. One of the most repeated beliefs of the author is the assertion that America will find itself in the same position that the Soviet Union did in Afghanistan. There are a number of arguments advanced to suggest that this will happen. The first is that the American sponsored invasion to remove the Taliban succeeded but it destroyed only a small number of Taliban fighters and none of the leadership. That the leader who has been supported by America is secular, is supportive of women's rights and supports an American notion of representative democracy. The majority of Afghans are deeply religious, they do not support western secularism and apart from those who live in the capital none have much of an affinity for the rights of women. Lastly the majority of the people of Afghanistan are Pashtans. The Taliban was a Pashtan dominated organisation but the current rulers of Afghanistan are members of minority tribes who formed the Northern Alliance. Now it may well be that the Taliban leaders who survived might be able to mount a successful insurgency based on resentment by the majority of Afghans about the imposition of a secular state by the Americans. On the other hand maybe it will not happen. The fight against the Soviets was bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US. Weapons were paid for by the US and supplied through Pakistan. Large numbers of Arab volunteers many from Saudi Arabia travelled through Pakistan to fight against the Soviets. In the war which saw the Taliban achieve dominance Pakistan supplied weapons and " volunteers" which enabled them to win.
The current climate is unlikely to see any of the major powers support the remnants of the Taliban with weapons and logistical assistance. One thus wonders if a resistance is possible. The reality is that rather than speculate it is more appropriate to look at what is happening on the ground. However this book contains little information about the level of insurgency which is going on in Afghanistan at the moment and the book remains a theoretical work. As such it is hard to say that the book has supported the assertion that the West is losing the war on terror. The book does however present a compelling case to say that the war on terror has become sidetracked by the invasion of Iraq and the focus on terror rather than on Islamic insurgency directed against the US is counter productive. Suggesting that terror is the problem rather than one form of insurgency has shackled the US to supporting Russia and China in two dirty domestic wars. Other writers have suggested that following the Sept 11 attacks the United States set in chain the location and breaking up of El Qaeda Cells. Across the world arrests were made not only by the US but by the British, German and French Governments. Safe houses were closed down, bank accounts frozen. It would be interesting to know how the tide is going and whether Bin Laden has the same ability now that he had in 2001. This book does not convincingly suggest that he has more.
Scheuer yammers away repeatedly about Bin Laden's "limited goals," and justifies this view with an egregious and often fictitious list of grievances (which includes America's purchase of Muslim oil at "below market prices"; pp xi. xviii, 210, 212, 258, American "support for Serbs against Bosnian Muslims"; p 130, Israel's ambition to "extend its borders to the Euphrates"; p 14). Scheuer rightly condemns "tyrannical" Arab governments currently supported or recognized by the U.S., but he utters not a single word of criticism against the kind of alternative government groups like Al Qaeda have in mind. Consequently, he notes without a hint of irony how these governments "oppress Muslims trying to install Sharia law" (p 12) and praises the Taliban for giving Afghanistan what he believed to be this country's first chance at "peace and security" (p 33).
Huh? The Taliban gave Afghanistan security?I hear time and time again from the news media, and from those who parrot what they say, that before the Taliban rose to power Afghanistan was in a state of chaos and anarchy. In this Hobbesian “state of nature” (yes political philosophers, I acknowledge the popular misinterpretation of “Hobbesian”), brutality and misery abounded. But when the Taliban appeared out of “nowhere” the people rejoiced and basked in the security provided by the benevolent religious students. To sum up, with less sarcasm and hyperbole, many journalists and commentators believe that a war-weary population universally terrorized by warlords and militias throughout Afghanistan welcomed the Taliban and the security they provided.
However, the facts on the ground contradict this ridiculous lie. I call it a ridiculous lie because the “pre-Taliban chaos” myth is basically Pakistani ISI and Taliban propaganda. Furthermore, The US State Department actually helped promote this propaganda. William Maley notes “…the US State department had responded to the Taliban takeover of Kabul in a way which was frightening in its sheer naiveté”.
So what is my argument? It is the same argument that has a high level of consensus among those who have Afghanistan included in their claimed areas of expertise: that the vast majority of the country was not in a state of anarchy.
So where was there anarchy? Actually just in Kandahar city and the surrounding area. According the Anthony Davis this was the only part of the south where chaos and anrchy were endemic. Davis notes “the later tendency to portray the religious students as having swept the south on a wave of popular adulation with scarcely a shot being fired has strayed from the factual record” . Davis goes on to analyze the areas outside of the Kandahar region: “in most other areas the Taliban laid down ultimata and fought their way into regions that were at peace, and in many instances – Qari Baba’s Ghazni and Ismail Khan’s Herat – recognized as being relatively well administered. Ironically, administration, services and schooling in these regions were far in advance of anything delivered by the Taliban. Their energies were focused exclusively on war” .
What is indisputable is that Herat and western Afghanistan, Mazar-i Sharif, Kunduz, Taloqan and the entire north, Bamiyan and the Hazarajat, The Shomali Plains, the Panjshir, as well as many other cities and regions were not in need of “rescue” by the Taliban. And the Taliban rescue of many of these areas was quite strange indeed. In Mazar-i Sharif the Taliban raped and murdered thousands of civilians, with the Hazaras being specifically targeted, but with Tajiks and Uzbeks also being victimized. The Taliban commanders who took Mazar claimed that Taliban leader Mullah Omar had given them permission to take revenge and carry out massacre for two hours. They turned a couple of hours into several days. In general, during the northern campaigns Taliban soldiers targeted and killed Uzbeks and other civilians in what UN investigators say were ethnically motivated actions.
Before the arrival of the Taliban much of the north was run by Rashid Dostum. Before the Taliban invaded, the north was mostly unaffected by the civil war. Dostum’s area of control in the northwest had commercial relations with Central Asia, functioning schools, as well as thriving local media (Shahrani 2002: 719). By 1997 Dostum was collecting taxes as well as operating a legal courts system. Dostum even printed bank notes between 1994 and 1996 Dostum’s administration also operated health and educational systems, including the only functioning university in Afghanistan at the time. The administration was relatively effective because Dostum had left in place most of the administrative structures in its areas of control remaining from the Soviet era.
Conrad Schetter puts Dostum’s area of control in the same category as Ismail Khan’s. Dostum and Ismail Khan actually had administrative structures on a broad regional basis, albeit fragile. They were not just a city or valley stronghold. Another stable area was Rabbani’s area of control in Badakhshan. But I won’t get into a discussion here since I am a little short on sources for the north-east.
So how about the Hazaras? I would argue that the Hazarajat was not in any state of anarchy. And according to Human Rights Watch, the Hazaras were most unappreciative of the benevolent Taliban rescuing them from anarchy. I guess that’s why the 2001 HRW report is titled “Massacres of Hazaras in Afghanistan.”
OK, so the Hazaras and Uzbeks had relative security before the Taliban and did not welcome the Taliban’s arrival. How about Tajiks? Well, stable and prosperous Herat has been dealt with. How about the Panjshiri Tajiks? They revere Massoud and hated/hate the Taliban. The only conflict in the Panjshir was when the Taliban would aerial bomb the place. And out in the Shomali plains the Taliban followed a “scorched earth policy.” Orchards and crops were destroyed, houses burned, irrigation bulldozed, people executed, etc… I’m not even going to bother to come up with a citation for this. It is a universally acknowledged fact that the Taliban destroyed the area.
But I will cite one story, the story of the Taliban’s sex-slave trade in girls, particularly Tajik girls from Shomali plains. It’s sickening. According to the UN, The State Department, and other sources, Tajik girls from Taloqan and the Shomali plains as well as Hazara girls from Mazar were sold as sex-slaves to Pakistani and Arab brothels (Dubai in particular). There are also human trafficking NGOs who have “good” info on this.
Well, on to the more complicated issue of Kabul. Kabul was most definitely not in a state of anarchy as was Kandahar. But you will probably point out that there was factional fighting that claimed many lives in Kabul. This is true. However, it was less true by the time the Taliban arrived. The lines of control had mostly stabilized. We could argue over the meaning of “anarchy” until we are blue in the face. So I’ll move to the perception of the Taliban by Kabulis. Taliban fighters believed their own propaganda and were surprised and disappointed that Kabulis did not view them favourably as had Kandaharis. The minorities strongly opposed the Pashtun Taliban. The non-Pashtuns (and many Pashtun as well) viewed the Taliban’s idea of a state to be “extremely violent, intolerant and primitive” (Rais 1999: 6). So in a bid to win over Kabulis the Taliban rocketed Kabul’s civilian areas. “Long gone were the days of Taliban moral ascendancy when their leaders had vowed they would never rocket civilian populations”.
I’ll leave it to William Maley to sum up the Taliban’s campaign in a paraphrase of Tacitus: “While the Taliban attempted to legitimate their power by reference to their provision of ‘security’, with the passage of time it became clear that….they had made a wilderness and called it peace’.
So why does this myth persist? I would guess it is a combination of several factors:
#1 Poor journalism.
#2 Deliberately deceptive journalism.
#3 Successful early Taliban and Pakistani ISI propaganda.
#4 Domestic political priorities in Europe, USA and Canada whereby people will use anything to attack their political opposition (i.e., “The Taliban delivered security but you can’t do that even after 6 years in the country).
#5 Islamists outside Afghanistan who champion the Taliban as a way of voicing protest against Western and Middle Eastern government’s policies.
#6 Intellectual laziness.
To help his readers better "appreciate the Muslim perspective" (p 125-126) Scheuer stoops to some of the worst kind of moral relativism: "I would argue that Bin Laden believes in the same moral universe (as Abraham Lincoln), and that Muslims love, respect, and support him because he speaks and defends that reality." This is not the kind of talk one would expect from a self-styled "conservative," much less a "Catholic." Given Scheuer's failure to distinguish between the religious values of Lincoln and Bin Laden, it's no small wonder that this book is so popular among hard leftists who regard Evangelical Christians opposing gay marriage as no better than Muslim supremacists who think homosexuals should be killed.
Scheuer justifies the "defensive" nature of the current jihad by virtue of Al Qaeda's support for insurgencies that only involve land once ruled by Muslims, but anyone who has seriously perused through a world history book knows that Spain, India, and much of Eastern Europe were all Muslim territory at one time. In fact, Bin Laden has repeatedly expressed an interest in "Al Andalus" (Moorish Spain). Nonetheless, Scheuer reassures his readers early in the book that expansionist or "offensive" jihad is no longer a problem because it can only be executed under the authority of a caliph, and that the caliphate was abolished in 1924. And yet, it is Scheuer himself who acknowledges Bin Laden's goal of re-establishing the caliphate across the entire Muslim world! I find it profoundly disturbing that a former high level agent can succumb to this level of cognitive dissonance. How many more nuts like Michael Scheuer are still in the CIA?
He contradicts himself saying bin Laden doesn't really care about what is going on outside of the Middle East but says also that bin Laden (and basically all Muslims) are interested in world domination. He says bin Laden offered to show Americans the correct (Islamic) way and since we turned him down by not jumping at the chance (not rushing to Mosques to be instructed in the Islamic way, not grabbing up those burkas and Korans) we are going to be terrorized (insurgensized?) till we take down those crosses, get on those veils and get down on our prayer rugs. We are going to have our buildings and landmarks destroyed; we are going to be infected with terrible things (anthrax?) and we are going to be irradiated and incinerated in short order (as soon as bin Laden can come up with the stuff he needs and a good workable plan). (Scary - I mean it!)
He somehow claims Britain, not Turkey's first secular leader, Atatürk, abolished the Caliphate in 1924. For someone claiming Middle Eastern CIA analyst expertise, that's a credibility-damaging error in my book.
Some views of the author are too bizarre to belong to analyst. He repeatedly claims that America supports Saudi and Kuwaiti monarchs to keep the oil price below market level. It is well known, however, that thanks to OPEC cartel efforts, crude price is actually much above the market level.
Boiled down to a 50 page manifesto, this work may have offered something. As it currently stands, it offers little. Thoughtful Americans have been grappling with the issues Schueur raises for years now. Unthoughtful ones will likely never read the book. And government officials are too caught up in their myopic worldview to ever change.
Read
August 5, 2008Why do I do this to myself? I am a few chapters in, and I am completely frustrated all over again by the things we as a nation are doing around the world. Imperial Hubris is the well-written, slightly angry and fed up book by intelligence official Michael Scheuer that outlines not just the broad strokes of why our Middle East policy is going so wrong, but the subtle cultural and political nuances our leaders completely missed.
More to come when I'm done with it.
More to come when I'm done with it.
January 17, 2009
A solid sequel to the author's first book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes. The author, a retired intelligence officer much of whose career was focused on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, is eloquent and angry, and makes a persuasive argument that the approach America's leadership has taken to the conflict with Islamic fundamentalists worldwide has been worse than ineffective - as he explains it, coming up with a worse set of responses would have been difficult if they'd set out to do so.
I was troubled by the last part of the book, in which Mr. Scheuer offered his thoughts on how we should respond to Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and other elements of the militant Islamic movement - his prescription doesn't sound much different from the way the Russians behaved in Afghanistan and more recently in Chechnya and Georgia, or for that matter the way the Nazis responded to insurgencies. Not only did that bloody-minded approach ultimately fail wherever it was tried, it would be a betrayal of what we stand for. We can and must be more selective, as a power that is not willing to engage in genocide in the 21st century. We are not Rome, and we can't make a desert and call it peace without losing ourselves.
I don't claim to have a precise set of answers, and I would not presume to challenge this author's credentials in his field of expertise; I agree with him that our conduct of the so-called war on terror so far has been incompetent, but I don't believe his scorched-earth plan would work either. We have to keep looking for other ways to do this until we find something more effective that will not make the name of the U.S. one that is remembered in the same context as the Third Reich and the U.S.S.R.
I was troubled by the last part of the book, in which Mr. Scheuer offered his thoughts on how we should respond to Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and other elements of the militant Islamic movement - his prescription doesn't sound much different from the way the Russians behaved in Afghanistan and more recently in Chechnya and Georgia, or for that matter the way the Nazis responded to insurgencies. Not only did that bloody-minded approach ultimately fail wherever it was tried, it would be a betrayal of what we stand for. We can and must be more selective, as a power that is not willing to engage in genocide in the 21st century. We are not Rome, and we can't make a desert and call it peace without losing ourselves.
I don't claim to have a precise set of answers, and I would not presume to challenge this author's credentials in his field of expertise; I agree with him that our conduct of the so-called war on terror so far has been incompetent, but I don't believe his scorched-earth plan would work either. We have to keep looking for other ways to do this until we find something more effective that will not make the name of the U.S. one that is remembered in the same context as the Third Reich and the U.S.S.R.
October 6, 2024
This book is 20 years old but this author is owed a big fat "I told you so." Everything he lays out - not based on personal prediction but based on a lifetime of study - happened. This is further proof that those selling us war are not the same people as those studying wars. Idiots sell wars while the experts are silenced.
Here is what he said that no one heeded: The U.S. would suffer a great defeat in Afghanistan and that CIA intelligence from since the 1970s could have predicted that. The U.S. ignored its own intelligence in order to launch a nonsensical war in response to 9/11. He warns that the U.S. propaganda machine refuses to understand what Islamic terrorists want, which is for the U.S. to stop colonizing and bombing their lands. This author studied Al Qaeda at length and I learned so much about they want versus what the news tells me about them. That misunderstanding will strengthen the resolve of Islamist fundamentalist and blow up in our faces. Check, check and check. He also lays out how the U.S. has no interest in getting involved in foreign wars and as long as we continue to do so, we will bring about our own ruin, both with retaliatory attacks and financial ruin.
And yet this author is not all roses. He doesn't say that if we left foreign wars alone then the world would work it out itself. He says that a non-interventionist policy could in fact mean that we observe atrocities around the world and that is the way it may have to be. He says that we can help with aid but we should never intervene. That's something to sit with, isn't it?
Coincidentally I read this book after I read Orientalism by Edward Said. Said talks about how the West always misunderstands the East through a Western perspective. Michael Scheuer does the exact opposite. He does not try to understand Islamic conflicts through a Western lens at all. He simply points out how fundamentally different their beliefs are and how we can never force this through our own filter. This book is full of humility and study and I appreciate it so much.
Here is what he said that no one heeded: The U.S. would suffer a great defeat in Afghanistan and that CIA intelligence from since the 1970s could have predicted that. The U.S. ignored its own intelligence in order to launch a nonsensical war in response to 9/11. He warns that the U.S. propaganda machine refuses to understand what Islamic terrorists want, which is for the U.S. to stop colonizing and bombing their lands. This author studied Al Qaeda at length and I learned so much about they want versus what the news tells me about them. That misunderstanding will strengthen the resolve of Islamist fundamentalist and blow up in our faces. Check, check and check. He also lays out how the U.S. has no interest in getting involved in foreign wars and as long as we continue to do so, we will bring about our own ruin, both with retaliatory attacks and financial ruin.
And yet this author is not all roses. He doesn't say that if we left foreign wars alone then the world would work it out itself. He says that a non-interventionist policy could in fact mean that we observe atrocities around the world and that is the way it may have to be. He says that we can help with aid but we should never intervene. That's something to sit with, isn't it?
Coincidentally I read this book after I read Orientalism by Edward Said. Said talks about how the West always misunderstands the East through a Western perspective. Michael Scheuer does the exact opposite. He does not try to understand Islamic conflicts through a Western lens at all. He simply points out how fundamentally different their beliefs are and how we can never force this through our own filter. This book is full of humility and study and I appreciate it so much.
November 26, 2008
This is one of those books that has to be read to believed. There are two arguments here that never cross paths, that live parallel lives without any recognition of each other's presence.
Argument 1: Osama Bin Laden (OBL) is a rational human being who has articulated his policies clearly and with rational force.
That the US can meet his demands without much of an effort if it actually listens to him and considers that much of what he asks for is actually in the interests of the US.
Argument 2: OBL and his organization is evil, murderous, and must be annihilated.
Scheuer is almost an ethnologist of OBL, al-quaida, and Afghan culture and once can sense that he loves and respects his subject matter. And just as surely, he is a real world twin of the Jack Bauer character in the show 24. He wants OBL, al-quaida and Afghan culture dead and gone and vaporized.
Someone unfamiliar with Afghan culture can learn plenty about that culture from this book. But at a deeper level one learns of intimate knowledge of another may lead to an understanding that wants to kill.
Answer: Jack Bauer, Michael Scheuer, Cortez, and US foreign policy.
Question: For which characters does knowledge lead to a kind of love that kills?
Argument 1: Osama Bin Laden (OBL) is a rational human being who has articulated his policies clearly and with rational force.
That the US can meet his demands without much of an effort if it actually listens to him and considers that much of what he asks for is actually in the interests of the US.
Argument 2: OBL and his organization is evil, murderous, and must be annihilated.
Scheuer is almost an ethnologist of OBL, al-quaida, and Afghan culture and once can sense that he loves and respects his subject matter. And just as surely, he is a real world twin of the Jack Bauer character in the show 24. He wants OBL, al-quaida and Afghan culture dead and gone and vaporized.
Someone unfamiliar with Afghan culture can learn plenty about that culture from this book. But at a deeper level one learns of intimate knowledge of another may lead to an understanding that wants to kill.
Answer: Jack Bauer, Michael Scheuer, Cortez, and US foreign policy.
Question: For which characters does knowledge lead to a kind of love that kills?
June 11, 2012
This book is still worth reading, for its often stunning prescience as well as the snapshot it offers of the particularly crazy time in America's public life surrounding the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. The author seems to buy into the "clash of civilizations" thesis, as evidenced by his references to authors like Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington. He has a rather old-fashioned and quixotic Reaganite conservatism that wavers between militarism and isolationism. Ultimately I find his position incoherent. On the one hand he argues that the Islamic world is angered by America's actions rather than by its values, and then goes on propose a war to the knife against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, an action which would seemingly enrage the Islamic world all the more. I think he vastly overestimates the danger of Al Qaeda and of Islamism in general, which while a challenge, is hardly an existential threat to the US. Although it is a challenge that holds forth an existential mirror reflecting back America's own crisis of vision and morality.
June 16, 2012
this is a great book. It's somewhat lengthy but it's very insightful. Scheuer's book got me started on my own book "Dioxinomics: The Myth of Superpower in the Age of Dioxin." to address the huge fallacy that a total war can quash so-called terrorism.
Many Thanks for writing this.
Many Thanks for writing this.
April 30, 2020
I have to be honest in that I didn't finish this book since I moved onto others that were more pressing to me. I received this book from a friend and it hasn't aged terribly well to be honest. The World has moved on since this was written and we were still talking about a "war on terror" whereas we are now apparently fighting a "war on coronavirus".
It's pretty apparent that there were problems with looking at terrorism as a war when it is essentially a criminal act and should be dealt with accordingly.
I will come back to this but as I say, written over 10 years ago, its relevance has declined somewhat.
It's pretty apparent that there were problems with looking at terrorism as a war when it is essentially a criminal act and should be dealt with accordingly.
I will come back to this but as I say, written over 10 years ago, its relevance has declined somewhat.
January 20, 2020
So my first review disappeared. Yes, this is dated, but I forgot it was on my history shelf. The edition I have doesn’t have Michael’s name on it. I also have no desire to see if he made any corrections, despite his claim of not writing another book or making any corrections.
Finding out who wrote this explains a lot. Scheuer (who left the CIA in 1999) relies on his personal opinions, newspaper articles (ironically enough), and other public sources for this. I will admit that I did learn at least a few things I didn’t already know, but it wasn’t worth the aggravation.
He babbles on incoherently and repeats himself quite a bit, as if trying to remember where he lost his train of thought or trying to figure out how to make his point. I’ve seen quite a few reviews complain about his use and comparisons between these events and the Civil War. History does repeat itself, but some comparisons just don’t quite work. Many examples are these.
I honestly don’t know what kind of analyst he was. I can’t imagine a very good one based on his opinions. It’s clear that he doesn’t quite understand Islam, or if he does, he allows his own opinions to cloud his judgment—at least in the book. In the beginning he attempts to claim that Bin Laden is just a devout Muslim, how basically, all Muslims are the same—“they live, breathe, and love God” (his words), and it’s our policies that are going to turn all of them against us. Essentially, meet one Muslim, you’ve met them all, and that includes Bin Laden. (But somehow, Christians are different? Take the powerful Evangelical leaders who have been blasting Islam, for instance. They don’t represent all Christians, yet they do, because “all Muslims around the world listen to what they have to say and it pisses them off.” Or Catholics. They had the Crusades and some Christians don’t consider them Christians. Or Protestants. They’re different. I’ll let you figure it out.) And my personal favorite: among all the reasons Al Qaeda hates us is our manipulation of oil prices and support of conservative Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt for the way they rule and practice. Yet also mentions the different sects throughout Afghanistan in several places when attempting to explain the history and why setting up a Democratic government is a horrible idea.
Even quite a bit of his history of the war against the Soviet Union, the mujahideen, and the rise of the Taliban had serious errors.
He also berates the government for reacting too slow, for even invading both Afghanistan and Iraq, but also goes on to give the opinion that we should have (and should still, given the time it was written), just level Afghanistan. But doesn’t offer any real solutions.
I do agree with him that our intelligence communities failed when it came to 9/11, which he seemed to forget a plane went down in PA.
Overall, I kept wanting to put this book down...okay, give up throw it across the room, but I’m stubborn and have OCD. At least I can say I learned something and may have found a few decent history reads, but I think I’ll vet those a little better. Well, besides who actually wrote the book.
Finding out who wrote this explains a lot. Scheuer (who left the CIA in 1999) relies on his personal opinions, newspaper articles (ironically enough), and other public sources for this. I will admit that I did learn at least a few things I didn’t already know, but it wasn’t worth the aggravation.
He babbles on incoherently and repeats himself quite a bit, as if trying to remember where he lost his train of thought or trying to figure out how to make his point. I’ve seen quite a few reviews complain about his use and comparisons between these events and the Civil War. History does repeat itself, but some comparisons just don’t quite work. Many examples are these.
I honestly don’t know what kind of analyst he was. I can’t imagine a very good one based on his opinions. It’s clear that he doesn’t quite understand Islam, or if he does, he allows his own opinions to cloud his judgment—at least in the book. In the beginning he attempts to claim that Bin Laden is just a devout Muslim, how basically, all Muslims are the same—“they live, breathe, and love God” (his words), and it’s our policies that are going to turn all of them against us. Essentially, meet one Muslim, you’ve met them all, and that includes Bin Laden. (But somehow, Christians are different? Take the powerful Evangelical leaders who have been blasting Islam, for instance. They don’t represent all Christians, yet they do, because “all Muslims around the world listen to what they have to say and it pisses them off.” Or Catholics. They had the Crusades and some Christians don’t consider them Christians. Or Protestants. They’re different. I’ll let you figure it out.) And my personal favorite: among all the reasons Al Qaeda hates us is our manipulation of oil prices and support of conservative Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt for the way they rule and practice. Yet also mentions the different sects throughout Afghanistan in several places when attempting to explain the history and why setting up a Democratic government is a horrible idea.
Even quite a bit of his history of the war against the Soviet Union, the mujahideen, and the rise of the Taliban had serious errors.
He also berates the government for reacting too slow, for even invading both Afghanistan and Iraq, but also goes on to give the opinion that we should have (and should still, given the time it was written), just level Afghanistan. But doesn’t offer any real solutions.
I do agree with him that our intelligence communities failed when it came to 9/11, which he seemed to forget a plane went down in PA.
Overall, I kept wanting to put this book down...okay, give up throw it across the room, but I’m stubborn and have OCD. At least I can say I learned something and may have found a few decent history reads, but I think I’ll vet those a little better. Well, besides who actually wrote the book.
September 19, 2015
Thought provoking. Originally I thought the book was a rant and/or an outpouring of sympathy for Osama Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda. Yes, we and our demand for cheap oil and the dictatorous countries that provide us the same oil created Muslim hatred for us. Yes, our strategy (lack thereof) in Iraq and Afghanistan and the nightmare regimes we created was a boost for Muslim insurgency recruitment posters. All very true. Originally, I did not care for what I thought was an ex-intelligence officer saying, "I told you so!"
However, later I realized many of his points were very sound. 1. Al Qaeda is not our enemy. Muslim insurgency recruiting from 1.4ish billion people most certainly is. In other words, we face an army not a terrorist organization. Stop using law enforcement to fight a global army. 2. Do we need to continue to support Israel? If Israel falls, what will happen in my backyard? Nothing much probably. 3. Do we need to prop up such nice folks as the Kuwaiti's and the Saudi's. Not really, I agree. 4. We need to develop our own energy self-sufficiency. Go nuke power! I like it especially since I am a former nuclear trained type guy. 5. Senior intel and military officers do not rock the boat...that will hurt those future lucrative retirement jobs.
Some may find these thoughts and discussions incredibly harsh. Outrage may follow since that is what we do these days...we get outraged at stuff. However, the thinking is sound even though there is some tiresome monologue to deal with. The book was written in 2004. Looking at the situation with the Syrian civil war and the growing power of ISIS and all the other terrorist organizations, his predictions unfortunately came true. I enjoyed this one and hope you will too.
However, later I realized many of his points were very sound. 1. Al Qaeda is not our enemy. Muslim insurgency recruiting from 1.4ish billion people most certainly is. In other words, we face an army not a terrorist organization. Stop using law enforcement to fight a global army. 2. Do we need to continue to support Israel? If Israel falls, what will happen in my backyard? Nothing much probably. 3. Do we need to prop up such nice folks as the Kuwaiti's and the Saudi's. Not really, I agree. 4. We need to develop our own energy self-sufficiency. Go nuke power! I like it especially since I am a former nuclear trained type guy. 5. Senior intel and military officers do not rock the boat...that will hurt those future lucrative retirement jobs.
Some may find these thoughts and discussions incredibly harsh. Outrage may follow since that is what we do these days...we get outraged at stuff. However, the thinking is sound even though there is some tiresome monologue to deal with. The book was written in 2004. Looking at the situation with the Syrian civil war and the growing power of ISIS and all the other terrorist organizations, his predictions unfortunately came true. I enjoyed this one and hope you will too.
October 27, 2008
I found this a bit tough to read at first, but got used to the style in time. the book was originally published as being written by "Anonymous." Later, Michael Sheuer fessed up. Scheuer was head of the special CIA division set up specifically for bin Laden. He provides a heavily sourced and detailed look at what the movement we call “terrorism” is actually all about. He concludes that this is an insurgency, a military action, not mere “terrorism,” a sort of mindless madness aimed solely at destruction. And how we address this movement should be based on this altered interpretation. The opposition does not hate us for our values, but for our actions. They are pissed off about the USA’s knee-jerk support for Israel, support for corrupt regimes in Egypt, Saudi and elsewhere. Twenty-first century technology assures that battles that are perceived as the West versus Islam, a new Crusade are viewed in real-time across the 1.2 billion strong Islamic world. Bin Laden fits in well with the Islamic historical tradition of poet-philosopher warriors, and presents his case to his base as a continuation of an ages old struggle. This is a long-haul conflict and in the absence of changes in US policies it can only get worse. This is a must-read, despite the author’s obvious love for Ronald Reagan.
July 12, 2008
I read this at the beginning of 2005, which was a pretty good time given I read a good number of books. This was an interesting book. It discusses the issue with an emphasis on looking at it from Bin Laden's and the Middle East's point of view. It is clear that the author knows his material, which he presents in a thoughtful fashion with various examples to illustrate the arguments. He brings in history, political, cultural and other sources, many unclassified that anyone can read to show Bin Laden is not just a mere terrorist, but a competent leader of an Islamist insurgency. He also points out that Muslims hate the U.S. for its policies, not for their democracy, contrary to what every other demagogue or politician would have us think. Overall, an excellent book that more people should be reading to better understand the real nature of Al Qaeda's threat to the U.S.
September 22, 2023
This is one pissed off ex-CIA agent.
April 2, 2012
Pointed and prescient.
August 22, 2018
As Howard Zinn brilliantly puts it “you cannot be neutral on a moving train”. This book was written from the perspective of American’s interest on why they are losing their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The short answer is that America don’t have a clear quantifiable objective. Now, let’s deplore the long answer as Michael Scheuer puts it.
Scheuer was part of American intelligence community in the CIA specializing in Osama bin Laden, he uses his insight and specialty to argue the reason for the American failure and the options it had to move forward. The central thesis of his book is that the animosity the Muslim world had with America and its allies is not because of the values they hold dear, such as democracy, representative government, feminism, women empowerment, gender intermingling etc. While Islam may disapprove these values, they are not the reason why people are blowing up themselves. The real reason Scheuer argues, were specific policies such as attacks on their brethren, occupying Muslim lands, support given to corrupt tyrannies, and unconditional support towards Israeli brutal aggression on Palestinians.
Since the demolition of Ottoman Caliphate by the British in 1924, there is no central authority to wage offensive Jihad. But defensive Jihad is an individual responsibility that does not need authorization from anyone, once the religion is under attack it becomes an individual responsibility for each Muslims to defend the religion using whatever power he had.
Commenting on Afghanistan, Scheuer attributed the failure to the failing of America to learn from history. In what he called ‘the checkable’ which America should do before they enter Afghanistan. The vast amount of resources was not utilized, America failed to learn from history even though America has a vast knowledge to be tap with its 13-years program of supporting the mujahideen pushing back the Soviet. The biggest mistake was the American initiative to install secular democracy, a foreign idea to Afghanistan’s tribal tradition.
His thesis, that Muslim is not a mindless terrorist, but a human being that responds to specific aggression by America and the west echo the same conclusion that have been drawn by legendary journalist, Robert Fisk.
At the end of the book, Scheuer concludes that American left with only two choices. The first, it changes its foreign policies towards the Muslim world, by withdrawal from their current aggression, stop supporting tyrannical regimes in the Muslim world, and do justice to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The second option, retain the status quo policies and prepared to shed more American blood and drain national treasures.
Scheuer was part of American intelligence community in the CIA specializing in Osama bin Laden, he uses his insight and specialty to argue the reason for the American failure and the options it had to move forward. The central thesis of his book is that the animosity the Muslim world had with America and its allies is not because of the values they hold dear, such as democracy, representative government, feminism, women empowerment, gender intermingling etc. While Islam may disapprove these values, they are not the reason why people are blowing up themselves. The real reason Scheuer argues, were specific policies such as attacks on their brethren, occupying Muslim lands, support given to corrupt tyrannies, and unconditional support towards Israeli brutal aggression on Palestinians.
Since the demolition of Ottoman Caliphate by the British in 1924, there is no central authority to wage offensive Jihad. But defensive Jihad is an individual responsibility that does not need authorization from anyone, once the religion is under attack it becomes an individual responsibility for each Muslims to defend the religion using whatever power he had.
Commenting on Afghanistan, Scheuer attributed the failure to the failing of America to learn from history. In what he called ‘the checkable’ which America should do before they enter Afghanistan. The vast amount of resources was not utilized, America failed to learn from history even though America has a vast knowledge to be tap with its 13-years program of supporting the mujahideen pushing back the Soviet. The biggest mistake was the American initiative to install secular democracy, a foreign idea to Afghanistan’s tribal tradition.
His thesis, that Muslim is not a mindless terrorist, but a human being that responds to specific aggression by America and the west echo the same conclusion that have been drawn by legendary journalist, Robert Fisk.
At the end of the book, Scheuer concludes that American left with only two choices. The first, it changes its foreign policies towards the Muslim world, by withdrawal from their current aggression, stop supporting tyrannical regimes in the Muslim world, and do justice to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The second option, retain the status quo policies and prepared to shed more American blood and drain national treasures.
January 9, 2022
Scheuer is a leftist, Scheuer is a worshipper of Osama bin Laden, Scheuer hates America... While a couple low-star reviews are well-thought out, I'm utterly baffled by most of them.
In Imperial Hubris Michael Scheuer does (for the most part) what a good intelligence analyst is supposed to do, he reports on the state of affairs, its drivers, and trends suggested by the data. His main criticism is that America's foreign policy is not driven by available information that should educate policy decisions. America, in the Middle East, is repeating the errors of Vietnam where policy makers committed rookie mistakes starting with not understanding the enemy. In OBL we see a penny-ante terrorist where we should see a cunning warrior inciting and championing a fight for a cause he believes is worth his own life.
While the analysis makes sense, Scheuer goes off-piste in offering prescription for policy makers (what a good intelligence analyst is not supposed to do, but we readers want anyway). While most of his recommendations are sensibly vague (e.g., understand the enemy better), others appear to contradict the lessons he's tried to get across (e.g., full-blown war against the insurgents without regard to civilian casualties, ignoring his own point that we're not at war with a nation-state - after all, a key tenet of Mr Scheuer's book is that Muslims hate us for what we do to them, not for our freedoms or beliefs).
An insider, Mr Scheuer is damning of America's Middle East policy, the half-baked strategy for fighting a determined enemy, and the stupidity mustered by decision makers in tactics deployed. It's an eye-opening and frightening critique.
It would be interesting to see a sequel to this now that President Obama has been in office for a year (original review written January 2010): Are we (in his opinion) just getting more of the same? Has more thought and intelligence been put into our Middle East strategy? Is the Afghan "surge" a policy change we can count on? Mr Scheuer released another book several months ago, but it looked like a rehash of Imperial Hubris. I'd like to see something discussing how the new Commander-in-Chief is doing - is there any reason for optimism, or are we dooming ourselves to repeat history's mistakes.
In Imperial Hubris Michael Scheuer does (for the most part) what a good intelligence analyst is supposed to do, he reports on the state of affairs, its drivers, and trends suggested by the data. His main criticism is that America's foreign policy is not driven by available information that should educate policy decisions. America, in the Middle East, is repeating the errors of Vietnam where policy makers committed rookie mistakes starting with not understanding the enemy. In OBL we see a penny-ante terrorist where we should see a cunning warrior inciting and championing a fight for a cause he believes is worth his own life.
While the analysis makes sense, Scheuer goes off-piste in offering prescription for policy makers (what a good intelligence analyst is not supposed to do, but we readers want anyway). While most of his recommendations are sensibly vague (e.g., understand the enemy better), others appear to contradict the lessons he's tried to get across (e.g., full-blown war against the insurgents without regard to civilian casualties, ignoring his own point that we're not at war with a nation-state - after all, a key tenet of Mr Scheuer's book is that Muslims hate us for what we do to them, not for our freedoms or beliefs).
An insider, Mr Scheuer is damning of America's Middle East policy, the half-baked strategy for fighting a determined enemy, and the stupidity mustered by decision makers in tactics deployed. It's an eye-opening and frightening critique.
It would be interesting to see a sequel to this now that President Obama has been in office for a year (original review written January 2010): Are we (in his opinion) just getting more of the same? Has more thought and intelligence been put into our Middle East strategy? Is the Afghan "surge" a policy change we can count on? Mr Scheuer released another book several months ago, but it looked like a rehash of Imperial Hubris. I'd like to see something discussing how the new Commander-in-Chief is doing - is there any reason for optimism, or are we dooming ourselves to repeat history's mistakes.
August 10, 2020
This book provides an excellent assessment of Osama Bin Laden.
Osama was spoken of (by local people and neighboring countries) as a friendly, gentle, polite, very religious person. A lot of this acclaimed kindness was due to the fact that the Bin Laden family contributed multi-millions of dollars into the reconstruction/restoration of damaged sites created by Soviet troops during their invasion of Afghanistan.
The main way he was able to achieve such a love was two-fold. The first, consisting of his scholastic dedication to Islam. The second, his reluctance toward the wealth he inherited from his father's family business. The characterization of his reluctance, created the illusion that he was a more practical, earthy, giving of his "limited" free time by zealously dedicating himself to the cause of his fellow Muslims of the brotherhood. This illusion granted him the eventual control of Al-Qaeda, to which he became the main spokesperson. I use the term spokesperson, because, I have read in other secondary sources that Bin Laden did not have the chief control that everyone thought he did. He was the main voice and administrator of terrorist ideas, however, he still had people above him. The people above him were shadow secret individuals. They guided Al-Qaeda by directing forces in training into certain regions. Osama would then be kept up to date of those regions.
Osama Bin Laden met the would be hijacker Ziad Jarrah in the year 1995 in the Kandahar Mountains of Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden asked Jarrah if he was willing to undergo what would be a suicide mission. Jarrah accepted the mission. Osama also met with would be hijacker of American Airlines Flight 11, Mohammed Atta.
Osama was spoken of (by local people and neighboring countries) as a friendly, gentle, polite, very religious person. A lot of this acclaimed kindness was due to the fact that the Bin Laden family contributed multi-millions of dollars into the reconstruction/restoration of damaged sites created by Soviet troops during their invasion of Afghanistan.
The main way he was able to achieve such a love was two-fold. The first, consisting of his scholastic dedication to Islam. The second, his reluctance toward the wealth he inherited from his father's family business. The characterization of his reluctance, created the illusion that he was a more practical, earthy, giving of his "limited" free time by zealously dedicating himself to the cause of his fellow Muslims of the brotherhood. This illusion granted him the eventual control of Al-Qaeda, to which he became the main spokesperson. I use the term spokesperson, because, I have read in other secondary sources that Bin Laden did not have the chief control that everyone thought he did. He was the main voice and administrator of terrorist ideas, however, he still had people above him. The people above him were shadow secret individuals. They guided Al-Qaeda by directing forces in training into certain regions. Osama would then be kept up to date of those regions.
Osama Bin Laden met the would be hijacker Ziad Jarrah in the year 1995 in the Kandahar Mountains of Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden asked Jarrah if he was willing to undergo what would be a suicide mission. Jarrah accepted the mission. Osama also met with would be hijacker of American Airlines Flight 11, Mohammed Atta.
December 16, 2023
Excellent Overview of Bin Laden and Post - 9/11 Advice to US Leaders
The author of this book, Michael Scheuer, was the CIA’s point man on Bin Laden. Hence, as expected, he provides an excellent background of both him and his organization, Al Qaeda (i.e.., biography of the man, ideology, strategies of his organization, etc.). Top notch. This alone makes it worth reading.
Secondly the book provides excellent post 9/11 advice to US leaders (it was originally published a few months after this attack). Mr. Scheuer provides a warning to not invade and engage in “regime change” in Iraq as Sadam Hussein was not involved. It provided a warning to not invade and engage in “regime change” in Afghanistan there as he believed, quite correctly, that this would bog down the US and was part of Al Qaeda strategy to begin with. He recommended just bombing Al Qaeda and its supporters as much as possible and leaving it at that. He provides a very thorough and logical line of reasoning behind these views. Excellent. If only then President Bush has listed to this advice.
The author of this book, Michael Scheuer, was the CIA’s point man on Bin Laden. Hence, as expected, he provides an excellent background of both him and his organization, Al Qaeda (i.e.., biography of the man, ideology, strategies of his organization, etc.). Top notch. This alone makes it worth reading.
Secondly the book provides excellent post 9/11 advice to US leaders (it was originally published a few months after this attack). Mr. Scheuer provides a warning to not invade and engage in “regime change” in Iraq as Sadam Hussein was not involved. It provided a warning to not invade and engage in “regime change” in Afghanistan there as he believed, quite correctly, that this would bog down the US and was part of Al Qaeda strategy to begin with. He recommended just bombing Al Qaeda and its supporters as much as possible and leaving it at that. He provides a very thorough and logical line of reasoning behind these views. Excellent. If only then President Bush has listed to this advice.
February 28, 2019
A very good read that exposes some light on the details surrounding the failure of the war on "terror". Mr. Scheuer's in depth look at what led to these problems and his suggested solutions to fix them were enlightening. I do disagree with his ideas on using more force to crush the insurgents which would then end the war. I firmly believe this conflict has shown us that the more force we seem to use, and the more civilians we kill, the more terrorists or insurgents we create. Still a great read that really helps the reader understand what inspired bin Laden to wage war on the U.S. and why there is no end in sight (obviously bin Laden was killed but now we have not only al Queda but ISIS as well).
June 18, 2018
I picked this up used for about $0.25, and it was worth almost every penny! OK, OK, it's not that bad, but it is now VERY dated (e.g. finding and capturing or killing Osama bin Laden was still a major concern when this was written). For the most part a very sober assessment of the War on Terror, even if I disagreed with some of the premises and conclusions. The author cites a number of books and authors who are much better, in my opinion - better to read the sources ad fontes than this set of conclusions. But still not a bad book.
October 13, 2017
I think Michael Scheuer was...not quite "set up"...but probably positioned to take the fall for the intelligence sharing failure that led to 9/11 by his bosses at the CIA. Their decision to allow this book to be published rather smacks of a calculated ploy; he comes off as very bright but also angry enough to be considered unbalanced.
July 17, 2017
A bit out of date by the time I got around to reading it. Would be better read with a compainion piece describing how british imperialism and arbitrary drawing of map lines has affected the region, as well as a history by the peoples themselves.
January 4, 2019
This critique of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was written by a CIA agent in 2004 and presents a pretty contrarian view to the general narrative of the time. It's somewhat interesting to read this perspective 15 years later, but the book got very repetitive pretty early on.
June 2, 2020
I read a copy of this book that only identified the author as Anonymous, but while reading the book, by connecting the dots from other books I'd read, I figured out the author was Michael Scheuer, so glad to have it confirmed here on Goodreads.
February 12, 2023
The poison pen of a slighted specialist. Competent in analyzing previous mistakes, particularly with the invasion of Afghanistan (less so in Iraq, based seemingly on the author’s personal speciality) and insanely catastrophic about predictions for the future. Badly written
September 16, 2024
interesting guy
and a strange guy
who gets stranger all the time
till he fell off the cliff
a book you need to go through very very carefully
many gems
and a lot of trash
Did a book on Bin Laden for Oxford in 2011
and check out wikipedia and see if he isn't on Hadol afterwards
and a strange guy
who gets stranger all the time
till he fell off the cliff
a book you need to go through very very carefully
many gems
and a lot of trash
Did a book on Bin Laden for Oxford in 2011
and check out wikipedia and see if he isn't on Hadol afterwards
June 9, 2025
Pretty based on the anti imperialism front, but idk how bruv remains a bloodthirsty Warhawk with that knowledge. Comes so close to hitting the mark, but still remains an arm of the US state department
September 24, 2018
A well-researched book that is a guide to understanding the basis of terrorism that has plagued us since nearly two decades. From the man who was once in charge of the hunt for Bin Laden.
April 25, 2020
Sscheur's thesis is not stated clearly and unambiguously... and his argument meanders. Lots of information lacking cohesion.
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