Michael F. Scheuer (pronounced "SHOY-er"), (born 1952) is an American former intelligence officer for the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...

ger, author, commentator and former

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise eleven undergraduate and graduate ...

's Center for Peace and Security Studies. One assignment during his 22-year career was serving as Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (the

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, his group is designated ...

tracking unit at the

Counterterrorism Center The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Mission Center for Counterterrorism (often referred to as the Counterterrorism Mission Center or CTMC, formerly the Counterterrorism Center, or simply CTC) was established in 1986, and is a division of the CI ...

, known as "Alec Station") from 1996 to 1999. He also served as Special Advisor to the Chief of Alec Station from September 2001 to November 2004. Scheuer became a public figure after being outed as the anonymous author of the book ''

Imperial Hubris ''Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror'' (Brassey's, 2004; ) is a book originally published anonymously, but later revealed to have been authored by Michael Scheuer, a CIA veteran with 22 years service, who ran the Countert ...

'' (2004), in which he criticized many of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

' assumptions about Islamist insurgencies and particularly

. Later in 2004, shortly after the "outing" of Scheuer's harsh criticism of America's close alliance with Israel, Scheuer resigned from his position at the CIA. In his book, Scheuer depicted bin Laden as a rational actor who was fighting to weaken the United States by weakening its economy, rather than merely combating and killing Americans. Scheuer challenges the common assumption that terrorism is the threat facing the United States in the modern era, arguing rather that Islamist insurgency (and not "terrorism")''Imperial Hubris''. p. 253 is the core of the conflict between the U.S. and Islamist forces, who in places such as

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwes ...

, and

Chechnya Chechnya ( rus, Чечня́, Chechnyá, p=tɕɪtɕˈnʲa; ce, Нохчийчоь, Noxçiyçö), officially the Chechen Republic,; ce, Нохчийн Республика, Noxçiyn Respublika is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the ...

are "struggling not just for independence but against institutionalized barbarism." Osama bin Laden acknowledged the book in a 2007 statement, suggesting that it revealed "the reasons for your losing the war against us".https://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/transcript2.pdf In February 2009, Scheuer was fired from his position as a senior fellow of the

Jamestown Foundation The Jamestown Foundation is a Washington, D.C.-based conservative defense policy think tank. Founded in 1984 as a platform to support Soviet defectors, its stated mission today is to inform and educate policy makers about events and trends, wh ...

by the foundation's president. In December 2013 and January 2014, Scheuer was criticized for seeming to advise American citizens to seriously consider assassinating U.S. President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

. In September 2014, in addition to earlier "praise" received from

Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...

, the

Islamic State An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic ter ...

issued a press release quoting Scheuer in order to appeal to an American audience. By 2019, Scheuer was endorsing

QAnon QAnon ( , ) is an American political conspiracy theory and political movement. It originated in the American far-right political sphere in 2017. QAnon centers on fabricated claims made by an anonymous individual or individuals known as "Q". ...

conspiracy theories and advocating violence against various perceived enemies of Donald Trump, including former president Barack Obama, whom Scheuer falsely claimed was "Kenya-born."

Biography

Scheuer was born in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

, and graduated from

Canisius College Canisius College is a private Jesuit college in Buffalo, New York. It was founded in 1870 by Jesuits from Germany and is named after St. Peter Canisius. Canisius offers more than 100 undergraduate majors and minors, and around 34 master' ...

with a BA in History in 1974. He went on to earn an MA in American History from

Niagara University Niagara University (NU) is a private Catholic university in the Vincentian tradition in Lewiston in Niagara County, New York. It is run by the Congregation of the Mission and has 3,300 undergraduate students in 50 academic programs. App ...

in 1976 and another MA in American Canadian Relations from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning Wo ...

in 1982. He also received a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

in British Empire–U.S.–Canada–U.K. relations from the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.Bin Laden Issue Station at the CIA's

from 1996 to 1999, and worked as Special Adviser to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004. He is now known to have been the anonymous author of both the 2004 book '' Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror'' and the earlier anonymous work ''Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America''. After his anonymously published books were publicly associated with his name, he was mentioned by

in his statement of September 7, 2007. According to bin Laden, "If you want to understand what's going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer in this regard." After leaving the CIA in 2004, Scheuer worked as a news analyst for

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the '' CBS Evening News'', '' CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 4 ...

and a terrorism analyst for the

's online publication ''Global Terrorism Analysis''. He made radio and television appearances and taught a graduate-level course on

. He also participates in conferences on terrorism and

national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military att ...

issues, such as the

New America Foundation New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a think tank in the United States founded in 1999. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security studies, technology, asset building, health, gender, energy, educ ...

's December 2004 conference, "Al Qaeda 2.0: Transnational Terrorism After 9/11." In 2009, Scheuer reported that he had lost his position as a Senior Fellow with the Jamestown Foundation, after "several major financial donors to Jamestown threatened to withdraw funding" if he continued in that role. The funding threats were pursuant to his criticism of Barack Obama's "dancing the Tel Aviv two-step" in allegedly kowtowing to the Israeli lobby, as well as Scheuer's disdaining of Obama's selection as Chief of Staff of

Rahm Emanuel Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Japan. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 ...

, "a U.S. citizen who during the 1991 Gulf War left America to serve in Israel's military."

Publications

''Through Our Enemies' Eyes''

His first book, published anonymously, is an analysis of the public discourse available on al-Qaeda's ideology and strategy. In it, Scheuer explores the bin Laden phenomenon and its implications for U.S. security. He began the book in 1999 as an unclassified manual for counterterrorism officers. Due to the secrecy agreement he signed as an employee of the CIA, the book is based solely on unclassified intelligence or material available from open sources such as media reports. His main thesis in the work is that the view of bin Laden as a lunatic is a form of "

myopia Near-sightedness, also known as myopia and short-sightedness, is an eye disease where light focuses in front of, instead of on, the retina. As a result, distant objects appear blurry while close objects appear normal. Other symptoms may includ ...

" that limits Western military thinkers' ability to respond to the bin Laden phenomenon. He writes that "the West's road to hell lies in approaching the bin Laden problem with the presumption that only the lunatic fringe could oppose what the United States is trying to accomplish through its foreign policy toward the Muslim world. Bin Laden's philosophy is slowly harnessing the two most powerful motivating forces in contemporary international affairs: religion and nationalism."

e crux of my argument is simply that America is in a war with militant Islamists that it cannot avoid; one that it cannot talk or appease its way out of; one in which our irreconcilable Islamist foes will have to be killed, an act which unavoidably will lead to innocent deaths; and one that is motivated in large measure by the impact of U.S. foreign policies in the Islamic world, one of which is unqualified U.S. support for Israel.

''Imperial Hubris''

In his second book, ''Imperial Hubris'', a

New York Times bestseller ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

, Scheuer writes that the Islamist threat to the United States is rooted in "how easy it is for Muslims to see, hear, experience, and hate the six U.S. policies bin Laden repeatedly refers to as anti-Muslim: * U.S. support for apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical Muslim governments. * U.S. and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula. * U.S. support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis' thrall. * U.S. pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low. * U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. * U.S. support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants." Scheuer contends that Al-Qaeda is following a martial strategy that is more rational than it is given credit for among Western politicians and media. He cites

Clausewitz Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His m ...

's dictum that one must strike one's enemy's "center of gravity", and pairs it with an al-Qaeda writer's assertion that "the American economy is the American center of gravity". In a videotape released around September 7, 2007, Osama bin Laden stated, "If you want to understand what's going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer."

''Marching Toward Hell''

Scheuer's book ''Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq'' was published on February 12, 2008. It details how the 2003

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...

has affected

and the United States. He argues that the instability in the Iraq War has benefited Al-Qaeda without serving any U.S. interests.

Views

War on Terror

Scheuer's views emphasized the danger of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, as well as the ineffectiveness of U.S. policy against these imminent threats. The threat to the United States, Scheuer has consistently maintained, continues to grow, and the U.S. continually fails to grasp the nature of the struggle in which it is engaged: Islamist and anti-American sentiment continue to grow around the world, and the bin Laden movement is aimed, not at killing or conquering Americans or reforming their internal political systems, but rather bankrupting them in order to reduce their worldwide influence and thereby liberate Muslims from the yoke of American political, military, and financial influence. The failure of the U.S. to apprehend this threat is, in part, rooted in a misunderstanding and underestimation of Osama bin Laden himself. To Scheuer, Osama bin Laden's "beliefs, goals, and intentions" were

carefully chosen, plainly spoken, and precise. He has set out the Muslim world's problems as he sees them; determined that they are caused by the United States; explained why they must be remedied; and outlined how he will try to do so. Seldom in America's history has an enemy laid out so clearly the basis for the war he is waging against it.

Scheuer's criticism of U.S. foreign policy includes a sweeping condemnation of the invasion of Iraq, which he has characterized as a "Christmas present" to Osama bin Laden's Islamist recruitment efforts, and a validation of bin Laden's claims that the U.S. is at war with Islam. From his personal involvement in background research in the run-up to the war, Scheuer states that "there was no connection between l Qaedaand Saddam." U.S. rhetoric about bin Laden having allegedly "hat dfreedom" has also irked Scheuer, who suggests that those "willing to give their lives to destroy the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia ... must want freedom in some kind of way." This erroneous rhetoric, according to Scheuer, is not only to be found in the media and among politicians, but even in the ''

9/11 Commission Report ''The 9/11 Commission Report'' (officially the ''Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States)'' is the official report into the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It was prepa ...

'', in which bin Laden and his followers were identified "as takfiris, who kill Muslims if they don't agree with them. They're not takfiris. They're just very devout, severe Salafists and Wahhabis." The insistence on referring to al-Qaeda and the Islamist movement around it as a terrorist group or terrorist movement has also been a mistake, according to Scheuer. The U.S. is faced with an insurgency, rather than mere terrorism. Speaking on the BBC News on November 9, 2012, Scheuer criticized what he called the Obama administration's deceit about the threat from Islamic militants, and misleading the American people in his first administration by claiming that the word "jihad" had nothing to do with military affairs, and that it had to do with "self reform and community improvement", which Scheuer claims was a blatant lie.

Clinton and Bush administrations

Scheuer has been critical of the Clinton and Bush administrations for not having killed bin Laden, for costly and disastrous policy missteps, and for not taking decisive measures to defend the country. He states that Clinton had eight to ten opportunities to kill bin Laden prior to September 11, and Bush had one opportunity thereafter. Richard A. Clarke and the Clinton administration, according to Scheuer, thwarted the CIA's ambitions to kidnap or kill bin Laden when they had the chance. According to Scheuer,

Clarke's book ''Against All Enemies'' is also a crucial complement to the September 11 panel's failure to condemn Mr. Clinton's failure to capture or kill bin Laden on any of the eight to 10 chances afforded by CIA reporting. Mr. Clarke never mentions that President Bush had no chances to kill bin Laden before September 11 and leaves readers with the false impression that he, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, did their best to end the bin Laden threat. That trio, in my view, abetted al Qaeda, and if the September 11 families were smart they would focus on the dereliction of Dick larke Bill
linton Linton may refer to: Places Australia * Linton, Victoria Canada * Linton, Ontario * Linton, Quebec United Kingdom England * Linton, Cambridgeshire * Linton, Derbyshire * Linton (near Bromyard), Herefordshire * Linton (near Ross-on-Wye), Her ...
and Sandy ergerand not the antics of convicted September 11 conspirator
Zacarias Moussaoui Zacarias Moussaoui (Arabic: زكريا موسوي, '; born May 30, 1968) is a French member of al-Qaeda who pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the September 11 attacks. He is se ...
.

Of the Bush administration, Scheuer warns against assigning it full responsibility for the nation's troubles since September 11, 2001. Although the "unprovoked attack of Iraq" will forever be remembered as "infamous", as will

Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former ...

's "reptilian contention that Americans who criticize U.S. foreign policy are 'validating the strategy of the terrorists'", according to Scheuer, a "bipartisan governing elite", both Democratic and Republican, is to blame for the nation's woes.''Marching Toward Hell'', p. xxiii (Notwithstanding the bipartisan responsibility, Scheuer comments, "the thought of what history will say about

Donald Rumsfeld Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under Preside ...

's tenure at the Department of Defense ought to make his relatives shudder down to their latest generation.")

Pending threats

In 2007, Scheuer said "The Iranians are no threat to the United States unless we provoke them. They may be a threat to the Israelis. They're not a threat to the United States. The threat to the United States, inside the United States, comes from al Qaeda. ... These people are going to detonate a nuclear device inside the United States, and we're going to have absolutely nothing to respond against."

Israel and the Lobby

Scheuer has stated that the Mearsheimer and Walt paper ''

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy ''The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy'' is a book by John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Relations at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University, publ ...

'' is essentially correct. Israel, according to Scheuer, has engaged in one of the most successful campaigns to influence public opinion in the United States ever conducted by a foreign government. Scheuer said to NPR that "They earsheimer and Waltshould be credited for the courage they have had to actually present a paper on the subject. I hope they move on and do the Saudi lobby, which is probably more dangerous to the United States than the Israeli lobby." In ''Marching Toward Hell'', Scheuer laments "the war in Iraq that was instigated by U.S. citizen Israel-firsters and their evangelical Christian allies". He continues,

Because both U.S. political parties are wholly owned subsidiaries of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Israeli government, there is no large-scale U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq in the cards ... If you doubt this, keep in mind the name
Rahm Emanuel Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Japan. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 ...
. Slated to be the president-elect's chief of staff, Mr. Emanuel has labored as a volunteer for AIPAC's various anti-U.S. causes, strove to ensure the defeat of anti-Iraq War Democratic congressional candidates in 2006, and in 1991, as a 32-year-old U.S. citizen, chose to serve with the
Israeli Defense Forces Israeli may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel * Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel * Modern Hebrew, a language * ''Israeli'' (newspaper), published from 2006 to 2008 * Guni Israeli (b ...
rather than volunteer to fight for the United States in the war against Saddam's Iraq.

The Doha Debates

In April 2009, Scheuer participated in the

Doha Debates Doha Debates produces and distributes solutions-focused debate and interview programs, video reports and interactive content. The franchise's products include marquee debates, the #DearWorldLive interview series, the "Course Correction" and "The N ...

, where he debated for the motion "This house believes that it is time for the USA to get tough on Israel" with fellow speaker

Avraham Burg Avraham "Avrum" Burg ( he, אברהם בורג; born 19 January 1955) is an Israeli author, politician and businessman. He was a member of the Knesset, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Speaker of the Knesset, and Interim President of I ...

. Speakers against the motion were

Dore Gold Dore Gold ( he, דורי גולד, born 1953) is an American-Israeli political scientist and diplomat who served as Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations from 1997 to 1999. He is currently the President of the Jerusalem Cente ...

and

Alan Dershowitz Alan Morton Dershowitz ( ; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer and former law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appoin ...

. Burg and Scheuer won the debate, with 63% of the audience voting for the motion. During the debate, Scheuer suggested that "the war in Iraq is the responsibility of the American fifth column that supports Israel" and accused Dershowitz of being part of this "fifth column". Dershowitz responded that he opposed the war in Iraq, that "more Jews than any other ethnic group in America opposed the war in Iraq" and that Scheuer was engaging in "bigotry."

Iraq and al-Qaeda

Thomas Joscelyn of ''

Weekly Standard ''The Weekly Standard'' was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the ''Standard'' had been described as a "red ...

'' wrote a critical piece on Scheuer and an interview Scheuer did on ''

Hardball with Chris Matthews ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'' was an American television talk show that was hosted by Chris Matthews. The program premiered on the now-defunct America's Talking network in 1994 (as ''Politics with Chris Matthews'') before moving on CNBC, and t ...

''. According to Joscelyn, Scheuer's claims that "there was no evidence of a relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda", in various interviews, "directly contradicted" Scheuer's earlier assertions, in his first book, in which Scheuer "cited numerous pieces of evidence showing that there was, in fact, a working relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda." Scheuer wrote about a relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda in his 2002 book. Yet when interviewed in 2004 he stated that he had found no evidence of a Saddam/al-Qaeda connection. Tim Russert asked Scheuer to explain the seeming contradiction on ''

Meet the Press ''Meet the Press'' is a weekly American television Sunday morning talk shows, news/interview program broadcast on NBC. It is the List of longest-running television shows by category, longest-running program on American television, though the curr ...

'' (30 November 2004): :MR. SCHEUER: I certainly saw a link when I was writing the books in terms of the open-source literature, unclassified literature, but I had nothing to do with Iraq during my professional career until the run-up to the war. What I was talking about on "Hardball" was, I was assigned the duty of going back about nine or 10 years in the classified archives of the CIA. I went through roughly 19,000 documents, probably totaling 50,000 to 60,000 pages, and within that corpus of material, there was absolutely no connection in the terms of a—in the terms of a relationship. :MR. RUSSERT: But your 002book did point out some contacts? :MR. SCHEUER: Certainly it was available in the open-source material, yes, sir. Scheuer explains more fully in the revised edition of his 2002 book the exhaustive study of the evidence of the alleged Iraq-al-Qaeda cooperation that eventually led him to the conclusion that there was no relationship between the two forces: :For a number of reasons, I was available to perform the review of Agency files on Iraq and al Qaeda, and the chief of the bin Laden unit handed me the assignment. I was delighted with the task, eager to begin, and sure that my research would support the analysis I had presented in ''Through Our Enemies' Eyes''. For about four weeks in late 2002 and early 2003, I and several others were engaged full time in searching CIA files—seven days a week, often far more than eight hours a day. At the end of the effort, we had gone back ten years in the files and had reviewed nearly twenty thousand documents that amounted to well over fifty thousand pages of materials. I was both pleased and embarrassed by the results of the research. I was pleased because CIA's position was reaffirmed and the analysis of Mr. Feith's unit was discredited. There was no information that remotely supported the analysis that claimed there was a strong working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. I was embarrassed because this reality invalidated the analysis I had presented on the subject in my book.

Libyan insurgency

Scheuer has stated his objection to any involvement by the U.S. in the Libyan insurgency, being particularly critical of the work of United States' UN representative

Susan E. Rice Susan Elizabeth Rice (born November 17, 1964) is an American diplomat, policy advisor, and public official serving as Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Rice served as the 27th U.S ...

, calling the whole affair "none of our business" and essentially a "recruiting tool for terrorists." on CNN, 1 April 2011 His overall view is that the interests of U.S. foreign policy are far better served by the current status quo, whereby the existing autocratic regimes are better able to suppress the threat he perceives from Al-Qaeda incursion than Western-style democratic systems. Scheuer believes that, irrespective of NATO ostensibly leading the bombing operations, "in the Muslim world, this is Americans killing Muslims again, and it looks like it's for oil."

2012 endorsement of Ron Paul

Scheuer penned an editorial in late December 2011 endorsing U.S. presidential candidate

Ron Paul Ronald Ernest Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American author, activist, physician and retired politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977 and again from 1979 to 1985, as we ...

. He said, "Dr. Paul's precise use of history and common sense exposes the exorbitantly costly effort to build democracies in the Islamic world for what it is; namely, Washington throwing money down the drain for a cause that is impossibly lost from the start and one that will involve us in wars where we have no interests."

2016 endorsement of Donald Trump

Scheuer expressed his support for U.S. presidential candidate

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

in multiple blog postings on non-intervention.com. Scheuer based his support on, in his view, Trump's strong support of the

Second Amendment The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds each ...

, Trump's proposed wall along the Southern Border, Trump's skepticism of NATO and military intervention in the Muslim World, and Trump's unpopularity with

neoconservatives Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and cou ...

and their media outlets such as ''

The Weekly Standard ''The Weekly Standard'' was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the ''Standard'' had been described as a "re ...

'', ''

National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief ...

'', and also much of the mainstream media. Scheuer also likes Trump's "America First" talk towards American statecraft.

Advocacy of killing Trump's opponents

On December 23, 2013, Scheuer endorsed the

extrajudicial killing An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whethe ...

of then-

Prime Minister of Britain The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As moder ...

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

and President Barack Obama, endorsing the view of

Algernon Sidney Algernon Sidney or Sydney (15 January 1623 – 7 December 1683) was an English politician, republican political theorist and colonel. A member of the middle part of the Long Parliament and commissioner of the trial of King Charles I of Englan ...

that "by an established law among the most virtuous nations, every man might kill a tyrant; and no names are recorded in history with more honor, than of those who did it." :"In 2014, he cheuersuggested that assassinating Barack Obama was legitimate." In July 2018, Scheuer called upon "those millions of well-armed citizens who voted for Trump" to be ready to kill "a long and very precise list" of those who oppose Trump. His list included the entire mainstream media and two former Presidents. "If Trump does not act soon to erase" his opponents, he wrote, "the armed citizenry must step in and eliminate them." Scheuer referred to

Kyle Rittenhouse Kyle Howard Rittenhouse (born January 3, 2003) is an American known for shooting three men, two fatally, during the civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020 when he was 17 years old. At his trial in November 2021, a jury found Ritten ...

, who was charged with murder for shooting people demonstrating in

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internat ...

Kenosha, Wisconsin Kenosha () is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the seat of Kenosha County. Per the 2020 census, the population was 99,986 which made it the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Kenos ...

a “young hero”, hoping that “Rittenhouse’s necessary, patriotic, and constitutional actions will power the formation of militias across the United States.” In July 2020, he wrote that “loyal Americans know their domestic enemies, as well as their locations, in detail, and will be able to act swiftly to eliminate them and the threat they pose.” :"In December, 019he endorsed the increasingly violent QAnon conspiracy movement, which the FBI has called a potential wellspring of domestic terrorism. Those who deny QAnon’s unhinged hallucinations are, to Scheuer, “coup-ists ndinsurrectionists.” Last month, Scheuer claimed vindication against critics when Trump seemed to acknowledge QAnon. Scheuer has long been comfortable with violence." :"Scheuer blogged that “those who do not believe QAnon will be mighty surprised.” It made him the senior-most former intelligence official to embrace a social media-born cult that portrays Trump’s political enemies as a pedophile conspiracy. “There is so much accuracy, and well-proven accuracy,” he wrote of a theory holding John F. Kennedy Jr. is alive and secret indictments will soon imprison Obama and others at Guantanamo.

European Union

In March 2018, Scheuer claimed that the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

was in the process of "falling apart", saying that British Prime Minister

Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cab ...

was "siding with the EU" during the future relation talks of the UK leaving the European Union. Scheuer has called for the public execution of European politicians, saying that "all European rulers are tyrants" adding that "they are a despicable bunch, the people that head the European Union, and they really deserve to be

hung Hung may refer to: People * Hung (surname), various Chinese surnames * Hùng king, a king of Vietnam People with the given name Hung include: * Hung Huynh, Vietnamese-American chef, winner of the third season of the television show ''Top Chef'' ...

." He is critical of the EU's abolition of the death penalty and the implications it has on the deportation of terrorist suspects, saying that "the EU's policy of easily obtainable political asylum and its prohibition against deporting wanted or convicted terrorists to a country with a death penalty have made Europe a major, consistent and invulnerable source of terrorist threat to the United States." Scheuer sees the

extraordinary rendition Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored forcible abduction in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror, which had the purpos ...

s carried out by the U.S. government as being hindered by the European Union: "The extraordinary rendition programme should not be destroyed because of "venal and prize hungry reporters, grandstanding politicians and sanctimonious Europeans."

Portrayals

In the

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television series ...

miniseries, ''

The Looming Tower ''The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11'' is a 2006 non-fiction book by Lawrence Wright, a journalist for ''The New Yorker''. Wright examines the origins of the militant organization Al-Qaeda, the background for various terrorist attac ...

'' (2018), Scheuer is the basis for the character of Martin Schmidt (portrayed by

Peter Sarsgaard John Peter Sarsgaard (; born March 7, 1971) is an American actor. His first feature role was in '' Dead Man Walking'' in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films ''Another Day in Paradise'' and ''Desert Blue''. That same year, Sarsga ...

), depicted as one of two people primarily responsible for the lack of intelligence sharing between the CIA and the FBI in the lead up to 9/11.

Bibliography

Books

* ''Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam & the Future of America''. Brassey's Inc. . (2003) * '' Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror''. Brassey's Inc. . (2004) * ''Marching Towards Hell: America and Islam After Iraq''. Free Press, Simon & Schuster. . (2008) * ''Osama Bin Laden''. Oxford University Press. . (2011) * Introduction to '' Inside the Jihad'' by

Omar Nasiri Omar Nasiri (born 1960s) is the pseudonym of a Belgian spy of Moroccan origin who infiltrated al-Qaeda, attending training camps in Afghanistan and passing information to the UK and French external intelligence services, the DGSE. He claims in a ...

Articles

"Battling the terrorists"
''

Washington Times ''The Washington Times'' is an American conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout ...

'' 26 December 2004
"Unraveling the Saga of Zarqawi's Injury"
''Terrorism Focus'', 2:11, 10 June 2005
"Embracing a Lethal Tar Baby"
''

Antiwar.com Antiwar.com is a website that describes itself as devoted to non-interventionism and as opposing imperialism and war. It is a project of the Randolph Bourne Institute. The website states that it is "fighting the next information war”. Histor ...

'' February 27, 2006
"How Bush Helps Jihadists"
''Washington Times'', 13 March 2006
"Al-Qaeda Doctrine: Training the Individual Warrior"
''Terrorism Focus'', 28 March 2006
"Does Israel Conduct Covert Action in America? You Bet it Does"
''

'', 8 April 2006
"Tenet Tries to Shift the Blame. Don't Buy It"
''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

'', 29 April 2007
"Reading Bin Laden's Mind: The State of the Jihad, As He Might See It"
''

'', 17 February 2008
"Barack Obama, Interventionist and Ultimate Jihadi Hero"
''

'', 29 May 2008
"Turning the Tables on the Israel-Firsters"
''

'', 16 July 2008

References

External links

Non-Intervention2.com
Official Site)
Non-Intervention.net
Previous site archive) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Scheuer, Michael 1952 births Living people Date of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers Activists from Buffalo, New York American anti-war activists American broadcast news analysts American foreign policy writers American intelligence analysts American male bloggers American bloggers American male non-fiction writers American political commentators American political journalists American political writers American conspiracy theorists Analysts of the Central Intelligence Agency Canisius College alumni Carleton University alumni Counterterrorism in the United States Journalists from New York (state) Niagara University alumni Non-interventionism People of the Central Intelligence Agency Terrorism theorists University of Manitoba alumni Virginia Republicans War on terror Writers from Buffalo, New York 20th-century American journalists American male journalists