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 has affected Al-Qaeda 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 [Al Qaeda] and Saddam." U.S. rhetoric about bin Laden having allegedly "hat[ed] freedom" 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, in which bin Laden and