Osama Bin Laden

It is always unfortunate when events overtake publication. I feel very sorry for anyone who wrote a study on Tunisia or Egypt and got it published earlier this year, only to find that events on the ground had rendered much of their work redundant. Scheuer’s book reached this reviewer a couple of days before the news came of Bin Laden’s shooting by US forces. However, it is a tribute to Scheuer’s insight that this short work remains very pertinent. It is a very welcome demolition of misleading comments on Bin Laden from experts who should know better. Scheuer is eminently qualified to write on this subject, as he was head of the CIA Bin Laden unit. The book is well-researched, forthright and uncompromising without having a negative tone.

Scheuer decries false narratives about al-Qaeda, such as its alleged ties to Iran or the Pakistani ISI (p.2). He also denounces claims that the group attacks Western interests – and people – because of Western values (p.15). Rather, it is Western policy in the Muslim world that motivates its jihad. Why then are such claims so popular, especially in some US circles? The answer is that ‘they offer politicians an easy way out. They reassure them that their failed foreign policies are entirely beneficent...’ (p.16). After all, if the policies are to blame for al-Qaeda’s jihad, then this raises the question of whether such policies should continue. Much of the problem lies in the failure to read what Bin Laden has actually stated, rather than what certain interests – including authors – would like him to have said, in order to fit the analysis of his words into their narrative (p.19).