Glenn Beck talks to, chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 and a consultant to that unit until 2004, Michael Scheuer about the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Scheuer is the author of a new book called “Osama bin Laden.”
Scheuer is now known to be the anonymous author of both Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and the earlier anonymous work, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America.
Osama bin Laden stated in his September 7, 2007 message:
“If you want to understand what’s going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer.”
Scheuer’s latest book, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq was released on February 12, 2008. In the 9/11 Commission Report, Scheuer is featured in Chapter 4, where his name is given only as “Mike”. He is portrayed as being occasionally frustrated with his superiors’ failure to aggressively target bin Laden.
From Publishers Weekly
This propulsive biography is not bin Laden for beginners, but its central point is clear. Scheuer (Imperial Hubris), chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, argues that the West chronically underestimates bin Laden’s “piety, generosity, personal bravery, strategic ability, charisma and patience.” In creating a cartoonish enemy, the U.S. has “mindlessly” played into bin Laden’s plans to provoke a war on Muslim soil to catalyze a jihad to “obliterate America from within, by making it economically weak, until its markets collapse.” The depiction of bin Laden’s evolution from devout student to militant leader is deeply detailed and dense, and readers unable to keep up with a dissection of Islam’s diverse creeds and doctrines will feel overwhelmed at times, but Scheuer’s project is lucid and important. Bin Laden “anticipated a war of attrition that might last decades” and has planned ahead. He has cultivated a multigenerational cadre of between 5,000 and 7,000 loyal warriors, many from the educated upper classes. The conflict with al-Qaeda will, by bin Laden’s design, likely be multigenerational, and Scheuer takes a crucial step in revealing how the West keeps itself vulnerable by persisting in demonizing rather than understanding its formidable opponent. (Feb.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. (Amazon.com)