Marching Toward Hell, Michael Scheuer
Marching Toward Hell, Michael Scheuer
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Marching Toward Hell
America and Islam After Iraq

Author: Michael Scheuer

Narrator: Michael Scheuer

Abridged: 6 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/12/2008


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 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

Goodreads review by Mike on May 17, 2013

A very slow, and at times frustrating read. Slow because sometimes you need to just stop and process the information, and a lot of the information/wisdom the author has to share is in the footnotes, of which there are many. Frustrating when you come to fully realize how completely, totally, and utte......more

Goodreads review by Jeff on March 23, 2009

I'm giving this five stars, not be cause I agree with everything the author has to say. Some of his analysis is hard to accept, his assertions not based on anything but obvious bias, some of his prescriptions for correcting what he sees as catastrophic failures unrealistic. However, Scheuer does succ......more

Goodreads review by John on March 30, 2008

Very frank critique of current U.S. foreign policy; focusing on Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The author is a recently retired CIA analyst who apparently was heavily involved the agency's monitoring of Bin Laden in the late 1990's. He believes the U.S. has already lost in Iraq and Afghanistan......more

Goodreads review by Terry on October 19, 2019

I think I discovered this book back when Scheuer was a guest on one of the Fox News shows. Impressed with his background working in the CIA, and deciding to get out because the politicians wouldn't listen to him. This book should be a must read for anyone in our government involved in forming our na......more

Goodreads review by Ayman on January 12, 2013

As I was listening to this abridged book on CD, I pictured its author Michael Scheuer as a combination of Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now and Cersei in Game of Thrones. His commitment to no principle other than the cohesiveness of the United States and his view that ultra-violence is a necessary tool t......more