Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq (No Series)

by Scheuer, Michael

  21.Although bin Laden has never publicly compared himself to Saladin, the latter’s heroic legend in the Islamic world makes easy comparisons between him and bin Laden inevitable. Neither was a trained Islamic scholar or jurist; both were soldiers who shared the rigors of their fighters’ lives; each led a defensive jihad against “Crusaders” when the established authorities in the Islamic world refused to do so; both labored successfully to build multiethnic military organizations: both excelled at using the media to build support for jihad among the masses; and each was renowned for his personal bravery, piety, humility, and aversion to opulence and luxury. For a good and concise look at Saladin’s career, see Roy Jackson, Fifty Key Figures in Islam (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 101–106.

  22.“Press Briefing by Scott McClellan,” www.whitehouse.gov, January 19, 2006.

  23.Baker and Hamilton, Iraq Study Group Report.

  24.The term “the blessed nineteen” is used by al-Qaeda leaders as a collective description of the nineteen fighters who conducted the attacks on Washington and New York on September 11, 2001.

  25.Alan Fram, “Muslims in U.S. Split on Terrorism,” Associated Press, May 23, 2007; Geneive Abdo, “America’s Muslims Aren’t as Assimilated as You Think,” WashingtonPost.com, August 27, 2006.

  26.“Transcript: Bush on London Bombings,” www.washingtonpost.com, July 7, 2005; “Terrorists Strike London in Series of Blasts,” www.foxnews.com, July 7, 2005; and “CNN Breaking News: London Bombings,” http://transcriptscnn.com, July 7, 2005.

  27.Allan Woods, “Alleged Terror Plot Shows Canadian Values under Attack, Prime Minister,” Ottawa Citizen, June 4, 2006.

  28.“Interview with Prime Minister John Howard,” www.pm.gov.au, July 2, 2007.

  29.On Washington cutting funding for the Hamas government, see “U.S. Senate Votes to Block aid to PA,” Associated Press, June 24, 2006. For Netanyahu’s remarks, see Netanyahu, “It’s ’38, and Iran is Germany,” www.jpost.com, November 14, 2006, and quoted in Rick Richman, “Revisiting (and Reliving) 1938,” http://american thinker.com, November 28, 2006. On Lieberman, see Peter Urban, “Lieberman Says Iran Is Waging War,” Connecticut Post Online, July 3, 2007.

  30.For a sampling of the American takfiris’ attacks on President Carter for his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), see Deborah Lipstadt, “Jimmy Carter’s Jewish Problem,” Washington Post, January 20, 2007, A-23; Mona Charen, “Brave Jimmy Carter?” www.nationalreviewonline.com, December 15, 2006; and Jacob Olidort, “Is ‘Apartheid’ the Right Word?: The Book Is Full of Falsities and Errors,” www.thejusticeonline.com, January 24, 2007. The Baker-Hamilton report’s comment is in Iraq Study Group Report, 55.

  31.“Speech by Robert S. Mueller III at the Global Initiative Nuclear Terrorism Conference,” www.fbi.gov, June 11, 2007, and Dipesh Gadher, “Al-Qaeda ‘Planning Big British Attack,’” Sunday Times, April 22, 2007.

  32.For bin Laden on these issues, see most recently “Statement by Osama Bin Laden,” Al-Jazirah Satellite Television, April 23, 2006.

  33.See “UK’s ‘Deep Concern’ over Rushdie,” BBC News, www.newsvote.bbc.co.uk, June 20, 2007, and “Britain’s Rushdie Folly,” News, www.the news.com.pk, June 20, 2007.

  34.Iraq Study Group Report uses the words Islam and Islamic very sparingly and leaves the impression that the commissioners stayed as far away from the words as possible. There is also some mention of “sectarian” violence. Nowhere in the report, however, is there a discussion of the problems that the United States and its allies now face because the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq fulfilled the Koran’s requirement for a defensive jihad. This is, to say the least, an extraordinary oversight, one that amounts to negligence if it was not deliberate.

  35.For the lecture by Pope Benedict XVI that caused the controversy, see Pope Benedict XVI, “Faith, Reason, and the University. Memories and Reflections,” www.vatican.va, September 12, 2006, and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “On Europe’s Crisis of Culture,” www.zenit.org, July 26, 2005.

  36.For a sampling of the criticism directed at the pope, see “The Pope’s Words,” New York Times, September 16, 2006, and Ruth Gledhill, “Serious Errors of Both Fact and Judgment,” www.timesonline.co.uk, September 16, 2006.

  37.Jason Straziuso, “Taliban Undeterred After Death of Leader,” Associated Press, May 14, 2007. For the growing numbers of mujahedin, see “NIE: Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland.”

  38.“Terrorist Threat to UK—MI5 Chief’s Full Speech,” www.timesonline.uk.co, November 10, 2006; Alan Cowell, “Terrorist Threat to Last a Generation, Blair Says,” New York Times, November 10, 2006; and “UK Spy Chief Fears Nuclear Attack,” http://edition.cnn.com, November 10, 2006.

  39.Preferring to spotlight liberty over enforcing the law for their international audience, the 9/11 commissioners said: “Our borders and immigration system, including law enforcement, ought to send a message of welcome, tolerance, and justice to members of immigrant communities in the United States and in their countries of origin.” Kean et al., 9/11 Commission Report, 390.

  40.Eric Lipton, “Security Cuts for New York and Washington,” New York Times, June 1, 2006; “U.S. Poorly Prepared for Attack, Says Report,” Washington Post, A-13; Lara Jakes Jordan, “Homeland Security Faces Massive Overhaul,” http://seattlepi.nwsource.com, June 17, 2005; and Siobhan Gorman, “U.S. Is Called Still Not Ready for a Disaster,” Baltimore Sun, September 11, 2005.

  41.John Solomon, “FBI Didn’t Seek to Hire Experts,” www.sfgate.com, June 19, 2005; William E. Odom, “Why the FBI Can’t Be Reformed,” Washington Post, June 29, 2005, A-21; John Solomon, “FBI Chief Won’t Mandate Expertise,” www.sfgate.com, June 20, 2005; Matthew Barakat, “[FBI] Supervsior: I Never Read Moussaoui Memo,” www.thestate.com, March 22, 2006; Noah Shachtman, “The Federal Bureau of Luddites,” www.slate.com, April 4, 2006; Lisa Myers et al., “Is the FBI Doing Its Best to Combat Terrorism?” www.msnbc.msn.com, December 5, 2006; and “Transcript of Interview with Admiral Mike McConnell,” Meet the Press, www.msnbc.msn.com, July 22, 2007.

  42.Baker and Hamilton, Iraq Study Group Report, 82.

  43.Jeff Stein, “Can You Tell a Shia from a Sunni?” New York Times, October 18, 2006, and “Queries Vex New Chair of Intelligence,” Washington Post, December 12, 2006, A-7.

  44.Matthew Clarke, “Goss’s Excellent Idea,” Christian Science Monitor, June 21, 2005, and “Negroponte: Al-Qaeda Leaders Have ‘Secure Hideout’ in Pakistan,” USA Today, January 18, 2007.

  45.Al-Zawahiri’s assessment is the only telling damage to al-Qaeda and the Taliban has been done by Pakistan’s army. “[T]he real danger [to al-Qaeda],” al-Zawahiri told the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in July 2005, “comes from the agent Pakistani army that is carrying out operations in the tribal areas looking for the mujahedin.” See “Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi,” www.dni.gov, October 11, 2005.

  46.“India, U.S. reach landmark nuclear agreement,” Associated Press, March 2, 2006.

  47.Tom Regan, “U.S. Intel Chief: Al Qaeda Active, Strong in Pakistani Hideout,” Christian Science Monitor, January 12, 2007; “Al-Qaeda Rebuilding in Pakistan,” www.bbc.co.uk, January 12, 2007; and Mark Mazetti and David Rhode, “Al-Qaeda leaders rebuilding network in Pakistan,” International Herald Tribune, February 19, 2007.

  48.Kahlid Hassan, “Pakistan Polls Must Be Free: Burns,” Daily Times, July 26, 2007; Anwar Iqbal, “Pakistan Better Off with Elected Government: Boucher,” Dawn, July 14, 2007; and Amin Saikal, “Pakistan Will Survive This Crisis,” Age, July 26, 2007.

  49.See Jamie Glazov, “Interview with Ralph Peters,” www.frontpagemag.com, September 7, 2005. Bin Laden’s views regarding the importance of Fallujah are in Osama bin Laden, “Message to Muslims in Iraq,” www.dazzled.com/soiraq/pdf/Iraq.zip, December 28, 2004. The Sunni insurgents at the first battle of Fallujah, bin Laden wrote, “stood firm before them [U.S. Marines] despite their small numbers and their inadequate gear, bare headed and with their chests uncovere
d…God sufficeth them. [They are] writing a new page of glory in the history of our nation with their blood and corpses.”

  50.Baker and Hamilton, Iraq Study Group Report, 70.

  51.For a review and analysis of the disrupted August 2006 plot by Pakistani Islamists in England to down ten or more U.S. and U.K. airliners flying the Atlantic, see Michael F. Scheuer, “The London Plot: A Tactical Victory in an Eroding Strategic Environment,” Terrorism Focus 3, no. 32 (August 15, 2006).

  52.“Senate Passes $2.8 Trillion Spending Plan for 2007,” Associated Press, March 17, 2007; “Ben Bernanke Warns U.S. Congress to Lower Budget deficit,” www.market watch.com, January 19, 2007; and Robert D. Hormats, The Price of Liberty: Paying for America’s Wars (New York: Times Books, 2007), p. 298. For a provocative speculative essay on how another major terrorist event could conceivably trigger an economic disaster, see Niall Ferguson, “The Next Meltdown,” Time, January 4, 2007.

  53.Baker and Hamilton, Iraq Study Group Report, 32. The Study Group may have underestimated the per-month cost; see “Iraq War to Cost $8.4 Billion per Month,” Reuters, January 18, 2007. For the current and higher figures, see for example Regan E. Doherty, “The Costs of War: A Looming Crisis,” Medill Reports, www.medill.northwestern.edu, May 23, 2007; Eric Margolis, “The Second Most Expensive War in American History,” http://axisoflogic.com, July 17, 2007; Joseph A. Kechichian, “How Much Will Iraq Really Cost?,” Gulf News, http:// archive.gulfnews.com, July 16, 2007; and Tony Capaccio, “Iraq War Costs Approach $567 Billion, Congressional Report Says,” www.bloomberg.com, July 19, 2007.

  54.Bin Laden, “Message to the American People.”

  55.For the most recent flap over a civil liberties–related issue, see Michael J. Sniffen, “U.S. Gov’t Terror Ratings Draw Outrage,” Associated Press, December 2, 2006.

  56.“Our silence is our real propaganda,” bin Laden claimed in late September 2001. “Rejections, explanations, or corrigendum only waste your time, and through them, the enemy wants to engage you in things which are not of use to you. These things are pulling you away from your cause. The Western media is unleashing such a baseless propaganda, which makes us surpise[d] but it reflects on what is in their hearts and gradually they themselves become captive of this propaganda. Terror is the most dreaded weapon in the modern age and the Western media is mercilessly using it against its own people. It can add fear and helplessness in the psyche of the people of Europe and the United States. It means what the enemies of the United States cannot do, its media is doing that. You can understand as to what will be the performance of the nation in a war, which suffers from fear and helplessness.” See “Exclusive Interview with Usama Bin Ladin,” Ummat, September 28, 2001, 1, 7.

  57.Lewis, “License to Kill.”

  58.Daniel Byman, “Scoring the War on Terrorism,” National Interest, no. 72 (Summer 2002), 75–84, and “Fatwa by 26 Saudi Ulema Urges ‘Resistance’Against ‘Occupation’ Forces in Iraq,” Al-Jazirah Satellite Television, November 6, 2004.

  59.Dan Murphy, “Signs of Al Qaeda in Deadly Jordan Attacks,” Christian Science Monitor, November 10, 2005; Simon Freeman, “Senior Palestinians Among 56 Dead in Jordan Hotel Bombs,” www.timesonline.co.uk, November 10, 2005; “Al-Qaeda Claims Missile Attack on Israel,” http://newsminemsn.com.au, December 29, 2005; Illene R. Prusher, “Al Qaeda Takes Aim at Israel,” Christian Science Monitor, January 13, 2006; Abd al-Rahman al-Rashid, “‘Al-Qaida’ in Syria,” Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, July 4, 2005, 11; and Thair Abbas, “Al-Qaeda in Lebanon,” Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, March 18, 2006.

  60.Howard Cincotta, “Freedom Will Prevail in ‘Long War’ Against Terror, Rumsfeld Says,” http://usinfo.state.gov, February 4, 2006.

  61.“Interview of the Vice President by John King, CNN,” www.whitehouse.gov, June 22, 2006.

  62.Baker and Hamilton, Iraq Study Group Report, 7, 39.

  63.Ibid., 76–77.

  64.“All that we have mentioned here,” bin Laden said in October 2004, “has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this [George W. Bush] administration. All we have to do is send two mujahedin to the furtherest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the [U.S.] generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.” See Osama bin Laden, “Message to the American People,” Al-Jazirah Satellite Television, October 20, 2004.

  65.Transcript of Republican Presidential Debate in South Carolina, May 15, 2007, and Buchanan, “But Who Was Right.”

  66.Quoted in Lings, Muhammad, 112.

  Part IV. Where to from Here?

  1.Mary Habeck, Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press), 173.

  2.Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, 182.

  3.Walter Russell Mead, Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America’s Grand Strategy in a World at Risk (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 176.

  4.Habeck, Knowing the Enemy, 174–75.

  5.Louise Richardson, What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat (New York: Random House, 2006), 206.

  6.Ibid., 232.

  7.Mead. Power, Terror, Peace, 172, 167.

  8.Ibid., 188

  9.Richardson, What Terrorists Want, 217.

  10.Mead, Power, Terror, Peace, 201; Richardson. What Terrorists Want, 235; Elshtain, Just War Against Terror, 167.

  11.Habeck, Knowing the Enemy, 176–77.

  12.Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, 182.

  13.Elshtain, Just War Against Terror, 169.

  14.Quoted in Steyn, America Alone, 79.

  15.Richardson, What Terrorists Want, 237.

  16.Jacob Dolson Cox, Military Reminiscences, www.sonofthesouth.com.

  Chapter 8. A Humble Suggestion—America First

  1.Quoted in Robinson, American Ideals, guidebook, 95–96; “George III’s Letter on the Loss of America,” www.nationalcenter.org.

  2.Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of al-Qaeda (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 13.

  3.Baker and Hamilton, Iraq Study Group Report, 55.

  4.Elshtain, Just War Against Terror, 169.

  5.Richardson, What Terrorists Want, 204.

  6.Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776), http://bartleby.com.

  7.Casey and McClellan, Federalist, 355–62.

  8.General Washington’s words can be read at www.quotedb.com.

  9.Daniel Yergin, “Energy Independence,” Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2007.

  10.Gal Luft, “An Energy Pearl Harbor,” Washington Post, March 5, 2006.

  11.Bush, Second Inaugural Address.

  12.Martin van Creveld, The Changing Face of War: Lessons of Combat, From the Marne to Iraq (New York: Ballantine Books, 2006), pp. 269–270.

  Epilogue: An Abiding Uniqueness

  1.Quoted in Walter LaFeber, ed., John Quincy Adams and American Continental Empire (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965), 42–46.

  2.George F. Kennan, “On American Principles,” Foreign Affairs 74, no. 2 (March–April, 1995).

  3.Talbott, Churchill on Courage.

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