NOTES FROM IMPERIAL HUBRIS

By Anonymous [Michael Scheuer], 2004

At the time this book was published, Scheuer was head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit,
and therefore had to be named “Anonymous” as the author.

Islamic grievances with the U.S., pp. 11-15

Religious beliefs
• American is attacking Islam is a basic premise.
• In Muslim eyes, jihad is one of the greatest actions to repulse tyranny to to restore justice
and rights.
• For a Muslim to refrain from joining a defense jihad to protect the faith means disobeying
God’s law and earning damnation.
• America has demanded Muslim regimes to limit, control, and track donations that
Muslims make to charitable organizations. Tithing is one of Islam’s five pillars of faith,
so America is asking Muslims to abandon God’s law for man-made law.
• America has demanded Muslim educational authorities change their curricula to teach a
brand of Islam that is more modern, and in keeping with U.S. interests. Muslims see this
as America wanting Muslims to abandon the word of God as revealed in the Koran,
which Muslims believe is perfect and unalterable.

Grievances against the U.S. attacking the Islamic faithful and their resources

• U.S. policy supports oppression and often aggression in these Muslims areas:
¾ Aggression by Hindu India in Kashmir
¾ Catholic Filipinos in Mindanao
¾ Orthodox Christian Russians in Chechnya
¾ Uzbek ex-communists in Uzbekistan
¾ Chinese communists in Xinjiang Province
¾ Apostate al-Saud family in the Arabian Peninsula
¾ Israeli Jews in Palestine

• America supports apostate Islamic governments in Kuwait, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. The regimes are corrupt, ruled by man-made law, not
God’s, and oppress Muslims trying to install Muslim law. Muslims view these
dictatorships as being approved of and protected by the U.S., while the U.S. preaches
“democracy.”

• The U.S., either on its own or with the UN, often imposes economic and military
sanctions on Muslims, including the people of Iran, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Libya,
Pakistan, Iran, and Indonesia. It has escalated its hardened attitude toward Syria because
it supports Palestinian groups fighting Israel.

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 • U.S. government and oil companies are seeking control of the Arab Peninsula to make
sure its energy resources are sold to the West at below-market prices. The goal of the US
in Iraq is to gain control of the oil wells.

Grievances over occupation or dismembering Muslim lands

• The US helped the UN created a new Christian state in East Timor, taking it from
Indonesia, the most populous Muslim state, and ignoring the principle of self-
determination. Muslims feel that independence for them is taboo—independence for
East Timor, but taboo for Kashmir; independence for Christian Georgia, but taboo for
Chechnya; independence for Christian Croatia, but taboo for Bosnia.

• America occupies and effectively rules the Muslim states of Afghanistan, Iraq, and
the state of the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of the prophet Mohammed. Kuwait
is now an American base and there is large US military presence in Qatar. (All of this
is seen as “occupation.”)

• The US invariably backs Israel’s occupation of Muslim Palestine and invaded Iraq to
advance the goal of Jews of creating a “Greater Israel” from the Nile to the Euphrates
River.

Muslims hate the US for what it does, rather than for what it is. They resent our actions rather
than our principles of freedom, democracy, and economic growth.

In their eyes, they are fighting a defensive jihad against the US supporting corrupt regimes that
dishonor Islam.

Current areas of Islamic insurgencies to know:

• Kashmir
• Philippines
• Algeria
• Palestine
• Ach province in Indonesia
• Afghanistan
• Chechnya
• Egypt
• Saudi Arabia
• Iraq
• Pakistan
• Yemen

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Two views about the Muslim world:

• Islamic civilization has failed and has an identity crisis regarding its role in the modern
world. US policy makers tend to lean toward this idea and assumes that the US has done
nothing to cause al Qaeda attacks or to generate the broad anti-US sentiments in the
world.

• Islamic insurgency today is a reaction to, and transition from, the long period of
European colonialism. Muslims wish to be rid of Western influence in Muslim lands.
Bin Laden blames Muslims for not standing up for their faith against the Western world.

Views of Bin Laden the man: see pp. 121-124 for personal testimonies of people who knew
and lived with him.

Polls showing Muslim attitudes toward the US: p. 140

• Gallup Poll, Feb. 2002: 53% of Muslims worldwide had an “unfavorable” view of
America, and among the most frequently chosen words to describe Americans were
“ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked, and biased.”

• Gallup Poll, Mar. 2002: 80% of Pakistanis thought US military action against al Qaeda
and the Taliban was “largely or totally unjustifiable.” Gallup found that this attitude was
also held by 86% of Moroccans, 89% of Indonesians, and 60% of Kuwaitis.

• Pew Global Attitudes Project: majorities in 7 of 8 Muslim countries feared a US

invasion; anti-US sentiment deepened in Nigeria and Indonesia, and that the “bottom had
fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world.”

Bin Laden’s goals:

• End US aid to Israel and elimination of the Jewish state

• Withdrawal of US forces from Saudi Arabia and all Muslim lands

• End US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan

• End US support and acquiesence of suppression of Muslims in China, Russia, India, etc.

• Restore full Muslim control over the world’s energy resources in Muslim countries, thus
ending the impoverishment of Muslims

• Replace US-protected Muslim regimes that do not govern according to Islamic law with
those that will. Destroy the others.

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Summary of Muslim grievances against the US:

• US support for Israel

• US and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula
• US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan
• US support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants
• US pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low
• US support for apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical Muslim governments

Bin Laden feels that war is the only option unless the US changes its policies and has received
religious justification for the use of MWD.

Questions we need to ask:

• “Does unvarying military, economic, and political support for Israel serve substantive US
interests that affect America’s survival? Do we totally support Israel because it is
essential to our security, or because of habit, the prowess of Israel’s American lobbyists
and spies, the half-true mantra that Israel is a democracy, the fear of having no control
over a state we allowed to become armed with WMD, the bewildering pro-Israel alliance
of liberal Democrats and Christian fundamentalists, and a misplaced sense of guilt over
the Holocaust?”

• Does our own freedom entail a duty to defend the freedom of others beyond our borders,
or should the US return to being “the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all
. . .?

• Aside from low oil prices, what do we gain from backing Muslim regimes that are
corrupt, repressive tyrannies and use Western-armed militaries to suppress their own
people?

• “Have we the moral courage to defy the alliance of oil companies, hard-line
environmentalists, and the political backers of each and install an energy policy leading
to self-sufficiency?

• “Do we need military and naval bases on the Arabian Peninsula, and do we need to
continue occupying Muslim lands? Is there a security threat to America sufficient to
justify these things, when each strengthens bin Laden’s appeal among Muslims?”

• “Does US security require, and have we the moral right, to aggressively try to install
secular, democratic systems in countries that give no hint of wanting them? Is our nation
more likely to perish if the rest of the world is not just like us, or if our democracy-
making crusade destabilizes much of the world?”