Michael Scheuer - Osama bin Laden [2011][A]

Book Description
Publication Date: February 17, 2011
9/11 almost instantaneously remade American politics and foreign policy. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, water boarding and Guantanamo are examples of its profound and far-reaching effects. But despite its monumental impact--and a deluge of books about al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism--no one has written a serious assessment of the man who planned it, Osama bin Laden. Available biographies depict bin Laden as an historical figure, the mastermind behind 9/11, but no longer relevant to the world it created. These accounts, Michael Scheuer strongly believes, have contributed to a widespread and dangerous denial of his continuing significance and power.
In this book, Scheuer provides a much-needed corrective--a hard-headed, closely reasoned portrait of bin Laden, showing him to be a figure of remarkable leadership skills, strategic genius, and considerable rhetorical abilities. The first head of the CIA's bin Laden Unit, where he led the effort to track down bin Laden, Scheuer draws from a wealth of information about bin Laden and his evolution from peaceful Saudi dissident to America's Most Wanted. Shedding light on his development as a theologian, media manipulator, and paramilitary commander, Scheuer makes use of all the speeches and interviews bin Laden has given as well as lengthy interviews, testimony, and previously untranslated documents written by those who grew up with bin Laden in Saudi Arabia, served as his bodyguards and drivers, and fought alongside him against the Soviets. The bin Laden who emerges from these accounts is devout, talented, patient, and ruthless; in other words, a truly formidable and implacable enemy of the West.

Editorial Reviews
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.)

From Booklist
Scheuer, chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 and a consultant to that unit until 2004, delivers an unnerving profile of the al-Qaeda leader. Unnerving not just because it lays out bin Laden’s genius in luring the U.S. into a financially ruinous “war on terrorism” but also because it shows a “pious, brave, intelligent, charismatic” man fully capable of leading an insurgent Muslim force against the West, a profile at odds with the more fanatical, marginalized figure often portrayed by mainstream media. Scheuer tracks bin Laden’s life from his Saudi childhood as the son of a remote but revered and very wealthy contractor all the way to his place as one of the pivotal political figures of our time. More to the point, as he has in previous books (Marching toward Hell, 2008), Scheuer argues that bin Laden’s success owes as much to America’s ineptness in the Mideast as it does to bin Laden himself, a sentiment that should warn policymakers and citizens alike. --Alan Moores

Reviews
"Mike Scheuer was long the dean of U.S. government analysts of Osama bin Laden. Out of government Scheuer has continued to be one of the most original and thoughtful interpreters of bin Laden and al- Qaeda, and in this volume he has distilled his decade and half of thinking about them to great effect, synthesizing a large body of literature to produce a portrait of bin Laden that is authoritative."--Peter Bergen, author of The Longest War and The Osama bin Laden I Know

"No American knows bin Laden better than Scheuer. In this masterful and groundbreaking biography, Scheuer shatters many myths about the al-Qaeda leader that dangerously persist in Washington nearly a decade after 9/11. Drawing on his unparalleled experience and a multitude of primary sources, Scheuer correctly and convincingly portrays America's most determined enemy as a rational, intelligent, patient and pious Muslim who understands us far better than we comprehend him." --Craig Whitlock, National Security Correspondent, The Washington Post

"No individual enemy has done more to drive the direction and sap the resources of U.S. foreign policy than bin Laden, yet policymakers have paradoxically underestimated his ability and character, dismissing him as a simple demon. This book by a uniquely qualified expert probes the depth and complexity of his ideas, strategy, and leadership, shakes off conveniently misleading images, exposes uncomfortable realities, and faces the full challenge posed by bin Laden." --Richard K. Betts, Director, Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University

"Lucid and important. Scheuer takes a crucial step in revealing how the West keeps itself vulnerable by persisting in demonizing rather than understanding its formidable opponent." --Publishers Weekly

"In this highly readable and jargon-free book, Scheuer (Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror), head of the CIA's bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, updates the issues he had covered in his previous publications and offers a serious and nonideological treatment and analysis of bin Laden's thinking. Unlike many Western analysts who dismiss bin Laden as simplistic, uncouth, and incompetent, Scheuer portrays him as a patient, devout, and talented, albeit ruthless, leader who remains a formidable enemy of the West. This informative book is one of the most detailed biographical sketches of bin Laden available in the West and is useful for both the general public and specialists." --Library Journal

"Scheuer, former chief of the CIA unit charged with tracking al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, writes that the Western powers have 'failed miserably in every conceivable way' in containing the terrorist group and eliminating the threat it poses. Of vital interest to many kinds of readers, particularly those who share the author's view that we are fighting a war that may soon reach our shores." --KIRKUS Reviews

"Steeped in detailed knowledge of the Saudi jihadist. It is a needed corrective to most of the airy generalisations about bin Laden and his followers." --The Financial Times

"Scheuer knows more about Bin Laden as a subject of US intelligence pursuit than almost any other expert." --International Affairs

"...This book is a first-class study, well argued and written for a broad audience; it retains its value for understanding al Qaeda in the post-bin Laden era... [T]his book will be the definitive biography for the future." --CHOICE

About the Author
Michael Scheuer was the chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 and remained a counterterrorism analyst until 2004. He is the author of many books, including the bestselling Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism. He lives in the Washington, DC area.