Michael Burleigh
Inciter-In-Cheif
Michael Scheuer spent twenty-two years in the CIA. From 1996 to 1999 he was head of the Agency’s bin Laden unit. This was called ‘Alec Station’, after Scheuer’s son. During these years bin Laden embarked on his exodus from Sudan, and established himself in Jalalabad and Kandahar among the Afghan Taleban loyal to Mullah Omar. When Alec Station was closed down and its staff reassigned, Scheuer resigned from the CIA to become a private-sector expert on US foreign policy and Islamist terrorism.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'In their needling, selfish, dry-as-dust way, these three books are works of cumulative power and never less than consistent interest.'
@lieutenantkije weighs up the final novel in J M Coetzee's Jesus trilogy.
http://ow.ly/TuWo50xqrL0
'It remains a poem comprised of clay fragments, short and long, and though the desert delivers up occasional additional text, we are a long way from a whole poem.'
Michael Schmidt on the oldest surviving poem in the world.
http://ow.ly/7OLF50xqr91
'Apparently if you’re a teenager and you send a declaration of love to someone heart emoji, heart emoji, heart emoji and they come back smiley face, that’s the worst.'
Thomas Blaikie tries to get his head round the language of the internet.
http://ow.ly/TU6d50xroRc