Review of "Imperial Hubris"

I finally completed reading "Imperial Hubris" by Michael Scheuer. This book was published in 2004, but it may be the best book available which both explains how we got to this point in the Bush version of the "war on terror", and what we ought to do next.

I do not agree with the former CIA employee Scheuer on everything, but have nothing but respect and admiration for him and his service to our nation. He learned a lot about al Qaeda (AQ) while he was Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station. He explains in detail why we were attacked on 9/11, and how the Bush policies have strengthened AQ while weakening the US.

So, where do we disagree? He elevates bin Laden a bit too much for my taste, and prefers not to call AQ a terrorist organization, but rather a worldwide insurgency. The former stems from his deep understanding of Osama bin Laden (OBL), and the latter from his point that 9/11 was not the act of terrorists but an act of war. A lot of this is just semantics, since I agree with Scheuer in the details.

Scheuer is not correct on how we should fight AQ. It is easy enough to say what we did wrong, but what we should have done in September or even October 2001 is not what we need to do today. Yes, we should have used a massive military invasion force and surrounded and annihilated AQ and OBL. Having failed to do that, the way forward today must be different. I explain how in my next post.