Good afternoon. Im Karen Greenberg and im the director of the center on National Security at fordham law school. Insulated today to be joined by allie phon by the new book the black standard declassified how tortured the war on terror after 911. I thank you probably know olley from some events weve done together, former supervisory special agent with the fbi, investigated highprofile terrorism cases before, during and after the 911 attack and in recent years he is brought his investigative skills to the private sector and is ceo of the soup on center and specialty is Global Security affairs in everything from governance culture to state actors to nonstate actors and i will try to put as much of that today as we can. One thing i want to point out is each day the Soufan Center publishes a soufan brief which is something you should read every day. It is a wonderful deep dive into a timely issue that goes to the heart of what we should be thinking about even if its not in the headlines. Anything from whites promises him to what is happening with al qaeda and isis to the geopolitics of nationstates and regional powers and i encourage you to read it every day. I also encourage you to read the soufan morning brief switch the roof sponsors and the center on initial severity produces which is in its 14th year. In Exchange News every day about what you should be thing about about National Security in a variety dimensions. Ollie, thank for joining me today. Welcome. Thank you. Please dont stay mute because that would be not be a good conversation. I want to Start Talking about the book and then we will turn on to other things. As you know from your invitation you can buy this book online by pushing the button to buy it. If you have any questions along the way put them into the chat and eventually as we are talking i will get to them. I want to start with the title of the book. When the book first came out in 2011 it was, you know, subtitled the inside story of 911 and the war against al qaeda. Now, it focuses on torture. So much of what was redacted in classifying had to do with torture, your involvement in interviews with al qaeda suspects and others and just i want to get to derailing the war on terror before we get to what is actually different about this addition of the book. Lets talk about how the war on terror was derailed and how the book brings that to life. So, when i wrote the books back in 2011 it was supposed to be a book recounting my own personal experience in serving the nation and on the on terror. I wrote the book to be a publication that can spark a conversation but a conversation based on reality and facts and the successes we had after 911 and after the successes and failures before 911 but also the failures that we had in our response in the 2003 iraq war with torture and another example. When he completed the book it was as anyone can expect a long process but they asked me to change a couple of things which did not create any problems for me because these things were kind of weve been within the boundaries of any publication but unfortunately after the fbi finished the review out of courtesy they send it to the agency and additionally the agencies what they did was good but then it started to get crazy as you probably have seen from the first one pronouns are being redacted and i think that had to do with what actually happened against terrorist suspects and how we got information and that is i claimed later on [inaudible] all these things were redacted. Like i say, while, you know, torture did not work but thats how we got the information but i cannot say how we got the information and how we identify mohammed as the mastermind of 911 and then almost every think that has to do with the efficacy of the tradition was redacted. I always described the process as distortion by reaction so if you are for torture and you can go ahead and say anything you want and are able to publish it and the review board will give you the green light but if you have a problem in what happened and if you are telling the truth about what took place in these interrogation rooms you will have it censored and heavily redacted. So, after nine years of fighting and after the clinic the jump to help ray who challenge the reactions on the First Amendment grounds they were asked if they can do another review of the book and this time the review and for the most part everything they redacted has been unredacted and it can read what happens so the very First Edition of the book was about war and terrorism with the jihad in the United States until his death in may. Its the same book but there is so much information been classified the first time that makes it another book but of peace that did not exist in most of that piece had to do with a decent Tradition Program with torture and when you read it and when you see it you will see how that program was devastating to u. S. Interests and devastating to all success or their lack thereof. I want to give this opportunity there to also think the leadership of the cia for taking this amazing step of institutional transparency and he classifying the black black so now people can read the truth. My first hand experience was right walking into interrogation rooms i saw what happened and saw that information in many instances when we got information or i personally got the information when you look into this and say okay, your account is being declassified on the National Security and what you are admitting that is the truth. We dont classify lies. If i was lying then he was full of it but line but now ironically that helped the truth and our people read what happens or what happened with different people if we gave them illnesses and it was now the truth. [inaudible] that is why the decision was made to change the subtitle to focus on the torture because this is the first time you will read exactly what happened and have a front seat to the interrogation room. Its a rare occurrence for somebody to become declassified by a former official in the way that you declassified and in your particular case and circumstances, why do you think i got declassified and does it have to do with the report or the cia trying to sign find a different message and how do you account for this but im grateful for that and im grateful for all the people who supported david kelly my attorney who was with me from day one fighting the bureau and the agencies for declassification but i believe you and i talked about but that [inaudible] i dont believe the cia is a cia program and we have these have these discussions we find it as a cpc program and a lot of people officers on the cia under the cpc and you will see it now in the book against this program more than i was and so that is why so many people from the field went and complained to those Inspector General and their investigation and in his investigation made it clear that he cannot find any disrupted to be imminent, that was number one and number two that the program worked traditional interrogation works well its objective matter and difficult and so its clear but he defunded the cpc program. The second mistake that a lot of people make like the fbi for cia and gotten out the book has been unredacted because it shows it was not washington hiding the contractor cpc and then how it now we look at everything that happened and we find out what i was talking about in 2002 and in 2011 it was rejected and people now can read and now you can see its happening. For example, we cannot prosecute any of these people for what they [inaudible] i believe theres a lot of new people in the cia and in the Intelligence Community and people in the government that believe in what the cia Inspector General concluded and that believe in what im saying in the book and believe in what the report came up with. Those people are not involved in all the problems of the past they didnt make these decisions in the past. Those people left. I think people wanted to turn the page and wanted to put everything out and you know, it is a factor so there is a transparency here that we did not see in the last few decades and that is why the timing of the release of this book is extremely important because what we face today is a political culture based on alternative facts and partisan talking points and on security but this did not stop the truck. This has been setting in our political culture for a long time with what we see as jump is just a step, you know, towards the next logical step so one of these issues [inaudible] youre mostly probably republican and if you dont youre probably most democrats but everything be a partisan issue and thats why President Trump or at the time candidate trump would say [inaudible] it was a race issue and something that drained the cheers of the crowd but now you have the opportunity to see the facts behind this and to see the truth behind the disinformation about the efficacy of the interrogation and waterboarding and you will see how in so many Different Levels operationally and strategically totally failed and heard the National Security interests. Lets talk about that because we often hear the phrase this has been partisan eyes or whatever that verb is which is that torture doesnt work. Ive always been curious what does that statement actually mean . It can mean so many different things. You dont get the information or all of them but you dont get the information at all means you get that information and it means a variety of things we can talk about institutionally down the road like not been able to try people but when you say torture doesnt work, talk is about the universe youre talking about. You are right. It means a lot of things but i will talk about it from the other perspective. Every country that tortures is not a stable country. I want to show you the terrorism we have to cam out of egyptian jail. Not good to go down that path but lets talk about the United States. We are a nation have amendments and constitutions and we took an oath to protect the constitution among all enemies, foreign and domestic. These constitutional protections have through trial and, you know, made treatments of all these kinds of things that we are talking about. But also the cornerstone of our International Policy and who we are as a nation is a nation that believes in freedom and democracy unlike Ronald Reagan said shining city on the hill and we have human rights and every year we go to the state department and enemies and allies who practiced sleep deprivation, temperature manipulation and the things are from 2002 state Department Report about allied countries in the world and we are doing it also. So when you have significant interdiction between the laws in between who we are as a nation in between what we say publicly and then between our strategy and when these things dont go hand in hand together its a total failure. It is steeped within what was said that if you know yourself and your enemy you will wait 10f you have no clue about the enemy you will fail and that is why members of al qaeda on the eve of 911 across the United States trillions of dollars just to become 40000 members and now they are not only in afghanistan but all across in somalia and yemen and you name it and not even mentioning isis which came out of al qaeda and lasted in war that was longer than world war i and guess what . We are in such a dangerous situation today. That is because of a lot of these things prayed this is because from Strategic Perspective our laws and our strategy did not were not in sync together. This is number one. You remember the biggest disaster i think and this is everybody the biggest disaster of the iraq war and we invaded a country and hundreds of thousands of people are dead trillions of dollars wasted and you name it. Al qaeda was dying before the war in iraq and ultimately right so huge . But at the time they wanted evidence that Saddam Hussein and al qaeda or working together and everyone in the cia and fbi and pentagon who knew these things we know they were not working together. But that was not good enough, right . He worked with al qaeda and they tortured him and then they were working together. They are developing for people so we took this information to the Security Council and i think everyone remembers secretary Powell Holding that and with george behind them and talking about how al qaeda and saddam are working together to develop which would be devastating to any American City in the world. When we went to iraq we found out everything was a lie. We kind of knew it was a lie but it did not make sense but one thing that i said to him so wide to july and he said while you are torture me i would give you anything you wanted to hear. Operationally speaking there is a big difference between compliance and cooperation and compliance is when i get in dick training wants to hear them working together so fine, torture a guy and get that information and he gets his war and thats exec we what happened. Its difficult for us to go to the white house and say well, we dont use that information because that get that information they want so now cooperation is the truth so there are differences between compliance and cooperation. You dont have unlimited resources to have ghosts around the world like in some states because of the false information we are getting and we wanted facts and what you see in this book is how we were getting facts. Now, some of the, you know, and some of the threats for example about [inaudible] for example they were watching tv and watching the movie with him going over the bridge and they started joking how many infidels will die if we blow up that bridge and then suddenly less than 24 hours on cnn we are watching al qaeda blow up the brooklyn bridge. Theres a big gap between what has been sold to the American Public at the time. I think theres a big difference between compliance and cooperation for this is from an operational perspective the other elements of the operation we do all the time is basically justice. Intel and cinched justice or legal justice. What we have today are people that have blood on their hands and we have a mastermind who admits that he [inaudible] we cant prosecute that even in a military court because what they do under this program. In the Inspector General if we were unfolding back into thousand four but towards the end will have a lot of people and what do you want to do with these guys . You have to think long term because after all as i said at the beginning we are the United States of america and we have laws. Yeah, so lets talk about on, no in the military commission and how torture has affected them because there is a disconnect. We want to try them but we try to get around the evidence and all of these things complicate a just legal process. To think there will ever be tried . I dont know. I think it will be a difficult situation. Seriously, you know, i think some of these guys went through black sites and a lot of the information became tainted and now how do you proceed with the prosecuting someone when youre trying to classify the time that they would and that is the complexity and why 19 years up to 911 we still cannot prosecute mohammed or [inaudible] and he was so strong just by looking at the profile and believe me, i would know. I was a case agent. We helped the yemenis prosecute him in yemen and suddenly they had more evidence than we have [inaudible] we were able to find a yemeni judge and to sentence him to death. We know what we have in our own case files but unfortunately he was arrested because of the torture program and we were not aware of any information resulted from the harsh treatment that he went through and now we go to Guantanamo Bay there were 17 sailors murdered in 2000 in the gulf of [inaudible] still awaiting justice. We have one of the questions from our audience, somebody who worked in the middle east for more than five years and are frequently how damaging [inaudible] to think we have moved beyond that episode and if not, what we need to do to move beyond that episode . You know, what is great about the United States that we eventually do the right thing. I think the whole world has seen all these things happening and they are seen people like john mccain stand up, god rest his soul, and supporting somebody like me and they are seen, you know, men and women in the military and the cia and in the fbi going to the Inspector General and complaining of what they had to do have to see in these sites. We are seeing what happened with the black banners now and now after nine years it is been unredacted and they can know the truth about the program. This is all positive for america and all positive that everything that is happening there is still some light, it may still be dim but its still there with this shining light on the hill. First of all id asked the question if you hear a lot of the hearings that took place and watch the hearings that place at the Armed Services committee on the iraq war basically the images recruited more foreign fighters to fight in iraq than anything else and that benefit al qaeda and benefited them at the time so yes, they were disastrous for us and they were a disaster for the iraqi people frankly. So i believe that by turning the page and by having this moment of truth and moment of transparency and hopefully it will lead to a moment of accountability i think we can move beyond this. You know, every country in the world is allowing it now in the states and unfortunately we have a few states i think the United States will move past this. I want to talk a little bit about the middle east region and the tremendous instability in the region unless you want to tell me its more stable than im suggesting. Certainly the iraq war began a process that has unraveled to this day and you look at yemen and syria and you look at the difficulties of the afghan peace talks and do see a downward spiral or to see this in any positive direction . How should we see whats happening regionally . The middle east has always been a mess and now were waiting through the mess. I thank you cannot disconnect between whats happening today in between the United States losing the leadership position in the world. I think we are abdicating the world order that we established after world war ii and you see that in europe and we see that with our allies and us pulling out of an International Agreements and we see it by us abdicating the fight against covid, for example which is the first time we have a Global Crisis without Global Leadership from the United States and we see it in the Climate Change and we see it, you know, getting in the midst of a Global Pandemic and someone else is always willing to fill that gap and, you know, you see regimes like china and russia more than eager to fill the vacuum that started so if you reach into those vacuums that started to happen in different places specifically in the middle east and now the saudis are trying to figure out but the iranians are trying to establish an arc of insolence using shiite nonstate actors to the house in yemen to the shiite militias in pakistan and afghanistan and some of the shade groups in syria and iraq and so forth. You see turkey is trying to play the same game with iran that the sunni nonstate actors and you see them trying to reclaim what they believe their own historical influence in the Ottoman Empire and you see them using nonstate actors and syria and libya so all these things happening because the United States [inaudible] we stand up and fight with us and plead with us and there is one thing that you are guaranteeing for them in the last four years and they will be destroyed. You see it with the [inaudible] 11000 fighters died fighting isis for the United States and away. It was to protect themselves and their city but these are people that we can actually depend on and look at afghanistan government. We started to negotiate with the taliban and now were trying to bring the Afghan Government into it after we had our agreement with the taliban. We did not even consult the government about the prisoner issue but just decided that it would happen. [inaudible] the u. S. Will pull out and then i am on again the taliban enabled gloomy and everybody remembers hezbollah and his brother when the taliban took over kabul so ice see a lot of these things are creating environments that making people very distrustful of the United States position and making our allies nervous and making our enemies happy so now we are in a situation where enemies dont fear us in our allies really dont trust us. Yet, so looking home a little bit one of the things you read about these days is what happened to the state department into the diplomatic agenda that the United States has. Is that part of what has gone awry what needs to be fixed Going Forward . Does there need to be more diplomacy and what more than that would it take to reassert some kind of leadership . I think we need to have an international and global strategy. What is our strategy . We are always advocating so lets start from the views and it used to mean something [inaudible] now you know it seems we are so happy that we stayed after he murdered a Washington Post journalist and is numbered him into pieces. What is our strategy . In order to have the Diplomatic Initiative you need to have a strategic view of the world and where, where are the threats today . Do we still have the g hotties and they did not go away. A new thread is emerging from russia and a new threat is emerging from china and we have new, power struggle we are having with the chinese that has economic and political in their own version of global strategy with the road belt initiative. Where are we . We dont have, you know, relationships with allies who basically are paying for that relationship with our friends on the golf and that is not the Diplomatic Initiatives and not a diplomatic window. Now we see ourselves losing faith face with our allies in asia. You know, we may have african nations start to look toward china. The middle east as we talked about is a mess between iran, turkey the saudis and eventually the iranians and the turks can Work Together and they Work Together to dominate them in the middle east and dominate the sunnis there but the United States is nowhere to be found and unfortunately this is, i believe the number one threat against the United States today. Its not terrorism and it is not threat or disinformation but also losing our global position in the world because when we lose it thats it. Someone else will fill that vacuum and then it will be too late. In other words [inaudible] theres a bunch of questions but some of them are addressed at this point so i will read a couple of them and lets see, how do you see the trends of [inaudible] impacting the middle east and do see it ending in the direction of more Global Security and do you think the growth of nonstate armed groups such as book ojo from poses a threat to u. S. Interests and there are many more but i will give you just those two. I think anytime you have an arab state sitting with israel but towards the end we need to basically get to the bottom and how much impact that will have not much and i think that this is our believe this is it will help the desired who do not show up by the way to the agreement and will help him if there is a Biden Administration and were involved in sections that are still redacted in the Mueller Report about the meeting in new york in about the meeting in the russians so then there are people on the Democratic Party and people who are involved with the Obama Administration and you see them betrayed by our friends and allies so i think in this light its a little situation we cannot do anything because we have to support it and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will get what he wants over there and will not change the situation on the ground and the people who are enemies of the state of israel are still enemies of the state of israel. The people who are doing business under the table are now doing business over the table and that is what has been a compass. Lets be honest. Im happy and away but its happening and want people hopefully to help other people and its not the end of the world so but towards the end will that solve politics . Will that solve the situation with iran or the situation with hamas in gaza or the situation with all the different groups that exist across the muslim world and the answer is very simple. No. Okay, this is im trying to find something that will have a good end. What is your perspective on lebanon and its future . Do think it can wiggle itself out of the Saudi Arabian rivalry . Now its not just saudi arabia and iran but the french are trying to regain some of their historical relationship of lebanon and trying to influence the government turkey finds an opportunity to come also and regain the ottoman influence it has then whatever france is, you see turkey challenging them. For lebanon. When we were kids in history books and lebanon they teach us that in school, believe it or not that every second of lebanon believes to our country. For example, they always danced to the tunes of the orthodox to russia and with the jews to england and the sunnis of the Ottoman Empire and that is basically, that is something that has been ingrained in the psyche of generations of the country and unfortunately its continuing to happen today. Lebanon is the fear that reflects the region. The region is having difficulty will see a lot of difficulties in lebanon. If the region is not having a lot of difficulties and we are working towards better coexistence lets call it between the different powers you will see lebanon doing great. Basically the solution in lebanon and the key to peace in lebanon is not [inaudible] someone asked about the weakening of the global drop of demand as a result of coronavirus pandemic and could be see another it is not only because of that. Remember what happened when hamas decided to fight russia and do a price war in russia and that was during the pandemic and then we had the gallon that mine is 30 and [inaudible] its just like a really uncalculated move as usual as we expected that created significant damage to the world economy. I want to ask you about you talk about u. S. Leadership so what about nonus leadership . In terms of looking for allies on the world in the middle east as well as elsewhere who is out there that would be a strong leader that could help restore a kind of world order that valued stability and Democratic Values . Its the United States. When you see the europeans are doing something, they do it on a regional scale like france, italy there trying to institute in libya or in lebanon its always on a small reaching scale and not on a larger scale but the world order that exist today is an American World order. This is a world order that established after world war ii and led especially led by the United States. People want American Leadership and a lot of people basically criticize the u. S. Every step of the way, allies and now theyre like they realize that so with all due respect to the chinese and the russians who complained about the United States and unfortunately we dont have a lot of citizens complain this is global world order from everyone and i can make the argument that china is winning this today because of the opportunities given to it by the global order established by the United States. It helped japan and europe after world war ii and created the foundations so a lot of countries, you know, enemies and friends can use in order to help people for the Better Future bid now granted its not perfect, nothing is perfect in this world they have problems with it but sometimes the problem is with us and sometimes the problem is not with us but other people but towards the end you cannot say that this world order that was established and led by the United States is not produced for the human race like the human race has ever seen in its history on planet earth. But the postworld war ii order and from then on an American Leadership establishing this order the International Order and when we switch to what you talk about all the time which is the global order and you see kind of the downside of globalization there are a lot of massive issues that will have to be dealt with and some of them have to do with technology and some had to do with a whole new layer of threat coming our way whether its Climate Change, pandemic and economy, you know, refugees being created so in terms of the way forward do you see the need for a new kind of global order and may be based on the old one but a little more robust in the 21st century threat and its recoupable and just going through a bad time and that has to be over in more than substance . I dont think it will be the same anymore for the great thing about the United States is you have nato and the eu and other International Organizations and agreements and in a way for a reason and in the world and in the world order. Its not only American Leadership but basically allowing everyone to lead that umbrella and an bringing almost all the countries in the world and able to bring our allies and our adversaries to the table with the iran deal and we were able to do a lot of successes but unfortunately i dont believe in Climate Change or whatever it is and i dont like the ppp because china is stealing our money but lets give all the money to china and 11 nations over the dad [inaudible] betray them economically and i dont like nato because they dont pay their fee, you know, and then you pull out of these agreements in your beginning the cornerstone of the International Order we are the biggest losers. A lot of our audience has asked about terrorism. About al qaeda, isis, instability because of terrorism youve been talking about the renewal of forces of al qaeda about whats going on with isis and can you talk about how you see the threat and particularly in terms of how you evaluate it in terms of larger state actor threats and regional threats and how should we think about terrorism these days . Sure, look, [inaudible] al qaeda, for example, the calculus of al qaeda changed with Osama Bin Laden changing it [inaudible] with the arab spring he decided he needed to go from phase one to phase two in the strategy so his strategy was called managing [inaudible] dont want terrorism to weaken the International Order or regional order and were talking about american position but when that order weakened and collapsed you moved because the agents for the americans and look at the arab spring as an invitation for that fall. Now al qaeda was shifting to phase two [inaudible] in order to prevent this vacuum from being filled because as Osama Bin Laden said whoever will feel the vacuum will be that american agent so that is the policy and the policy is to create vacuum and create chaos. In the last final instructions to his commanders said i know what im telling you meaning muslims will be killed because we have to kill them to say them and we have to kill them to save them. [inaudible] how theyre embedded in the yemen war or how they are embedded in the local conflict in somalia or how are embedded in the north african theater especially in one of your earlier questions and yeah, al qaeda strategically was way more dangerous than isis and that the pentagon says [inaudible] this is al qaeda. Al qaeda is way bigger than it used to be and they are more area under their control. Their narrative is popular among so many people all the way from the Western Shores of africa to southeast asia. The caliphate was defeated. However, isis did not go away and as long as the conditions that allowed isis to happen in the first place did exist and isis will come back. In afghanistan and boca around and in north africa and they have isis now on mozambique in east africa so theyre all doing terrorist attacks and they are grouping and [inaudible] i think they were able to recover 300 million before they started losing so they have money and people in jail but eventually these neck nations wont prosecute them or put them in jail but these people started to escape and get out of these concentration camps in refugee camps or whatever you call them and isis can recruit so isis is still dangerous and we see every day more and more terrorist attacks in syria and iraq which indicates the resurgence of the islamic state. This is from the shiite prospective iran and they came up with the idea of basically copying the saudis and we say what they did with hezbollah and it was successful so they are trying to copy that model in yemen and in iraq and they appear to be successful at replicating it in both of these countries and now you know after you know we spend a lot of treasure and money in iraq it seems politically that iranians have more control of whats happening in that country than the United States just using nonstate actors and a lot of these are groups that [inaudible] same thing with yemen gave them a day in the southern arabian peninsula. You know, i think we have violent extremist groups very popular among a lot of, you know, people in the middle east and they dance to the tune of regional powers or to terrorist organizations and this makes the region even more dangerous. From the terrorism perspective we see in a new threat emerging in the west which is extremism and this time its not domestic as it used to be but it is transnational network and they are copying the jihadist and learning from the jihadist experience and i believe there in the same level of where the g hotties were in the 90s and they even have their own go to ukraine and fight him both sides of the conflict and they go on side the russian side under the Russian Movement and those guys come back to their countries with a mission to create division and be seen that in the United States. They went to ukraine and they made it their operational, you know, activities in ukraine came back with the united the right rallies. This is a new threat and i think this is way more dangerous to us than any other. What does this tell us about our world that we have all thes thats what happened. The lack of leadership is, you know, it will go all over the place. You talked about the conditions they give rise to isis and say if the conditions continue and im assuming you would spread that across the other groups whether its the White Supremacist Group or whether its resurgence in al qaeda but what exactly do you need by the conditions that give rise to this or is this something that is going to continue and doesnt have anything to do with the transmission and the big question of the nationstate but what does that mean the conditions and is this management or what is this about . I think it is a good question in the condition is there and it allows it to exist al qaeda to grow. Both with isis if you think about iraq and the divisions in iraq about what happens about globalization after saddam and security and sit down and saying youre on your own because you are a part of that party and the destruction of that and so many things that became a collapse many things led to that and then the government that was support but did not support the groups and so many things led to that and we can go to al qaeda in yemen which basically a lot of the conditions that allowed them to grow today were very different sometimes than the condition that allows al qaeda and the [inaudible] how theyre getting together in order to establish some kind of an area of control and its different than taking advantage of two clinical parties where thats the only, the only coin being used in their currency and al qaeda shaping itself to be beneficial of the secretary and divide so its different with the white supremacist yeah unfortunately its always existed in the left and we always have whites from z. We always have White Supremacy in the states but we see today is different than what we see most of the conditions that allow these groups to grow our external conditions and being supported by outside countries, specifically russia. They are fighting against the russians in ukraine and fighting with the russians and we work closely find this amazing success in the state department for the very First Time Ever a White Supremacist Organization is naked as a terrorist organization and they are trying to [inaudible] have them travel to st. Petersburg and have them have that experience in ukraine and then come back and do whatever they want to do and create more divisions and wars in society and they are doing it in the uk, france, germany and a lot of other places. Now the leaders of groups when they see the pressure from the fbi because everything they do is protected by the Second Amendment is okay and they go to russia. Were fighting against the russians but here we are when they are escaping they are making videos from outside the kremlin so yes, global powers that is a Disinformation Campaign making these people look bigger than they are on social media and a lot of us are falling for it. Still like the First Amendment. , big First Amendment guy. But you know what, there are rules and regulations but were not talking about being a bigot. If you want to make an ass of yourself, go and make an aspect of yourself but where we need to start having a conversation is about the fight. You cant do whatever you want but you know right to take an ak47 and shoot people praying in the synagogue or in a black church. This stops here and this is where we need to basically put the domestic terrorism wars in the United States. He blew up a building, a Federal Building and we cannot indict him on terrorism because it doesnt exist. In fact they checked the website for al qaeda it would not be a terrorism case. But everyone thanks of him as a terrorist. Hes referred to as a terrorist and was tried on legally he is not but you should know that towards the end prosecutors dont go about what people think about individuals. Prosecutors and fbi agents know the law and you know so many things that you read about these days are trying to do a terrorist attack and the fbi stopped them and the judge asked the prosecutor will efile prosecution prosecution or terrorism charges in the prosecution says there would be no domestic terrorism laws and they have to give them let them go and they may need to prosecute them on telecommute negation act. So your criticism of it is based on investigative powers ahead of the crime rather than after the crime. Yeah, absolutely. Whyd we need to wait for all these people to be murdered when this guy can be stopped before murdering them and get arrested [inaudible] that goes back to your other issue with conditions that create these circumstances what are the reps in the society that can be addressed outside the law which i is a whole another conversation but i think but this is the kind of thing with our leadership on a bipartisan basis dont deal with it now. Unfortunately it starts having roots even though it was sent to us from russia and so i think we need to be very careful about this. It is not like there are no good people on both sides. This is interesting because you talked about Going Forward i think one of the issues at the heart of the black banners and what it means to know what happens and as you say how it happens is the issue of accountability. It seems of any note from the use of torture in the use of other powers that were extensive and overused and we seen no accountability for the quagmire that wonton will bay has gotten us into and degradation of the law and the court system and the accountability question is over in terms of the war on terrorism . Do think there will be some form of countability somehow, somewhere . If not, what does this mean Going Forward in terms of what tethers individuals leaders in particular from using these kinds of messages when secrecy is not, you know, punished and crimes that take place outside the constitution that destroyed international and military law. How do you see that plane out . Thats a loaded question. [laughter] dont worry, we only have one minute left. Okay, one minute. I think accountability is extremely important in accountability and transparency go hand in hand. A lot of people complain about what we are seeing now with President Trump and the Trump Administration but we have to remember that culture did not happen out of thin air and did not happen in 2016. That has been going on for a long time and for decades and its been going on for decades because two reasons. Lack of transparency and lack of accountability. The happen too many administrations before. In democracy its important to have discussions about all these issues on torture in the role in iraq and on nafta and on anything. But these discussions need to be rooted with facts and truth. If we dont have that that will be significant damaging to our democracy and that will be the beginning of the end of our political system so its extremely important to have transparency and extreme important to have accountability because without it we dont have democracy but nobody wants to go back and talk about all these things because everybody is guilty. Now, tom took it to a different level but thats 70 of the public believe that. Generally they have their own because they were lied to as a part of the Disinformation Campaign. How many people are held accountable that for what we talked about earlier to develop the guarantees. How many people are held accountable . It resulted in the death of 3,000 people and changing the world as we know it. How many people were held accountable . So, it is extremely important in the democracy to have transparency and have accountability. At least like they did in south africa for people to make up their mind. Because that is what cleanses your soul and i think we are in the position in America Today that we need to be cleansed in order to move forward. I think that encapsulated not only Holding People accountable Going Forward. Let me ask you the one question i always ask at the end given this scenario that we have portrayed of the world of our own existence as a country. Where do you see signs of hope . You know, im always hopeful. I look at the problems and i believe that we as americans can find solutions for this. We have the civil rights movement, and we always come out stronger. We mess up a lot, but [inaudible] i believe this world we live in needs American Leadership, and i believe the world is looking for us to lead. If we dont, its going to be a big problem and im going to be pessimistic. I dont have hope for you. But i hope that we reach the position where we have a brighter future. So good to have you back for a sequel may be. Talking about that piece of it, can we get through this time as you pointed out it didnt start with donald trump. This is something you when i talk about all the time. We can talk about it again, but its a pleasure to talk to you. I hope people didnt forget we were talking about the book. [laughter] people should read both versions because it gives you a deeper sense of what was hidden and of what the intentions were behind classifying this. So, i thank you so much for joining us. For the listeners, i want to apologize. Ive never seen so many questions in my life. I got to as many as i could. For those of you who want to continue the conversation in a little different way, october 1st we have an event that will be on japanese were crime tribunals which is a discussion about guantanamo. With a guantanamo defense attorney and students of japanese war crimes. So, join us again on october 1st. Dont forget to buy the book, even if you bought the redacted classified. And join me in my tremendous thanks for ali soufan for all of his work and continued education in the public and for his spirit of keeping us all thinking and thinking productively. Thank you
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