Product Description

Michael Scheuer is the author of Imperial Hubris, 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 left us all increasingly vulnerable to attack.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #179183 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743299695
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Scheuer, former CIA analyst and trenchant critic of U.S. terrorism policies (Imperial Hubris) develops his argument that America suffers from a collective insistence on sustaining Cold War paradigms in a fundamentally altered world. For all its culpable errors, the current administration is merely the present-day incorporation of willful historical ignorance, a paucity of common sense, and... a disastrous degree of intellectual hubris. These fundamental shortcomings are exacerbated by a pattern of making policy decisions on the basis of how a liberal-pacifist media and intelligentsia will react, rather than objectively considering the national interest. That interest, Scheuer argues, requires prioritizing the Islamic threat in security considerations and understanding that it does not manifest intractable, theologically based hostility to American values and lifestyles. The Islamic challenge instead reflects a series of concrete U.S. policy decisions, beginning in 1973, committing the U.S. to supporting an endless war to the death between Arabs and Israelis. An increasingly desperate effort to sustain a fundamental regional imbalance—and Scheuer does not spare the Clinton administration—has led to direct military involvement, culminating in the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan. These defeats, Scheuer declares, are the inevitable result of seeking to change the Middle East's dynamics by exporting the unique American patterns of democracy and republicanism. Controversial in its details, Scheuer's analysis suffers fundamentally from Occidentalism. Interpreting Islamic behavior as a consequence of American actions keeps the U.S. at the center of events in precisely the Cold War model Scheuer excoriates. (Feb. 12)
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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.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

[E]vents started by human folly link themselves in a sequence which no sagacity can foresee and no courage can break through.

Joseph Conrad, 1911

It is painful enough to discover with what unconcern they speak of war and threaten it. I have seen enough of it to make me look upon it as the sum of all evils.

Major General T. J. Jackson, 1862

In two previous books and numerous articles, I have tried to explain and defend my conclusion that U.S. political leaders from both parties and American citizens generally have misunderstood the motivation of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and their steadily increasing number of Islamist allies. My argument, simply stated, was and is that Islamist militants are attacking America because of what it does in the Islamic world and not because of the way America's people think, vote, behave, and believe or not believe in God. I readily acknowledge that many of the Islamists confronting us detest our society and lifestyle and would never duplicate them in any country they would govern. Clearly, there would be nothing akin to MTV, gender equality, or quadrennial presidential elections in an al-Qaeda-run Saudi Arabia.

But granting that reality, I argued that it was a profound and unnecessary mistake, an instance of what Conrad called "human folly," to believe that the Islamist militants' animosities for the accoutrements of our society were the main motivating and unifying factors behind their hatred and willingness to wage war against the United States. Such an error, moreover, would cause U.S. leaders and citizens to grossly underestimate the threat they faced from the Islamists, lead them to deploy insufficient military force, and stand pat on untenable foreign policies, thereby leading to America's defeat. It would be better, I argued, to face the unpleasant reality head on and recognize that the forces led and personified by Osama bin Laden are motivated and united by an ever-deepening hatred for the impact of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world. Unqualified support for Israel, a half-century of protecting and nurturing Muslim police states, and a military presence in Muslim lands -- these were the tangible, physical manifestations of U.S. foreign policy that are perceived by most -- yes, definitively, most -- Muslims as a concerted and deliberate attempt to destroy Islam and its followers. This formulation was meant to alert Americans to what I saw as an existential threat to the United States that was in some ways greater than that which had been posed by the Soviet Union. It was more dangerous because it came from an opponent that was far less easy to define, one who, unlike the USSR, had virtues and a thoroughly human and egalitarian theology, and one that was all but impossible to contain and deter.

My arguments were not meant to be a condemnation of U.S. leaders, policymakers, and their foreign policy as mad, evil, or imperialistic. My goal was simply to suggest that our foreign policies toward the Muslim world had been in place for a very long time, some for more than thirty years, and had run out of gas; that they were not doing the only thing U.S. foreign policies must do: ensure the protection and promote the expansion of liberty and freedom at home, keep America as safe as possible from external attack, and serve as a model of responsible and humane self-government for those abroad who might choose to emulate it.

More often than not my writings were used by pundits as prime examples of raw America-hating, cowardly appeasement, anachronistic isolationism, and fierce anti-Semitism. Well, so be it. If putting forward a belief that holds U.S. national security interests to be a limited and narrowly defined set of life-and-death issues wins for me such ugly and meant-to-be debate-halting monikers so prized by the U.S. governing elites, I will listen, dismiss them, and press on.

In deciding to research and write a third book that falls into the category of the United States versus the forces led and inspired by Osama bin Laden, I became increasingly interested in and finally fixed on a single question: "Is the protection of U.S. interests and American citizens, and the maintenance of American sovereignty, independence, and freedom of action, any longer the primary, overriding concern of the U.S. federal government?" The answer should obviously be an emphatic yes, at all times and on every issue. And yet the more I read, researched, and encountered the discrepancy between the words and deeds of U.S. leaders, and especially the vast gulf between their description of the world and the world as I perceived it, the more I became doubtful that the answer to the pivotal question above could be even a timid yes.

In the obsession with national security that has consumed Americans and their leaders since the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, we seem to have fallen into the belief not only that the world changed forever on that date but also that nothing before that date contributed to the events of 9/11 or those that have ensued. In part this is because, as I noted above, we have refused to frankly assess whether the cumulative impact of thirty-plus years of U.S. foreign policies in the Muslim world may have helped to motivate the Islamists who attacked on 9/11 in the name of defending their faith and brethren. In this regard, and to paraphrase the venerable Satchel Paige, our elites seem afraid to look over their shoulders because the truth might be gaining on them. Also contributing to this situation is the fact that most Americans have a difficult time imagining they are anything but good-hearted and benign, or that their impact on the world is anything but generous and uplifting. Cynically, our governing elites use this ingrained predisposition to condemn and defame those who suggest that U.S. policies helped to encourage our enemies on their path to 9/11 and beyond. Our elites, after all, have been the craftsmen, purveyors, and defenders of these policies for three-plus decades, and it is much less dicey in terms of unpleasant domestic political repercussions to savage those critical of their policies by dismissing them as blame-America-firsters.

Still, even accepting that our national self-esteem and our politi-cal leaders' political fortunes are most easily protected by maintaining the foreign-policy status quo, this did not seem a satisfactory excuse for what my research suggested was a deepening reluctance to make the protection of U.S. interests and citizens the federal government's top priority, and an almost blasé acceptance of war for purposes unconnected to America's national interests. And reluctance is not even the right word to use; it seems rather a combination of shame, embarrassment, and fear of employing American resources to protect Americans. The more I read and reflected on my own two-plus decades of service at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the more likely it seemed that the answer to the question, "Does protecting Americans come first?" is very plainly no. The organizing concept of the federal government is no longer, as the Founders intended, the protection and expansion of freedom, liberty, and the rule of law at home, with a foreign policy, backed when necessary by military force, designed to ensure the maintenance of that domestic environment. "The Founding Fathers," the brilliant historian Walter A. McDougall has reminded his fellow citizens, "flatly denied that the United States ought to be in the business of changing the world, lest it only change itself -- for the worse.... [T]hey saw foreign policy as an instrument for the preservation and expansion of American freedom and warned that crusades would belie our ideals, violate our true interests, and sully our freedom." Today, however, the federal government's organizing principle flows directly from the country's pop culture; namely, the federal government, under Republican or Democratic control, does what is easiest, most expedient, least risky, politically correct and opportune, and most sellable. In the present case, these actions are anchored in neither the Founders' intent nor any significant knowledge of American history or the history of the Muslim world.

In essence, U.S. independence and safety are now threatened by our elites consistently asking the wrong question about national-security policy. Instead of asking what could happen if we do not respond in a timely manner and eliminate a particular threat to the United States -- that is, what will the failure to act cost America in lives and treasure? -- U.S. governing elites ask what will happen if they do act to defend America. The answer to the first question is very substantive and specific. For example, if President Bill Clinton fails to kill Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s, and if President George W. Bush fails to kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before March, 2003, both will live to have the chance to execute the deadly actions against the United States they repeatedly promised. Thus, it seems to be only common sense to say that it is better to try to kill bin Laden and al-Zarqawi and fail than not to try at all. The answer to the second question is usually another set of questions from U.S. political leaders and senior bureaucrats that stress the negative political costs that could accrue to U.S. leaders who authorize such actions when the actions subsequently fail to achieve their aim. Using the case of bin Laden, these questions include: "What will the world think of us if we attack and miss? Won't the Europeans view us as hip-shooters? If innocents get killed, won't we alienate Europeans, Muslims, or fill-in-the-blank others around the world?" Summing the answers to such questions usually yields paralysis or an action that is ineffective and that allows -- and sometimes encourages -- those behind the danger at hand to become more confident, bolder, and increasingly lethal.

I refer here to the bin Laden and al-Zarqawi cases because I am familiar with them on a direct, first-hand basis, but it is easy to see what inaction or ineffective action h...

Customer Reviews

Former top spook is critical of U.S. foreign policy. Very pessimistic
Michael Scheuer, PhD and former CIA career officer, made a big splash in June 2004 as the anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. At that time he contradicted Rumsfeld and other officials by informing us there was an insurgency in Iraq.

Now Scheuer tells us where we're going. We're going to hell.

Marching Toward Hell claims that U.S. foreign policy is often based on faulty assumptions and is driven by some lobbyists whose interests are different than those of the American people. This book goes well beyond the themes of Imperial Hubris.

Dr. Scheuer's book merits 5 stars. He sacrificed his career at the CIA in order to publicly denounce the 9/11 Commission for having become politicized. He did this at a time when other insiders protected their careers and are only now coming out. He's also superb at explaining the relationship between the intelligence community and elected officials in the U.S.

Scholars take Scheuer seriously because of his 22-year career as a top intelligence analyst and also the success of his first book, Imperial Hubris. He stalked and studied Osama bin Laden (ObL) for years and urged superiors to remove ObL no less than 10 times when the opportunity arose. No action was taken each time for political reasons.

ObL has recommended Scheuer's book, Imperial Hubris, to the American people in a taunting missive. Marching Toward Hell strikes back with recommendations aimed at helping the American people to wise up.

According to Scheuer, U.S. policymakers still prefer to present the bin Laden Movement as a lunatic fringe even though it has broad appeal in the Islamic world. Also, U.S. support of Israel and U.S. troop presence contributes to the popular perception within the Muslim world that the West is bent on destroying Islam.

As if that wasn't disturbing enough, Scheuer says that some officials possibly never intended to win in Iraq (and certainly not before the 2004 presidential election). Otherwise, more troops would have been sent. While the logic of this argument is irrefutable, it is almost too disturbing to think about.

Other points: the fact that very few political leaders have children serving in the wars is disturbing on many levels; the divide in the U.S. between the political elite and the rest of the people has never been wider; and young people will be sent to war in the coming 8 years regardless of election results.

Scheuer concludes that the U.S. cannot avoid war with Islamists, that it will be much more violent that what we've seen so far, and also that it's too late to win in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Scheuer is angry for several reasons including the reluctance of Americans to understand Muslim viewpoints, the Bush administration dismissal of Middle East experts' wisdom and advice, and the lack of political leadership regarding energy policy.

Marching Toward Hell includes a thoughtful proposal that is already being discussed seriously in the nation's universities. A summary of Scheuer's proposal (The Scheuer Proposal) is that the U.S. must reduce its foreign commitments and to first focus on domestic security, including stationing the Army along America's borders. Problems with U.S. foreign policy include operating without regard to the best interests of the country and also budget limitations. Simultaneously, the country would begin to take steps to reduce oil dependency. Then the U.S. would prepare to defeat its enemies such as Al-Qaeda. (That is my summary of his proposal, not endorsement.)

Among other things, the Proposal calls for effective use of intelligence assets and willingness to use the military differently, more violently. The Scheuer Proposal is filled with surprises and brings into question to what extent it speaks for the intelligence community as a whole.

The author says foreign policy is going to become more important, not less. He wants America to change its message to Muslims by changing foreign policy. This means, among other things, to stop the current brand of support provided to Israel and to remove troops from the Arabian Peninsula. The wars, he says, are lost regardless - that we're in a fourth generation war where adversaries have a scorched earth strategy, leaving nothing for the occupier to occupy anyway. Remarkably, he goes much further and includes Russia, China and India as countries against Islam that the U.S. supports. Even so, he concludes that the U.S. cannot avoid an even more violent war with Islam.

In my view, the Scheuer Proposal cuts across so many emotional pressure points that Scheuer is guaranteed to get the attention of Middle America this time. I think the least contentious point is to change the way the President and Congress use the intelligence information and assets provided by taxpayers at great expense. The most controversial point is probably assignment of blame to Israeli lobbyists for encouraging the war in Iraq. (Notably Scheuer does not blame these lobbyists for the mismanagement of same. He also says this has made Israel less secure.) And the weakest point of the Scheuer Proposal is probably the lack of specifics for how the U.S. will reduce its energy dependency. The Scheuer Proposal relies heavily on a successful new energy policy.

Possibly Scheuer thinks hell is our destiny as the Proposal holds that alarming horror is in our future. Such an approach from such a man attracts and holds the reader's interest as if by a spell.

Admirable diagnosis, questionable prescription
Well, Michael Scheuer certainly doesn't pull his punches. As a former CIA officer, he was in a position to know a lot more than most people about what was going on before and after 9/11, in the Middle East and in Washington and Langley. He also reads widely in world history and politics (A favorite author is Machiavelli). His verdict, delivered with a pen often dipped in acid, is discouraging. Basically, he finds all our recent presidents failing their prime duty to (a) understand reality in foreign affairs (b) focus completely on what serves America's interests and ignore anything else. The wellbeing of other states, for instance Israel, is not our concern, and we certainly have no role in trying to export our political system to other countries.

His diagnosis of our current troubles is clearly accurate. I've always been astonished that Bush could get away with claiming that Muslim activists hate us because they don't like out freedom or social structure. As Scheuer points out, they have made it perfectly clear that are not really interested in what kind of society the infidels choose to live in - in fact they are somewhat ambivalent about it, liking some aspects but considering it decadent - but they are infuriated by the presence of non Muslim troops in their own countries. They also feel their oil has been sold off cheaply and the profits have benefited only rich, decadent and corrupt rulers like the House of Saud. And of course there is the one-sided US support of Israel.

However, his prescription is one that many will find far off track. He has a good analysis of some of our military problems as being related to the hangover of a "Cold War" mentality - hostility between well-defined, technically advanced, nation-states, and how this does not fit the Middle East. Well, that's convincing - who was it said that generals are always ready to fight the last war, but not this one? But he thinks that the only way to win the "war on terror" is to apply rapid and overwhelming force. Anything less, he feels, causes an opponent - especially those who are accustomed to living with much violence and respect force - to think you are weak and step up their efforts. In this he considers civilian casualties, while regrettable, of minor importance. For instance, his approach to Afghanistan in 2001 would have been dramatic - reduce Kabul and Kandahar to rubble and strew salt over the remains. Strong hint of using nukes for this. He fully approved of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

He optimistically thinks this kind of action would be a knock-out punch that would save us from further troubles. It's surprising that he doesn't consider what an incredible reaction of horror in the whole world - including our allies - this would provoke. That, he may not care about: but what about the fury throughout the Muslim world, which as he well knows, contains over a billion individuals - three times the population of the US! Also, in 2008, where would you aim such a blow anyway? The Iraq and Afghanistan insurgencies are widely-based and it's hard to see a defined target.

Other weird ideas include sealing off some Middle Eastern borders - has he ever seen those mountains? and our Mexican and Canadian ones, with no particular evidence that these two countries are terrorist entry points. Besides, making the land entry difficult will just make it more attractive to send that little old cargo ship into a major port with something very nasty in its hold.

To me, because there is really no practical defense against that last kind of attack, it makes much more sense to do what Scheuer cannot bring himself, in his macho attitude, to consider: actually address some of the reasons that Muslims are so angry with the US. He seems to understand them well enough. He has just read too many mailed-fist writers in the ancient and modern military fields.

But read this book, because whether you agree with him or not he gives a consistent viewpoint and much fascinating information.

Outstanding and Very Timely!
Scheurer's CIA career and innate intellect combine in "Marching Toward Hell" to create an outstanding and very timely book. He begins by pointing out that our bipartisan governing elite has an unquenchable ardor to have the U.S. intervene abroad in all places. Some prefer diplomatic, others military, humanitarian, covert, and/or foreign aid mixed with Christian proselytizing. The result is that we live in a prolonged Cold War hangover that creates more problems than it solves.

Scheuer's intent in the book is to reconstruct how the U.S. found itself with an untenable set of foreign policies and national security strategies on 9/11, and to explain the costs of trying to maintain them.

U.S. ties to Israel, a state that contributes nothing to America's economic welfare or strategic security, are absurd, per Scheuer. Responding to those claiming Israel has a "right to exist," he states that Darwin's "survival of the fittest" applies; further, "Are we to also resuscitate the USSR, Sparta, etc.?" "You form your country, and you take your chances."

The second major nonsensical decision that burdens America is our doing little in response to the '73 oil embargo. Thus, we have ended up playing both sides (Israel vs. the Arab states) in a religious fight-to-the-finish.

American policies are further undermined by human rights groups - eg. they pushed the Senate to pursue human rights for Afghan women instead of us being able to try to get the Taliban to turn over Bin Laden. Other secondary issues have stayed our hand numerous times - eg. blowing up Iraq's Intelligence Service headquarters at night (minimize casualties) in response to its effort to assassinate Bush I in Kuwait, and calling off multiple efforts to kill Bin Laden.

Scheuer believes we have lost both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and that launching the Iraq War was a major blunder. Further, we need to stop believing that a "post-war Marshal Plan" will change the hearts and minds of Arabs - not unless we stop backing Arab tyrants and Israel.

As for Europe, Scheuer sees it becoming overrun by Muslim immigrants and their children. Meanwhile, its support for the U.S. is weakening - witness the recent fall of supporting leaders in the U.K., Spain, and Poland.

Concluding, Scheuer states that Islam is the fastest growing religion, U.S. officials have lied to citizens (providing erroneous reasons why terrorists hate us - eg. "they hate democracy)," instead of telling the truth while counteracting terrorists, and the U.S. is VERY vulnerable to more terrorism subce we've cut funding to help Russia secure its nuclear weapons, failed to close our borders, and failed to even propose an effective energy policy.

As for "preventing follow-up terrorist attacks in the U.S.," Scheuer is unimpressed - they're simply defeating us without bombs, through dragging us down towards bankruptcy. His recommendation - focus on "America first" - issues that truly threaten our survival.