Synopses & Reviews
Michael Scheuer is the (initially anonymous) author of
Imperial Hubris (Potomac, 2004), which was a
New York Times hardcover bestseller for fifteen weeks and stirred up attention in every national and local media outlet. He is a veteran CIA counterterrorism analyst who for many years headed the Osama bin Laden unit.
In Marching Toward Hell, Scheuer offers a scathing and frightening look at how the Iraq war has contributed to the enemy's strength and fundamentally changed the geopolitical landscape in a way that is harmful to U.S. interests and security concerns. Scheuer will examine the ways in which the war has widened the conflict by almost every measure, made America less secure, and increasingly vulnerable to attack.
What has the U.S. lost? Scheuer details how our various actions have undermined the very things the U.S. was fighting for, including:
*The Iraq war has been a huge setback in the so-called "War on Terrorism." Bin Laden and his allies have articulated their goals viv-a-vis the U.S. as "bleed to bankruptcy" and "spread U.S. forces and resources," and the war has brought al-Qaeda a level of success that it could not have achieved on its own. Moreover, Iraq will be unstable for the foreseeable future and so, like Afghanistan, will harbor Islamist training facilities. It also provides al-Qaeda and its allies with what they most value: Contiguous safe haven from which operations can be launched across borders into countries which were previously difficult for them to reach.
*The failure of the various investigative commissions to find any individual culpable for anything in the wake of 9/11 and Iraq. WMD left in charge those who got America to the twin disasters, while simultaneously creating a bigger, more expensive, and less effective intelligence bureaucracy.
*Unqualified U.S. support for Israel is involving her ever more deeply in war with the Islamists without making Israel any safer.
What can be done now? Scheuer lays out exactly what needs to be done to survive as a nation and a civilization, including:
*The governing elite must tell the American people what is now clearly the blatant truth: The U.S. is engaged in a struggle against a worldwide force of Islamist fighters who are motivated by the perceived threat to their religion and brethren from U.S. foreign policies and their implementation. The U.S. must recognize that the Islamists are religiously motivated: So long as Americans and their leaders believe the Islamists are motivated by poverty, bad education, poor job prospects, ambitions denied, rudimentary health care, and other such social and economic factors, they will lethally underestimate the enemy. Americans must be told repeatedly and until they are convinced that this is a war for national survival.
*Close the land and sea borders tight and insure that all entry is legal and funneled through official checkpoints. This is the single most important action the U.S. government can take to protect its citizens, society, and economy.
*Secure the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union (FSU) no matter the resources required to do so. It is a clear case of criminal negligence by our recent presidents that the FSU arsenal is unsecured.
*Change the foreign policies that have been in place and unchanged toward the Islamic world for thirty years and more.
*Recognize that the aggressive use of U.S. military power will be an indispensable tool to annihilate those Islamists who do not choose to refocus their energies on reshaping their own world. Americans can no longer fool themselves into believing in the possibility of "limited wars" and "bloodless wars."
After 20+ years as a senior CIA officer, Scheuer has the knowledge and expertise to tell the American public what it needs to know. As a frightened and frustrated individual who has had enough of bureaucratic ineptness and bipartisan politicking, he has the courage to sound this critical alarm
Synopsis
When Michael Scheuer first questioned the goals of the Iraq War in his 2004 bestseller
Imperial Hubris, policymakers and ordinary citizens alike stood up and took notice. Now, Scheuer offers a scathing and frightening look at how the Iraq War has been a huge setback to America's War on Terror, making our enemy stronger and altering the geopolitical landscape in ways that are profoundly harmful to U.S. interests and security concerns.
Marching Toward Hell is not just another attack on the Bush administration. Rather, it sounds a critical alarm that must be heard in order to preserve the nation's security. Scheuer outlines the ways that America's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has undermined the very goals for which we are fighting and played right into bin Laden's hands. The ongoing instability in Iraq, for example, has provided al Qaeda and its allies with the one thing they want most: a safe haven from which to launch operations across borders into countries that were previously difficult for them to reach. With U.S. forces and resources spread thinner every day, the war has depleted our strength and brought al Qaeda a kind of success that it could not have achieved on its own.
A twenty-plus-year CIA veteran, Scheuer headed the agency's Osama bin Laden unit, managed its covert-action operations, and authored its rendition program. Scheuer spent his career developing strategies to keep America safe, by any means deemed necessary by the presidents he served. It was his job to take available intelligence and devise plans to protect Americans, without considering bias, position, or even existing alliances. In Marching Toward Hell, Scheuer takes on the questions of "What went wrong?" and "How can we fix this?" and proposes a plan to cauterize the damage that has already been done and get American strategy back on track. He lists a number of painful recommendations for how we must shift our ideological, military, and political views in order to survive, even if that means disagreeing with Israeli policy or launching more brutal campaigns against terrorists.
America holds its destiny in its hands, Scheuer says, yet not nearly enough has been done to defend America and destroy its Islamist enemies. This is an eye-opening, alarming, contentious, and ultimately fascinating examination of how far off track the War on Terror has gone, and a critical read in understanding what we must do to save it.
About the Author
Michael Scheuer is a twenty-plus-year CIA veteran. From 1996 to 1999, he
served as the Chief of the bin Laden unit (aka Alec Station), the Osama bin
Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorism Center. He then worked as Special
Adviser to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004.
He resigned from the CIA in 2004. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of
Security Studies at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Jamestown
Foundation, writing regularly for its online publication Global Terrorism
Analysis. He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Author's Note
Part I: Getting to 9/11
Chapter 1: Readying bin Laden's Way: America and the Muslim World, 1973-1996
Chapter 2: Fighting Islamists with a Blinding Cold War Hangover, 1996-2001
Part II: Six Years of War, 2001-2007
Chapter 3: Afghanistan -- A Final Chance to Learn History Applies to America
Chapter 4: Iraq -- America Bled White by History Unlearned
Chapter 5: And the Islamists' Fire Quietly Spreads
Part III: Where Stands the War?
Chapter 6: "The bottom is out of the tub": Taking Stock for America in 2008
Chapter 7: "O enemy of God, I will give thee no respite": Al-Qaeda and Its Allies Take Stock
Part IV: Where to from Here?
Chapter 8: A Humble Suggestion -- America First
Epilogue: An Abiding Uniqueness
Notes
Bibliography
Index