Book Review of Michael Scheuer’s “Osama bin Laden”

By Elias Davidsson, November 5, 2013

A book distinguishing itself by significant omissions 

The author omits:

• The absence of a definite accusation by the US government against bin Laden regarding his responsibility for 9/11 (even President Bush only qualified bin Laden as a “suspect”)
• The admission of the FBI to journalist Ed Haas in June 2006 to possess no hard evidence linking bin Laden to 9/11
• The absence of an evaluation of bin Laden’s controversial videos (which the FBI has not considered as evidence)
• The absence of a theological or textual analysis of bin Laden’s fatwas of 1996 and 1998
• The absence of an explanation for the consistent failure by the US to find and detain or kill bin Laden, from 1996 to 2011
• The reported offer by Sudan to extradite Osama bin Ladn (OBL) for trial (rejected by the US)
• The reported offer by the Taliban to extradite OBL for trial (rejected by the US)
• The reported meeting between OBL and a CIA employee in the hospital in Dubai, August 2001
• The failure of the US to destroy the numerous “terrorist camps” run by bin Laden in Afghanistan and Pakistan
• The collaboration between the British MI6 and Al Qaeda to murder Libyan President Gaddafi
• The issuance by the Libyan authorities of an international arrest warrant against OBL
• The role of MI6 and the CIA in moving Al Qaeda fighters to Bosnia and Kosovo
• The role of the CIA in providing U.S. visas to Arab militants at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) in the 1980s, for terrorist training in the United States (as reported by the chief of the visa section, Michael Springmann)
• The omission, when discussing the WTC bombing of 1993, of mentioning the role of the FBI and Emad Salem in the bombing. See War on Truth p. 37-8
• The omission of the role of Ali Mohamed, an important link between the FBI and CIA and Osama bin Laden. See: Triple Cross: How bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI
• The fact that Al Qaeda has rarely, if ever, attacked Israeli or Jewish facilities (the author claims that a central issue for bin Laden was the liberation of Palestine from Zionist/Israeli occupation).These numerous omissions cannot be attributed to oversight or forgetfulness. It follows that the book is tendencious and deliberately deceptive. It was, in my opinion, a serious mistake by Oxford University Press to publish this book.