The War Against America

The War Against America (2002) – Laurie Mylroie
ReganBooks
ISBN: 006009771X
Condition: Used, as geopolitically rattled by Crappy Old Books.

It’s 2002. Flip phones are impressive, everyone’s printing out emails, and large chunks of the American foreign-policy establishment are absolutely convinced that, somewhere behind every act of terror, there’s a familiar moustached figure in a bunker in Baghdad.

The War Against America is that moment in hardback form: an intense, straight-faced argument that Saddam Hussein was secretly the mastermind behind the World Trade Center attacks (starting with 1993 and radiating outward), and that the U.S. is locked in a long, vengeful shadow-war with Iraq.

In other words, this is not just a book; it’s a historical artefact of the “What If It’s All Saddam?” era.

What’s going on in here?

Laurie Mylroie does not do chill. Inside you get:

• A grand, ominous thesis
  The basic vibe: you think these are disconnected terror incidents, but actually they’re all part of Saddam’s revenge project against America. It’s like a geopolitical corkboard covered in red string, only with footnotes. Lots of footnotes. 

• Cast of recurring villains and acronyms
  Intelligence agencies, bombers, shadowy operatives, and the usual three-letter organisations who either missed something, covered something up, or tragically failed to read this very book in time.

• Reconstruction of plots and motives
  Bombings, attempted assassinations, mysterious fugitives, and a running argument that behind the chaos lies a single vengeful state actor who just will not let the Gulf War go.

• The tone of someone who is certain
  This is written with the energy of a person who has connected all the dots and would like everyone else to stop being wrong now.

Reading it in 2025, you’re not just reading about terrorism; you’re reading about how people thought about terrorism in that weird, feverish pre-Iraq-war period – a mindset that aged about as gracefully as dial-up internet. (For the record: a lot of later experts and investigations treated these theories as, let’s say, highly unpersuasive.)

About the condition (paperback déjà vu)

This copy is Used, which in the solemn taxonomy of Crappy Old Books means:

• The dust jacket (if present) may show edge wear and light scuffing, as though it spent time being waved in the air during very emphatic political arguments.

• The spine could be pleasantly creased, suggesting someone actually made it through the denser bits of geopolitical speculation without losing the will to live.

• Inside, you may find:

  • Underlining in chapters about the 1993 bombing or Saddam’s alleged “hidden hand”.

  • Margin notes like “!!”, “Really?”, or a lonely “hmm” where a previous reader briefly reconsidered everything.

  • Pages that open naturally at the juicier accusations, i.e. the sections most likely to have caused heated late-night conversations in 2003.

This is not a pristine coffee-table ornament. This is a veteran of the early War on Terror discourse.

Why on earth would you want this in 2025?

Because, astonishingly, it’s:

• A time capsule of pre-Iraq-war thinking
  If you’ve ever wondered how some people got from “9/11” to “invade Iraq” in under three moves, this is a handy field guide to that mental map. 

• A case study in how big narratives get built
  You see how circumstantial evidence, suggestive coincidences, and strong conviction can coalesce into A Grand Theory Of Everything – and how influential those theories can be even when later judged… optimistic.

• Weirdly useful if you’re into:

  • Media studies

  • Intelligence and policy failures

  • Conspiracy-adjacent narratives that once sat uncomfortably close to the mainstream

• And frankly, it’s morbidly fascinating to read it knowing what we know now, like watching a political thriller where you already know the sequel and the box-office receipts.

Why a Used copy is exactly right for this book

A shiny, untouched copy of The War Against America would feel wrong; this book deserves a bit of mileage:

• The scuffs and softened corners say, “I was read when this stuff felt urgent and plausible, not just historical and peculiar.”

• Any coffee stain near a footnote about secret Iraqi involvement is basically a primary source on early-2000s stress levels.

• You don’t have to baby it. Toss it in a bag beside other relics: books on WMDs, clippings about “links to al-Qaeda,” old headlines that did not age well.

If there are notes in the margin quietly disagreeing with the author, congratulations: your copy comes pre-annotated by history.

The sales pitch disguised as a health warning

To be clear: this book is not a balanced, calm, all-sides-considered history. It is:

A highly committed argument from a specific moment in time,
later heavily disputed,
preserved in hardback like a fossilized foreign-policy mood.

Reading it now is less about deciding whether it’s “right,” and more about understanding how powerful stories are built about enemies, threats, and what must be done next.

So here it is:

The War Against America (2002) by Laurie Mylroie.
Slightly worn, structurally sound, ideologically very early-2000s.
Proudly Used and cautiously offered by Crappy Old Books.

Buy it as a thriller, a primary source, or a cautionary tale in hardcover clothing. Just maybe don’t use it as your sole guide to actual geopolitics in 2025.

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