Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq

Written by Michael Scheuer

Narrated by Michael Scheuer

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Feb 12, 2008
• ISBN: 9780743571692

Michael Scheuer

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.

Reviews for Marching Toward Hell

[tj_petrowski · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Michael Scheuer's previously brilliant analyses of al-Qaeda and the War on Terror, notwithstanding the author's bourgeois, imperialist bias, really deteriorated in this book. Don't even bother picking this book up.

[periodista_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'd give this a miss, especially if you have read his previous volume, Imperial Hubris. This ex-CIA analyst is one enormous, relentless pain in the ass. (Please note he was an analyst, an Arabist, and not with any operational duties. )He is/was/will be always right. You certainly can't slot him into any political grouping: both Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Tenet, Cheney, Steve Coll, the FBI, Congress, Republicans, Democrats ... except for Reagan, he hates 'em all equally vehemently. Anyway, I would still seek out Scheuer's book on Osama bin Laden, which was scheduled to come out after this one. It must have been published shortly before Osama's death. One of Scheuer's more persuasive complaints is that mere translations of Osama's words don't convey very much to non-believers and non-Arabic speakers; more important are Osama's specific Koranic references and their impact on listeners. Even if your grasp of Arabic is good, as is the case with many Western journalists nowadays (think Tony Shadid or Azadeh Moaveni), deep knowledge of the Koran is something else altogether. Let's see if Scheuer can do a better job.

[tirade_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I'm about a third of the way through it now and it's bordering on unreadable. And I really, really, enjoyed Imperial Hubris and other articles by Scheuer that I've read. I might get around to finishing this but Christ is it a whole lot of effort for not a lot of joy. Short list of some of the things and people Scheuer despises up to page 110: FBI (nosy, incompetent, actively sabotaging the CIA) NSA (pretentious, not willing to do their job) Entire Clinton administration (no balls) Entire Bush administration (no clue) All US Presidents since WWII with one exception (see below) Europeans (a.k.a. land of "hedonistic atheists") Non-Governmental Organizations (especially Amnesty International and other members of the "human rights mafia") Academics (in particular just-war theorists) Short list of some of the things and people Scheuer loves up to page 110: Michael Scheuer The CIA Margaret Thatcher Ronald Reagan Apparently later on in the book he proposes a solution to protecting US from Al Qaeda which includes a crash program to set landmines along the entirety of the Mexican and Canadian borders. I can't wait.