A while back I purchased Imperial Hubris, since it began with a rather extensive analysis of how Islamic extremists have attacked America not becuase they “hate our way of life”, but becuase of what we have done, and becuase of the way that the US has “offended” them in various ways. The writer, an anonymouis Intelligence official, takes the US government to tak for underestimating the strength of the Islamic resistance, and its breadth.

What I was unprepared for, as I look at later chapters to which I had never advanced due to other reading I was doing, was this writer’s conclusions about how we must fight this war. While he takes the US to task for shoddy and almost non-existent intelligence, he also suggests not being hesitant to “lay waste” and “kill as many Muslims as possible”, and opposes the use of the United Nations or any other “coalitions” since these only “hinder”, “delay” and “water down” the response needed.

I had , in my earlier reading had questions about the accuracy or depth of understanding of Islam as a religion, as opposed to his “familiarity” and realism about the depth of hatred of the militant, theocratic, “Islamists” that we see represented in Al Quieda. I saw hints that this author too broadly applies this approach to Islam as a whole, when it rather seems that there is indeed much resistance to the violent jihad concept amongs mainstream Muslims (for instance, Yousef Islam, aka Cat Stevens in a former life– I saw him on Larry King this past week).

I now have my doubts that this writer is someone who the US government should fear working amongst its intelligence, since his “reccomnendations” seem to fall in line with what REACTIONS the Bush administration wanted to take anyway, and makes it seem likely that this writer may have indeed been in favor of a pre-emptive strike, although perhaps not for the “stated reasons” the Bush administration gave to the public (since this writer may well have been aware that the intelligence in that case also, was faulty. But this administration intelligence official may well be himslef a neoconservative. It sheds a whole new light on my reading of this book. I’m basically sorry I recommended it, or bought it.