Thursday, November 11, 2004

The author known as Anonymous, a senior CIA intelligence officer who wrote two books in the last two years about the war on terror, has resigned from his position and revealed his identity. He is Mike Scheuer, head of the Osama bin Laden section of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center. Scheuer has been sharply critical of the invasion of Iraq, saying that it was an unprovoked attack on a country that was not a threat to us and a total diversion from the real war on terror, against Al Qaeda and in Afghanistan and elsewhere. In Imperial Hubris, Scheuer argues that the Muslim world hates the United States for its actions and behavior in Muslim countries, not for American freedoms, or democratic values, or lifestyle, as the Bush administration has insisted. The book is an indictment of the current White House occupant and his cabinet staff for following an agenda against Iraq that had obsessed them long before 9/11, for delaying the invasion of Afghanistan for 3 weeks to Al Qaeda's advantage, and for acting, in general, out of overwhelming arrogance (the hubris of the title) that led to actions taken in total and almost willful ignorance of the nature and reality of the countries we invaded.

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