Transcripts For CSPAN2 Ali Soufan The Black Banners Declassified 20240711

He is the founder of the Dupont Center and his specialty is Global Security, everything from governance culture to state actors and nonstate actors and im going to try to explore as much of that todayas we can. I want to find out each day the Dupont Center publishes. [inaudible] 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 White Supremacy to whats happening with al qaeda and isis and regional powers and i encourage you to read it every day. I also encourage you to read the morning brief which they Stephan Group sponsored at the National Security produces in the 14th year and bring you the news every day about what you should be thinking about about National Security in a variety of dimensions. Ali, thank you for joining me today. Welcome. Please dont stay mute, this is your conversation. I want to start by talking about the book and then were going to turn to other things. And as you know you can buy this book online by pushing the button that says to buy. And if you have any questions along the way put it in the chat andeventually after talking i will get to them. I want tostart with the title of the book. When the book came out in 2011 it was subtitled the inside story of 9 11 andthe war against al qaeda. Now it focuses on culture. Some of that is because so much of what was redacted and classified had to do with torture, your involvement in and interviews with al qaeda suspects and others. I want to get to the railing the war on terror before we get to whats actually different about this edition of the book. Lets talk a little bit about how the war on terror was the real and how that came to light. When i wrote the book back in 2008 it was supposed to be a book recounting my own personal experience in the war on terror. I found the book to be a publication and in part a conversation but based on facts, based on reality, based on all the successes that we had until then and actually the success of other figures but also all the successes we had in our response methods. The 2000 two iraq war for example, torture is another example so when i took the book to thefbi , it was a productive process and we had to change a couple of things which did not create any problems for me because these things were kind of within the boundaries of any prepublication visit. Unfortunately after the review i quickly extended it to the agency and initially the agencys review was good but then as you seen pronouns were being reenacted, anything that has to do with what happened against a terrorist suspect, how we get information that we really claimed later on, all these things were redacted so i again, while torture did not work, this is not how we got the information regarding that state. How we identify mohammed as a mastermind of 9 11. If you have a problem in what happened and if you were telling the truth about what took place in these Interrogation Rooms you would be heavily censored and heavily redacted. After nine years of fighting and after the yield clinic to jump to help alex and ray who challenge the reductions on the First Amendment grounds government asked if they can do another review and the review was very fair. And of the most part everything they redacted has been unredacted and now people can read exactly what happened. The very First Edition of the book was about the war on terrorism in general and everything that happened from the day in london with the jihad and the United States in 1986 until his death in may. So now it is we are in the same book but we are so much information that has been classified initial security grounds the first time and it makes it another book but it was a piece that did not exist in most of that piece has to do with the Technique Program with torture when you read it when you see it you will see how that program was devastating to u. S. Interests and devastating to our success or the lack thereof in the war on terror. I want to take this opportunity there to also thank the cia and leadership of the cia for taking this amazing step of institutional transparency and declassified the black banners so people cannot read the truth because what i said in the black banners back in 2001 my firsthand experience, right, it wasnt about Interrogation Rooms but i saw what was happening and i saw the disinformation and in many instances i personally got the information and when you look into this and say okay, your account is being declassified what you are admitting it is the truth. You dont classify lies. If i was lying they wouldve said in 2011 no, this guy is full of it and line but they classified it on National Security grounds so now ironically that helped the truth in the long run and now when people read what happened with al qaeda or what happened with [inaudible] or what happened with different people that we gave them aliases in the book it was now the truth and they would know they rely to buy so many people who took all these successes and made it as the result of the socalled interrogation techniques. That is why the stipulation was made to change the subtitle of the book to focus on enhanced interrogation techniques because this was a person will read exactly what happened in the Interrogation Room and a you have a front seat to the Interrogation Room. So, it is a rare occurrence for something to become declassified the way by a former official in the way yours has been declassified. Probably unprecedented in your particular case and in your circumstances. Why do you think it got declassified . To think it has anything to do with the report or does it have to do with the cia trying to send a different message . How do you account for this . I think, first of all, i am grateful for the law clinic and grateful for all the people who helped and supported for david kelly my attorney who, you know was with me from day one fighting the bureau and the agency for the declassified station but i do believe that a lot of people wrongfully and you and i talked about this belief that the torture program was a cia and i dont believe the cia was a cia program and you have these discussions, you and i before. The torture program even the cia Inspector General defined it as a cpc program that is a unit within the cia and a lot of people a lot of officers who were not under cdc and you will see it now in the book were against this program more than i was. So, that is why so many people from the field went and complained to the Inspector General and the Inspector General with the investigation in their investigation or in his investigation he made it clear that he cannot find the right to be eminent in number two basically said yes, the Interrogation Program worked, traditional irrigation worked but its a subjective matter and very difficult and we are so its very clear but he defined it as the cdc program. The second mistake of a lot of people made that it was every versus every cia. Im glad the book has now been unredacted because it shows was not i versus cia but washington hiring a contractor to oversee a program bigger than him and bigger than basically the cdc at the time and how now we look at everything that happened when we find out what i was talking about in 2002 and it is not open redacted people can read and now you can see its happened. For example, we cannot prosecute any of these people for anything even though they have american blood on their hands because of what they went through at the black site. I believe there is a lot of new people in the cia and a lot of new people in the government that believe in what the cia Inspector General concluded that believe in what im saying and that believe in what the report came up with. Those people were not involved in all the problems of the past and they didnt make these decisions in the past but those people left. I think a lot of people wanted to turn the page and wanted to put everything out and there is a transparency here that we did not see in the lasted two decades or anything. That is why the timing of the release of this book is extreme important. We face today of political culture based on alternative facts and partisan talking points and on securities this is not just trump but this has been setting in our political culture for a long time which we see with trump is just, you know, a step towards the next logical step, if you want to call it to what has happened. So if you recall one of these issues was a partisan issue and if you believe in waterboarding you are most probably a republican and if you dont most probably democrat and they make everything a partisan issue and that is why President Trump or at the time candidate trump was saying i want to bring back waterboarding because it was the race issue and that can bring the cheers of the crowd but now you will have the opportunity to see the facts behind it and to see the truth behind the disinformation about the effect and efficacy of the interrogation techniques and waterborne rating. You will see how its only Different Levels operationally and strategically totally failed and hurt our National Security interest. Lets talk about that because we often hear the phrase and this is also been partisan or whatever that verb is that which is that torture doesnt work. And ive always been curious what does that statement mean . Its attending so many Different Things and it means you dont get information and you dont get the information at all or a means you get that information and it means a variety of things that we can talk about institutionally down the road like not been able to try people but when you say torture doesnt work, eit didnt work so talk about the universe youre talking about. You are right. It means eight lots of things but i want to talk about it from the other perspective. I will not show you down the road that every country that torture is not a stable country. I dont want to go back and show you that the terrorism we have today came out of the egyptian jail because they were torturing. I will not go down that path. Lets talk about the United States. We are a nation based on laws we have constitutions and amendments and these inhumane treatments, right . We took an oath to protect the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic and these constitutional protections have speedy trial, have, you know, treatment and of all these 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 like Ronald Reagan and said that shining city on the hill we advocate for human rights and we have a report every year that goes from state department saving and calling and allies who practice sleep deprivation, nudity, temperature manipulation and these things are taken from the 2002 state Department Report about allied countries in the world when we do it ourselves so when you have significant contradiction between the laws and between who we are as a nation and between what we say publicly and then tween our strategy when these things dont go hand in hand together its a total failure. It sits within what if you know yourself and your enemy you will win 100 times out of 100 battles but if you forget about yourself and have no clue about the enemy you will fail. That is why members of al qaeda on the eve of 911 called the United States trillions of dollars just become 40000 members today and now theyre not only in afghanistan but all across the muslim world and in somalia, yemen, uganda and im not even mentioning isis which came out of al qaeda and lasted in a war that was longer than world war i, world war ii altogether and guess what . We are in such a dangerous situation today that is because of these positions and because of Strategic Perspective our laws and our strategy did not, were not in sync together. This is number one. Operationally speaking its a total different situation. Remember this disaster and everybody agreed upon and even President Trump and the biggest disaster is the iraq war and we went to iraq we invaded a country and hundreds of thousands of people are dead and trillions of dollars wasted and you name it and we gave new birth for al qaeda and ultimately we gave birth to [inaudible] but look at the time they wanted evidence that saddam and al qaeda were working together and everyone in the cia and fbi who these things we know they were not but that was not good enough, right . He worked with al qaeda and they tortured him and then they said yes, we are working together. And we are developing together so we took this information to the United Nations critic council and i think everybody remembers secretary Powell Holding that small little tube with no nod him and talking about how al qaeda and saddam are working together to develop [inaudible] which would be devastating in any city and when we went to iraq we saw everything was a lie. Even colin powell was forced to go into it and it did not make sense but thats one thing and i said to him why did you lie and he said when he was torturing me i would give you anything you wanted to hear. Operationally speaking there is a big difference between compliance and between cooperation. Compliance is when i get what i want to hear. Dick cheney wants to hear Osama Bin Laden working together but will torture a guy and he will give that information and he gets is war and thats exactly what happened. Its difficult for us to go to the white house and say well, we wont torture and use that information because they get the information they want and so now cooperation you get the truth. Theres a difference between compliance and between cooperation. We dont have unlimited resources to change around the world because of the false information they were getting because of waterboarding but we wanted status and what you see in this book of how we are getting facts. Now [inaudible] and some of the threats for example about the Brooklyn Bridge for example they were watching tv and watching the movie they showed how many infidels would die if we blow up that bridge and then suddenly were hearing on television less than 24 hours on cnn that we are watching al qaeda will low up the Brooklyn Bridge but thats a big gap between what we reported and what had been sold to the American Public at the time so i think theres a big difference between compliance and cooperation. This is from an operational perspective but the other elements of the operation that we do all the time is basically justice and it can be a military or intelligent or legal justice and what we have today are people who have blood on their hands. We have a mastermind who admitted killing more than 3000 americans and he admitted that. And we cannot him even in a military court because of what they went through under this program and the cia Inspector General warned about that in 2004 and all these things into those before but towards the end we will have a lot of people [inaudible] 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 i just want to talk about guantanamo and the motor commissions and how torture has affected them because there is a disconnect and we want to charge them but its hard to get on the evidence that comes from torture and hard to get on the fact that all of these things complicate a just legal process. To think there ever will be tried . I dont know. I think it will be a difficult situation. I seriously, you know, i think some of these guys went through lack sites and a lot of the information became tainted and now how do you proceed with the prosecuting someone when you are trying to classify the time. That they were in a black banner and thats the complexity and why 19 years after 911 and we still cannot prosecute mohammed or [inaudible] and the case was so strong and believe me i know because i was a case agent. We held the yemenis to prosecute him in yemen and suddenly they had more roles of evidence we have in the states because they do not want to prosecute him and we were able to find a yemeni judge to convict him and sentenced him to death so we know what we have in our own case files but unfortunately he was arrested and when not allow because of the torture program and in now we have Guantanamo Bay and People Killed to include sailors for the murder in 2000 and the gulf of [inaudible] still waiting justice. One of the questions are audience, somebody who worked in the middle east and heard frequently how damaging the [inaudible] episode was to the United States and do think weve moved beyond that episode . If not, what do we need to do to move down that episode and what is great about the United States that we eventually do the right thing. I think the whole world is seen all these things happening and they are seen people like john mccain standing up, god rest his soul, and you know, somebody like me and they are seen men and women in the military and in the cia and the fbi going to their Inspector General and complaining about what they had to have to see in these sites. We are seen what happened with the black banners right now and after nine years its been unredacted and they can know the truth about the program and this is all positive for america and all positive that everything happening there is still some light, and may be dim but it is still there in that light on the shining city on the hill. I agree with [inaudible] that if you hear a lot of the hearings that took place at the Armed Services committee on the iraq war basically the images of abu grade recruiting more foreign fighters to fight in iraq than anything else and it benefited al qaeda and benefited [inaudible] at the time tremendously so yeah, they were disastrous for us and for the iraqi people frankly. 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 it. Every country in the world is allowing us and unfortunately we have a huge [inaudible] but i think the United States will move past this. I want to talk about the middle east region in the tremendous instability in the region unless you want to tell me its more stable than i am suggesting and the iraq war began a process that has unraveled to this day and you look at yemen and syria you look at the difficulties of the afghan peace talks and you see this as any positive direction so how should we see whats happening regionally . I think the middle east has always been a mess but now the mass is a way bigger mess. You cannot disconnect between whats happening today in between the United States losing our leadership in the war. I think we are abdicating world order that we established after world war ii and you see that in europe and we see that in our nato allies and us pulling out of International Agreements and we see it by us abdicating the fight against covid, for example in this is the first time we have a Global Crisis without a Global Leadership from the United States and you see it with Climate Change and you see it getting it out of there Global Pandemic and somebody elses always willing to fill the gap and you see, you know, democratic regimes like china and russia are more than eager to fill the vacuum the started to happen and [inaudible] and now in the middle east the general and the iranians are referring trying to establish an arc of insolence using shiite nonstate actors all the way with the sudanese in yemen and to the shiite militias in pakistan and afghanistan and some of the shiite groups in syria and [inaudible] in 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, you know, reclaim what they believe on their own historical Ottoman Empire and you see them using the nonstate actors in syria and libya and only thing happening because the United States is nowhere to be found. When we have allies we stand up, fight with us, lead with us and there is one thing that we are guaranteeing for them in the last four years and they will be betrayed. You seen that with 11000 fighters died fighting isis for the United States, in a way. Definitely to protect themselves and their cities but they are not the people we can depend on but look at the afghanistan government. We started to negotiate with the taliban and kept them on the side an hour trying to bring them government into it after we already had agreements and we did not even consult with the Afghan Government about the prisoner issue but we just decided under the taliban it would happen. We think of afghani president or that policeman or soldier fighting alongside the United States will pick out and i am on against the taliban and they will kill me and everybody remembers what happens between hezbollah and the taliban took over kabul so i see a lot of these things are creating an environment thats 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 our enemies dont fear us and our allies really dont trust us. Yeah, looking home a little bit, one of the things you read about these days is what happened with the state department into the diplomatic agenda that the United States had an is that part of what has gone awry and what needs to be fixed Going Forward . Does there need to be more diplomacy and more robust state department and what more than that would take to reassert some kind of leadership . What is our strategy and were always abdicated from the use to mean something and i thought [inaudible] democracy, human rights and now it seems we are so happy that we say asked after he murdered the Washington Post journalist and dismembered him into pieces. Where are we and what is our strategy in order to have a Divine Initiative you need to have strategic view of the world and where are the thoughts today the g hotties do not go away and we have new threats emerging from russia and new threats emerging from china and we have a new kind of like power struggle that we are having with the chinese that has economic and Political Base and have their own version of global strategy with the road and Belt Initiative and what do we have . Where are we and we dont have relationships with a couple allies who basically are paying for that relationship and that is not diplomatic initiatives and not the diplomatic way. Now we see ourselves losing face with many of our allies in asia for example and many african nations have looked towards china already. Iran, turkey, saudis and they Work Together throughout history to nominate them in the middle east and dominate the sunni and arabs. But the United States is nowhere to be found and unfortunately this is, i believe, the number one strike against the United States today. Its not radicalization or terrorism or disinformation but us losing our global position in the world because when we lose it thats it. Somebody else will fill the vacuum. And having a strategy in other words. We will lose it if you dont know what were doing. There are a bunch of questions but some of them i will read a couple of them. How do you see the trend of arab normalization impacting the middle east and you think it will be in the direction of more Global Security . Do you think growth of nonstate armed groups such as hq im is a threat to u. S. Interests and many more but i give you just those two . I think what we have seen anytime you have an arab state [inaudible] but we need to basically get to the bottom of it. How much impact that will have on the arab street . Not much. I think this is, i believe, this is a pr stunt and it will help [inaudible] who did not show up, by the way and it will help him if there is a bargain administration and remember, it would involve neither sections rejected in the Mueller Report about the meeting in new york in about the meeting in the seashell and about the russian so there are a lot of people who are involved with Obama Administration and so i think in this way its a winwin situation. We cannot do anything for the emirates because we have to support it and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will get what he wants over there and this will not change the situation on the ground and the people who are enemies to the state of israel are still for the state of israel and those doing business under the table with the state of israel now are doing business over the table with the state of israel. That is what has been accomplished and im happy in a way whats happening over the table and i am more transparent and transparency is hopefully to help other people so its not the end of the world and but towards the end will that solve the conflict . Will that solve the situation with hezbollah or iran or the situation with hamas and gaza or the situation with all these different groups in the arab world . The answer is very simple. No. We have, i am trying to find something that will have a good end. What is your perspective on lebanon and its future . To think it can wiggle itself out of the saudi arabia rivalry . On now its not only saudi arabia and iran but now, macron and the french are trying to regain some of their historical relationship with lebanon trying to influence the government in turkey finds an opportunity to come also in regain the ottoman influence and whatever france is uc turkey challenging them in uc libya and now lebanon. Poor lebanon. As i write the black banner is one for the history books and they teach us that in school, believe it or not. That every second lebanon belongs to her country so it always danced to the tune of france and the orthodox to russia and the jews with england and the sunnis with the Ottoman Empire and that is basically something that has been ingrained in the psyche of generations of the country and unfortunately it is continuing to happen today and it is the theater that is reflecting the regions of the region is having a lot of difficulties you will see a lot of difficulties in lebanon. If the region is not having difficulties and we are moving towards, you know, better coexistence lets call it between the different powers then you will seem lebanon doing great. Basically the solution in lebanon and the key to peace in lebanon is not and definitely [inaudible] someone asked about the weakening of the price of oil due to the global drop in demand as a result of coronavirus pandemic. Could we see another but its not only because of that appeared remember, what happened when [inaudible] decided to fight russia and did a price war with russia and that price went down during the epidemic and then we had the gallon minus 302 take crimea and so its just like a really, uncalculated move as usual as we expect them very uncalculated and created significant damage into the saudi economy, frankly. I want to ask you about, you talk about use leadership but 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 would be a strong leader that would help restore the kind of world order that valued civility and democratic values. I hate to tell you no one but its the United States. Europeans are doing something, they do it on a regional scale, you know, like france and italy and trying in libya or in lebanon and its always on a small regional scale, it is not on the longer scale but the world order that exists today is an American World order. This is a world order established after world war ii and it fled after the collapse of the sodium union and led by the United States. People want American Leadership. A lot of people who basically criticize the u. S. Every step of the way, allies and foes, now they are like where are the americans . You know what . With all the respect of the chinese and russians and every buddy who complained about the United States and importuning out we have a lot of our citizens complaining about us and our role in the world this is global world order and i can make the argument that china is today because the opportunities given to us by the global order that was established by the United States and help 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 and look for the better future. Granted, its not perfect and nothing is perfect in this world and there are problems with it but sometimes the problems are with us and sometimes it is not with us but other people but towards the end you cannot say that this world order was established and led by the United States and did not produce prosperity for the human race like the human race has never seen in its history on planet earth. But the postworld war ii order and from then on an American Leadership in establishing this order was the International Order. When you talk about the global order and you see kind of the downside of the globalization there are a lot of massive issues that will have to be dealt with in some of them have to do with technology and some have to do with whole new layer of that coming our way, whether 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 . Based on the old one but that was a little more robust in the 21st century thread . Or do you think that its recoupable and we are just going through a bad time and that has to do with governance more than the substance . I dont think it will be the same anymore but the great thing about the United States and the way we lead the world is that we have our allies with us. You have nato and you have other International Organizations and agreements and the United Nations and basically establish the United Nations that shows the position of the United States is not only American Leadership but basically allowing everyone to lean under that umbrella and i think we have been successful in bringing almost all the countries in the world to the Paris Agreement with Climate Change and are able to bring our allies and our adversaries to the table with the iran deal and we are able to do a lot of successes but unfortunately when you just walk out and say i dont like Climate Change because i dont believe in Climate Change or whatever it is and i dont like the ppp because, you know, china is taking our money but okay, so lets give all of asia to china and take away the strategic that we have to guarantee 11 nations that will have the United States back to lean with the chinese and lets leave them alone and betray them economically and i dont like nato because they dont pay their fees and then we pull out from each one that are weakening the cornerstone of the International Order and towards the end if that temple should fall we are the biggest losers. A lot of our audience has asked about terrorism. About al qaeda and isis and instability because of terrorism in iraq and elsewhere in you have been talking a lot about the renewal of forces of al qaeda and about whats really going on with isis and can you talk a little bit about just how you see the threat and particularly in terms of how you evaluate it in terms of larger state actor threats or regional threats . How should we think about terrorism these days . Sure, look, lets look at the isis threats and this did not go away. Just because were not reporting about it on American Television because trump doesnt read about it doesnt mean it doesnt exist in the world. Hundreds of thousands of the world are still victimized by this hateful ideology and narrative. Al qaeda, for example the calculus of al qaeda changed and Osama Bin Laden changed it before the navy seals took him down. With the arab spring Osama Bin Laden decided he needed to go from phase one to phase two in his strategy. The strategy is called managing [inaudible] phase one is terrorism to weaken the International Order or regional order and then when that order collapsed and were talking american position and when that weekend and collapsed you move to phase two because the agents for the americans in these muslim countries will fall they will become weak and fall and look at the arab spring as an indication for that. Now, al qaeda will shift to phase ii and phase two is to invest themselves in these insurgencies happening in order to prevent this vacuum from being filled because as Osama Bin Laden said before his death whoever fills the vacuum would be the american agent in the region so that is their policy. The policy is to create chaos and in those last final instructions for his commanders said i know that many muslims will be killed and if we have to kill them to save them we have to kill them to save them. If you look at their strategy and how they are embedded in the summary and civil war or in the yemen war or how they are embedded in the local conflict in somalia or how they are competitive in the north african theater especially which is one of the earlier questions then yeah, al qaeda strategically was way more dangerous than isis and the pentagon said it is way more dangerous to the United States strategy and the reason so this is al qaeda. Al qaeda is way bigger than it used to be and they have more area under control. This narrative is popular among so many people all the way from the Washington Shores of africa to southeast asia. Isis was defeated and the caliphate was defeated however, isis did not go away. Isis today is where al qaeda needs to be and they would regroup as long as the conditions allowed isis to happen in the first place isis will come back and we will start seeing afghanistan and became the isis province in west africa and they have it in mozambique and east africa so they are doing terrorist attacks and they are regrouping and they have a Global Network and i think they were able to recover 300 million before they have money and operatives and they have people in jail but eventually the western countries and the nations and putting them in jail and eventually people start to escape and get out of these concentration camps in refugee camps or whatever you call them and, you know, isis can recruit so isis is still there and dangerous and we see every day more and more terrorist attacks in syria and iraq which indicates the resurgence of the islam state so this is from the sunni perspective but from the shiite perspective iran they came up with the idea of basically copying the saudis extremists and using shiite extremists and it was very successful so they are trying to copy that model and their successful in replicating it in both of these countries and now even after we spend, you know, a lot of treasure and money in iran it seems politically that iranians have more control of whats happening than just using nonstate actors like hezbollah and a lot of these groups that also moved to syria to support and same thing with hezbollah in lebanon and it became a very important car they fly and same thing with helping in yemen which gave them a base in the southern peninsula. You know, i think we have violent extremist groups that are very active and popular among a lot of, you know, a lot of 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. But from the terrors perspective we see a new threat emerging and its not domestic as it used to be and part of a transnational network and learning from the jihadi experience because were seen where they were in the 90s they go to ukraine on fire on both sides of the conflict and the washington side under the russian trivial movement and folks they include across the western world and those guys come back to the country with the mission to create division and we seen that in the United States and weve seen that some of the people that wants ukraine for operational activities in ukraine and came back to do the rallies and unite the right rally. I think today according to the government and according to this decision with the fbi its way more dangerous than any other. So what does this tell us about our world that we have all these, you know,. Thats what happened and you know, it wasnt perfect but the lack of leadership is like a rudderless ship. It will go all over the place. You talk about the conditions that give rise to isis and you say if these conditions continue with for that across these other groups that are White Supremacists or whether its resurgent and al qaeda and what exactly do we mean by the conditions they give rise to this or is this just something that is going to continue and does it have anything to do with transformation of the question of the nations is this management or what is the picture about . I think it is a good question and the condition varies but even the conditions that allow isis to exist is very different than the conditions that allow al qaeda to grow. Both [inaudible] we have to think about iraq and the secretary and division and about what happened after saddam and getting rid of the security the militia leaders of saddam insane youre out because of your part of the other party and the destruction and so many things that became a secretary in collapse in many things led to that and then the government through very anti sunni in support and did not support the sunnis who are basically standing up for the extremists and so many things led to that and we think al qaeda in yemen which basically a lot of the conditions that allow them to grow today are very similar or very different sometimes than the conditions that allow al qaeda to grow in al qaeda and islamic whats happening with molly and between arabs and how they are getting together in order to establish some kind of area between control and its different than taking advantage in Political Parties between iraq and is the only coin being used in that currency. Al qaeda is shaping itself to be beneficial of this secretary and divide. It is different. The white supremacist unfortunately it always existed in the west. We always had White Supremacy. We always had whites of primacy in the United States but what we counted today is different. Most of the conditions that allow in this groups to grow our basically external conditions and they are being supported by outside countries, specifically russia. Russia is supporting white supremacist groups were fighting against the russians in the ukraine and fighting with the russians and we worked state closely and we have this amazing success in designating state department designated whites a Promising Group when the russian is a terrorist organization the very First Time Ever terrorist or White Supremacist Organization was named as a terrorist organization and they are trying to basically get support for these people, have them travel to st. Petersburg, go and have that experience in ukraine and then they come back to do whatever they want to do, you know, create more divisions and create racial wars in societies and they are doing it in the uk, france, germany and a lot of other places. Now, the leaders of groups when they feel the pressure from the fbi they have a lot of pressure because everything they do is protected by the first or Second Amendment and then they move on and go to russia. We thought we are fighting against the russians in ukraine but here they are when they are escaping they are making videos from a cafe outside the kremlin. So yes, we have global powers that involved in this Information Campaign thats making these people look way bigger than they are on social media and a lot of us have fallen for it. Well, we still like the First Amendment spirit you know, im a big First Amendment guy. But you know what . There are rules and regulations but were not talking about if you want to be a bigot. If you want to be a bigot and make an ass of yourself go and be a bigot to make an aspect of yourself. I think where we need to stop having the conversation is about the violence. You cant do whatever you want you have no right to take an ak47 and start shooting people who are praying in a synagogue or in a black church. This stops here. This is where we need to basically put a stop to the domestic terror wars in the United States because even today they blew up a building, a federal building. We cannot indict him on terrorism because it doesnt exist. But if ms. They checked the website for al qaeda then he would be a terrorist. But everybody thanks of him as a terrorist. Hes referred to as a terrorist and he was tried on legally he is not. Karen, you should know that towards the end prosecutors dont go about what people say about the individual and we go in our prosecutors and fbi agents go with the law. So many one guy was heading to trying to do a terrorist attack on the fbi stopped him and then the judge as the prosecutor will you file prosecution or terrorism charges in the Prosecutor Says no because theres nothing about domestic terrorism and then they have to get let them go and maybe they will prosecute them on telecommuting asian act. But you are your criticism of that is based on investigative powers ahead of the crime rather than after the crime spirit yeah, absolutely. Why do we need to wait for all these people to be murdered when this guy could be stopped before murdering them and get arrested. And that goes back to your other issue which is what are the conditions that create these circumstances and what are the risks in the society that can be addressed outside the law and you know which is a whole other conversation that i think if you dont deal with the snow and her leadership on the bipartisan basis dont deal with it now i think unfortunately it will start having roots even though it was sent to us from russia. So i think we need to be very careful about this. It is not like there is good people on both sides. There is no good people on both sides. When you talk about Going Forward, i think one of the issues at the heart of the black banners and what it means to know what happened and as you say how it happened is the issue of accountability. We seen accountability of any note from the use of torture and with the use of other powers that were extensive and we have seen no accountability for the quagmire that guantanamo degradation of the law and of our court system and do think the accountable the question is over in terms of the war on terror . Do you think there will be some form of accountability somehow, somewhere and if not, what does that mean Going Forward in terms of what tethers individuals leaders, in particular, from using these kinds of messes when secrecy is not punished and crimes that take place outside the constitution outside of military law arent punished so how do you see that plane out . Thats a loaded question. We only have one minute left. [laughter] one minute. Okay. I think accountability is extreme important and accountability and this transparency go hand in hand. A lot of people complain about what they are seeing now with President Trump and the Trump Administration but they have to remember that is culture did not help happen out of thin air. That has been going on for a long time, decades. The reason it has been going on for decades is for two reasons. Lack of transparency, lack of accountability and we happened through many ministrations before. For democracy its important to have discussions. On the war in iraq, on nafta, on anything but these discussions need to be routed with facts and truth, not with alternative facts and emotions and if we dont have that that would be significantly damaging to our democracy and that would be the beginning of the end of our political system. Its extremely important to have transparency and extremely 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, yes, its a totally different level but that has happened before. Can you tell me how many people were held accountable for the iraq war . Thousands of people were killed. Isis. Al qaeda. How many people . How many people held accountable to convince the emerging people and to convince at least 70 of the mega people that saddam was behind 911 . 70 of the American People believe that. Basically, they did the research on their own but no they believe that because they were lied to as part of the domestic disInformation Campaign. How many people were held accountable . Promoted if we are on something. It is extremely important in democracy to have transparency and have that. Lets say you just put out there for people to make up the mind. I think we are in a position in America Today that we need our soul to be blessed to move forward. There was a good one and i think that encapsulated, i do think not holding anybody accountable will haunt us Going Forward. Let me ask you one question i always ask at the end, given the scenario we portrayed of the world of our own existence as a country, where do you see signs of hope . You do know me, i am always hopeful. I look at the problem and i believe we, as americans, we can find solutions. Gone through a civil war for heaven sake. We had the civil rights moveme movement, we voice, stronger. Yes, we mess up a lot we eventually get through and i believe this world, the world in which we live in needs American Leadership. I believe the world is looking for us to leave. If we dont, its going to be a big problem and ill be pessimistic and i dont have hope for you but if we do, hope in a position where we think of a brighter future. So we need to have you back for the sequel of this conversation may be in six months or year to talk about that, can we get through this time, this did not start with donald trump. A lot of it is tied to 9 11 so this is something you and i talk about all the time. It is such a pleasure to talk to you. I hope people didnt forget we were talking about the book. Oya. [laughter] central with Daniel Friedman and people should be both because reading both gives 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 our listen, i want to apologize, ive never seen so many questions in my life so i got to as many as i could. For those of you who want to continue this conversation. October 1, we have an event that will be on the tribunals which is a discussion about guantana guantanamo, and all the, defense attorney and students of japanese wartime. So join us again october 1, dont forget to buy the book, even if you bought the black banners redacted unclassified or whatever and joined me in my tremendous thanks for all his work and continued education and spirit for keeping us all thinking productively. Thank you. Thank you. You are watching tv on cspan2. Every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2. Created by americas Cable Television company as a Public Service brought to you today by your television provider. Weeknights this month, we are featuring tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan2 connect with focus on history. First, John Hopkins University history professor explores the when the right to vote. Then journalist david is the first wheelchair basketball team. Later, a book about the federal government forced migration of american a