Marching Toward Hell

Marching Toward Hell
America and Islam After Iraq

by Michael Scheuer

Sheuer's critique of American foreign policy is scathing and spares no one. Basically, he argues that the American ruling elites have been too soft on terrorism and too worried about international opinion,

Our only defense against al-Qaeda-ism are changes in foreign policy and military or covert-action preemption, a notion that amounts to what was in Cold War thinking the then morally repugnant idea of the first strike.

Because of this reality the most senior U.S. political leaders and policy makers must abandon the leisurely Cold War approach to national security and learn to decide quickly, on less-than-perfect intelligence, and then act to protect Americans.

They must accept that this is necessary against the transnational threat and that if they miss and cause other deaths or physical damage -- so what? There is no coequal great power from which we need fear military retaliation, we can endure criticism from the international community and simply prepare to try again to defend America.

That's some pretty crazy shit. To argue that America can continue to cause collateral damage, and be none the worse for it -- as if that doesn't piss off the people we need to help fight the terrorists, just as the Iraqi Awakening Counsels came into being to fight al-Qaeda-in-Iraq because of the collateral damage form their terrorist attacks -- is pretty extreme.

Likewise, Sheuer skewers NGO's saying that, although they perform good work, they are essentially anti-American and anti-military and if they won't leave a battlefield, "they should be treated as expendables and take whatever firepower comes their way."

It's Sheuer's win at any cost attitude that really bugs me. It's not as if a bunch of hairy-eyed terrorists are going to topple America. Only we can do that -- by making bone-headed choices about foreign policy and domestic civil liberties. And we definitely don't need to fan the flames of jihadism anymore than we already have.

That said, Sheuer does make some good points about how our current foreign policy is stoking the fires of jihadism: our blind support for Israel and despotic Arab regimes, and our idiotic dependence on foreign oil are some examples.

Where the book falls flat are places where Sheuer asserts things like "[NGOs] are trying to limit in every way possible America's ability to capture or kill the enemy in sufficient numbers to give us a chance at victory." As if there aren't 1.4 billion Muslims out there and only 300 million of us.

The idea that "while suicide attackers cannot be deterred, the populations that aid and abet them may well be persuaded to reduce such support if they are punished with sufficient vigor," just flies in the face of common sense. Nothing would unite Muslims worldwide against America more than punishing innocent Muslims with "sufficient vigor."

So, it's a mixed book. Sheuer's got some good ideas on American foreign policy, and he's definitely on the right track with how they hate us for our policy and not our freedoms, but his solutions are pretty extreme and would ultimately make America less safe.

tags: review  alqaeda