Osama bin Laden

This propulsive biography is not bin Laden for beginners, but its central point is clear. Scheuer (Imperial Hubris), chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, argues that the West chronically underestimates bin Laden’s “piety, generosity, personal bravery, strategic ability, charisma and patience.” In creating a cartoonish enemy, the U.S. has “mindlessly” played into bin Laden’s plans to provoke a war on Muslim soil to catalyze a jihad to “obliterate America from within, by making it economically weak, until its markets collapse.” The depiction of bin Laden’s evolution from devout student to militant leader is deeply detailed and dense, and readers unable to keep up with a dissection of Islam’s diverse creeds and doctrines will feel overwhelmed at times, but Scheuer’s project is lucid and important. Bin Laden “anticipated a war of attrition that might last decades” and has planned ahead. He has cultivated a multigenerational cadre of between 5,000 and 7,000 loyal warriors, many from the educated upper classes. The conflict with al-Qaeda will, by bin Laden’s design, likely be multigenerational, and Scheuer takes a crucial step in revealing how the West keeps itself vulnerable by persisting in demonizing rather than understanding its formidable opponent. (Feb.)