Hello. Look of the politics prose bookstore. My name is alexis. Those of you who have been here before will of heard this already, but bear with me for the new people. Please silage or electronic devices, cell phones and anything that might make noise. We want to avoid awkward interruptions during the event. There will be a q a session. We would appreciate it if you would step up to the microphone to my left so the audience can hear you, the author can hear you and so cspan can hear you as well. I think i speak for everyone who has attended one of our events before when i ask you put your question the form of an actual question and when the event is over we would appreciate it if you could help out our staff by holding up your chair and leaning against something sturdy, are pleased to welcome ali soufan to turdy, so withoute way we are pleased to welcome ali soufan to discuss his new book, anatomy of terror from the death of bin laden to the rise of the islamic state. Hes a former fbi agent responsible for supervising terrorism cases for the bureau and is currently the ceo of a group providing Intelligent Services to government and multinational organizations. His first book was a New York Times top 10 bestseller in his latest book, anatomy of terror is a continuation of the work begun with the first volume. In anatomy of terror he explores the ways in which Osama Bin Ladens ideology far from dying with the terrorist has grown and evolved since his death ultimately it into the creation of the islamic state. I will leave it to our guests to delve deeper into this topic, so without further ado please join me in welcoming him to politics and prose. [applause]. Good evening. Good pleasure to be with you hear a politics and prose. When he went to do today is take about 15 to my 20 minutes to talk about the book and wire at the book and then i would like to have a more interaction relationship and hearing your questions. Im sure you have a lot of yet on your mind especially with what we see today. I was an fbi agents. I decided in 19 night signed up with the bureau in 1997 and signed to the new york office. At the time i wrote a memo about a guy i believed would be very very dangerous and his name is Osama Bin Laden at the time, you know, my immediate supervisors did not know much about Osama Bin Laden, but it made it all the way to the National Security in the new york office, john oneill and john knew that we have an ongoing case, very closely held in the Us Government between the fbi and cia in monitoring the activities of the sky, Osama Bin Laden who has been trying to create problems. At the time the Us Government was a viewing him as a financier of terrorism rather than an active in terrorism operations. After i wrote this memo, don told me that i need to focus on Osama Bin Laden. I was working other terrorist groups on the side focusing on iraq at the time because we considered iraq from an intelligence perspective we considered iraq a state sponsor of terrorism, so working for in counterintelligence against Iraqi Government in the us was being handled by the joint Terrorism Task force. , as at the time time i worked al qaeda and i worked Osama Bin Laden. After the east African Embassy bombing, i was shifted to focus mainly on al qaeda, so im in so many ways like forrest gump. I found myself in the middle of a lot of big investigations and at one point some of my commanders if you want to call them and al qaeda as saying by the way, you are in charge of this investigation. Im like okay. I will try to fix it out. I was lucky in a sense that i have i had a front to see to history unfolding in a lot of these things ended up in 9011 between in between 911 and the east african and the bombings i was involved in summary operations around the world that disrupted terrorists, so we were successful in stopping al qaeda and its network cut from conducting terrorist supplies in manchester, uk, saudi arabia, jordan during the millennium they wanted to assassinate the pope and a couple of hotels and border crossings with israel took the millennium could have an totally different if they were successful in doing so, so i have some experience in the organization, the group on how they think, the mentality and then 9 11 happen in the organization that attacked us on 9 11 is no more. We destroy that organization. We destroy their commandandcontrol in afghanistan for many of the leaders escaped afghanistan, some were killed some are spending the rest of their lives in a caribbean retirement in guantanamo bay. Others were able to go to different locations and set up affiliates for the organizations and we hear about these affiliates today, some people want to assist with the shabbat and other with the establishment of al qaeda in iraq and so forth. So, after we finish 9 11 and the investigation of 9 11 and invasion of iraq, al qaeda mutated. Al qaeda is no one organization. It became a message in a message became a very potent message. By the time Osama Bin Laden was killed he had affiliates in places like yemen, places like somalia, in places like you know, north africa mainly algeria all the way down to molly. They have affiliates that support narrative al qaeda in places like indonesia and even organizations the pledge allegiance to al qaeda and the caucasus, in the balkans and so forth. So, the organization was spreading, but it wasnt spreading as a terrorist organization way it was spreading as a message. It was more a message that a group. When bin laden was killed on may 2, 2011, i was happy that we finally got him, but also i was troubled. I was troubled that i felt if we dont counter that message appropriately, counter the narrative, counter the ideology bin laden will be more popular dead that he was alive. He is going to be a martyr and i wrote the same night i wrote my concerns in an oped in the New York Times. The New York Times contacted me and said can you write something, bin laden just killed what you think about it, so you know i was happy that my mentor, the person i mentioned, john oneill unfortunately he died on 9 11. He left the fbi to become the head of security for the World Trade Center and he was helping people, getting out people from the building when the building collapsed, so i was happy to see bin laden dead because i lost friends and i lost mentors and i lost a lot of people along the way who fought to stop this guy narrative in this guise of bloodshed. Unfortunately, 16 years after 911 i stand before you they dont feel any better about the a qaeda. 16 years after 9 11 we still dont have a deep understanding of that network thats trying to cause harm. 16 years after 9 11 we dont have a conference at strategy that put all our assets together focusing on eliminating that right. Its fine and danny to find and danny to arrest people every now and then. Its fine and dandy to even use drones and these other tactics and special operations, special military operations they do phenomenal job and god bless them, but its not fair to just trust that our military intelligence appeared diplomats had something to do here. People who work in aid programs have something to do here. Law enforcer has something to do here. We had since 911 a lot of tactics and most of our tactics have been phenomenally successful, but the chelation of the tactics without a conference of strategy led to a strategic failure and thats why 16 years after 9 11, 20 years almost after bin laden declared war on the us we have a threat that is way more dangerous today than it used to be back when bin laden did 9 11. So, how is it more dangerous . On the eve of 9 11 bin laden had 400 members who pledged allegiance to al qaeda. 19 of them died on 911. Today, al qaeda in iraq and syria alone has 20000 people. Today, al qaeda in yemen, which is al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has between four to 5000 people. Today, al qaeda in somalia has up to 7000 people. Today, a q i am, in an organization that was not able to get their act together, they always follow each other based on rival boundaries, ethnic boundaries, the blacks wont work with the arabs and arabs wont work with them and the whole thing was fragmented. About two months ago to get together and they pledged allegiance to the local manager of al qaeda in north africa, an algerian and all of them through him pledge to al qaeda. So, we see an organization growing. Wise the organization growing . The organization is growing because they are taking advantage of the chaos happening today in the middle east. Thats something that did not happen because hes a genius. Ayman alzawahiri is the current leader of al qaeda or could happen because bin laden ordered it to happen before the bullets of the navy seals took them down. Bin laden was watching the arab spring from his hideout and he realized that there was something historic happening here. He told his commanders, forget everything i told you. I always told you dont worry about anything, just hit the us, hit the west, hit the head of the snake and we can kill all these regimes if we destroy america or if we make america so weak and so scared to be involved in the middle east. Now, im telling you something totally different. Im telling you even do not send people to go to afghanistan because we are ready according to his word when he said defeated and broke across afghanistan. Now, we have to focus on the middle east. Because what we are experiencing today is something so big that we did not see in the muslim world since the time of slot in. That his words. Lets focus on guaranteeing that when these regimes are thought, when omar qaddafi is falling in libya, when they are falling in tunisia but as guarantee that no one will come and fill that vacuum. Most importantly, lets guarantee that there is no democracy because god forbid that people have the ability to choose. Democracy is totally against sharia, so the believers in unbelievers have the same boat and they are equal in their selection of what kind of governments they want, so anyway his commanders understood exactly what he was saying. Theres something called the management of savagery, a strategy that has been out about how al qaeda view its strategy. So, first hit the United States until the United States is so weak to support these arab regimes and second creative vacuum. Dont allow anyone to fill that vacuum because whoever will fill it will be the new dictator working on behalf of the americans as they see it, so the create this vacuum. Manage that chaos and savagery happening over there. Number three, declare a state and after you declare a state you can start the final confrontation with the west and nonbelievers. Thats their strategy, so bin laden they basically understood at this phase or phase two lets create the chaos. Bin laden told his commanders i know what im telling you when i talk about chaos, its means a lot of people will die. And lots of muslims will die and then he continued to say and to write we have to kill them to save them. We have to kill them to save them. So, when bin laden died, that order he gave just before he was killed, change the whole power structure in the middle east in such a phenomenal way. Now, you see the terrorism threats is totally different than it used it to me back on 9 11. Now, the terrorist threat is embedded in very complicated political wars. Whats happening in syria is not only a civil war in syria. Its not fool ourselves. Its not only people who wanted liberty and freedom. That was at the very beginning of the syrian rebellion. Its a geopolitical complex and an international conflict. Thats why we are there. Thats what the russians are there. Thats why the iranians are there and the turks and the iranian state. Its not about the Syrian People regionally, secretary is being used to score geopolitical points against Regional Powers against each other between iran and saudi arabia and we see it all across this conflict zones and who is benefiting from the . Extremist groups on the hsia side the sunni side. So come on may, may 2, 2011, e killed bin laden. We do not kill al qaeda. Those navy seals took down the messenger, but unfortunately our Political Leadership did not take down the message. Thats what we have today. So, why did i read this book . I wrote the book because even 16 years after 9 11 we still dont have deeper understanding of the enemy. Do i mean by that . Some across ages said, if you know your enemy and know yourself, you will win 100 times in a hundred battles. Do we know our enemy on that level . If you watch television we are still fighting 16 years after 911. What we call the enemy . Do we call them islam is, islamic extremist, radical islamic extreme is or i love this one, losers. [laughter] would you call them . That indicates that we have no understanding of what the enemy is, so every time we have a disaster when i was talk about, my gosh we could not imagine Something Like this would happen thats the very first thing. Even the 9 11 commission they spent millions of dollars on investigating and they did a great job, but they called the 9 11 attack a failure of imagination. They said every time they talk to people in the Intelligence Committee come on for security they said we could not imagine a plane hit the building. Fine. When he went testified in front of congress he said we could not imagine it would take more troops to take down saddam. Cannot imagine. Y . Because our imagination is limited. Our imagination is limited. Our experiences, limited our views of history, our understanding of the others. Its limited with their own expertise. Its limited with our own prejudices, so what we need to do . We need to expand our imagination. Had we expand our imagination . You expand your imagination by adding empathy and i dont mean empathy in the colloquial sense to be sympathetic to these guys, no, i mean empathy in the clinical sense, understanding them, understanding the reviews of history, understanding the views of religion, understanding their reviews of their own history. This is what gives us a better understanding of how they operate. This is what gives us a sense of predictability of what they going to do and i hope in this book in a small little way i contribute to that understanding, so i did not want to write another terrorism and book. I did not want to write another black banner or terrorism book like many of these, some excellent terrorism books out there. I dont want to write a book about policy or bad geopolitics. At one up book book about who fault if Something Like this happens. This is not what this book is all about. This book is about delving into the personalities and the characters of people who want to do us harm. Men who calls so much bloodshed and suffering. Understanding them, not only on a personal level, but also on ideological level for this book tells you the history of the terrorist organization in the terrorist message that we deal with today from the beginning until today. I start with bin laden. I start with bin laden escaping and i talk about his relationship with his family, his relationship with his commanders, his relationship with his other senior members of al qaeda, how he was micromanaging. A lot of people say oh using cave. No, he was micromanaging the organization and the weight you negotiate cost is, micromanaging the way they operate, micromanaging the training manuals. He was micromanaging the organization and how his views changed. s views changed after 911. Became a message with affiliates and how you control the affiliates. He was so concerned his brand need to be intact that actually he send in order to al qaeda and saying you have no idea what im talking about because you dont speak arabic, so translate everything to french when you send it over there because i want them to understand what im talking about, so he was a micromanager in semi different ways. Bin laden, i go from the time he left afghanistan until he was killed by the navy seal and then the new leader they appointed was an interim leader to get all the allegiances from the different affiliates in the different commanders for the one who was known to be the number two of al qaeda. That was saif aladel, an ejection was with al qaeda, i dont say was he is still live. He was one of the founding members and was involved virtually with every operation al qaeda did against anyone. Saif aladel is an ejection federal forces and very loyal to bin laden, but he disagreed with them on and. He thought it could be a disaster. Most of the original members of al qaeda told bin laden at the Council Meeting no, dont do that. Only Ayman Alzawahiri in the egyptian freeloaders told him no, we are with you. Bin laden did not get the votes for 9 11, but he decided to go with it anyway. Saif aladel is in a position now to collect the allegiances because hes very wellknown among the members of al qaeda and very trusted. Through saif aladel i introduce al qaeda from the beginning until he is collecting on the allegiances and then i go to all the different affiliates and what we know about the leaders of these affiliates . So, its not a terrorism book as much as a novel with these characters, characters who actually created a lot of damage and bloodshed. So, with saif aladel understanding the organization, understanding the history of the organization and then understanding the divisions, internal divisions inside the organization. For example, the head of al qaeda in the horn of africa, the person who basically was intra modes instrumental establishing in somalia, he did not want in the old days when he was involved in east African Embassy bombing is to be the chief of staff of saif aladel. Hes like i think Ayman Alzawahiri is a freeloader, not one of us just because he fooled bin laden doesnt mean im going to and suddenly he was killed at a checkpoint by the somali forces. I dont make any conclusions or judgments who killed him. I keep it up to you to decide who killed him by reading the novel. But, broke affiliate that gave them gave al qaeda so much headache is a qaeda and iraq and especially the guy Ayman Alzawahiri. Theres a lot of ideological difference between how Ayman Alzawahiri viewed jihadi and how al qaeda because it was probably not a member of a qaeda in afghanistan, so when he started in iraq he was al qaeda member and later he became an al qaeda member. So, Ayman Alzawahiris view is to basically kill anyone who disagrees with you including she ought and sunnis. In iraq come in iraq alone Ayman Alzawahiri and his henchmen killed 250 sunni scholars to evacuate iraq, to evacuate the city talents and to evacuate the sunni sunnis from any legitimate for the just scholars. Most of his henchmen were from north africa specifically libya and tunisia. It did not start after the arab spring. It was always there, so al qaeda what really annoyed that established committee in upset afghanistan just to focus on Ayman Alzawahiri and their actions. They said in the letter is and what you doing. Take it easy about the killing like this and guess what, dude, why do you behead people. They are not argue with him about the killing. They are all for the killing, but how you do it . You know, beheading makes people just not like us. Think about the brand. We have a brand to protect here. So, the differences between Ayman Alzawahiri and the leadership in afghanistan is actually the root of the division in the Global Jihadi Movement that we see later on between al qaeda and between isis. Because isis is the group that Ayman Alzawahiri ssectionsign iraq, so hopefully after you read the Ayman Alzawahiri chapter you know everything about the iraq war and then you can make your own judgment, was the iraq war worth it or not because i look at it from their perspective, so then we go to Ayman Alzawahiri and Ayman Alzawahiri is an old man who has been active in the jihadi movement, the Islamic Jihad movement in the middle east for a long time, said Ayman Alzawahiri introduces the modern middle east and then in the modern middle east we have syria today. We have yemen today, so you see how syria and the war in syria gave a new bloodline for al qaeda prices because when al qaeda went to iraq sorry, went to syria that affiliates in iraq went to syria, so isis, whats now isis long stay in iraq at the time send commanders to set up an affiliate in syria and then they decided those guys in syria that the syria jihad is different from iraq jihad, two different things, so we need our own affiliate. Al qaeda and iraq said you guys are under our own control. They said lets go to the leader and ask him, so they went to Ayman Alzawahiri and he said yeah, syria and iraq are different. You traitor, you believe in divisions between iraq and syria . No, no, no and by the way we established a state and we will regime caliphate now and you have to give us. We are the two followers of Osama Bin Laden. You are traitor. You are not the real follower, so the reason im telling you this story is because now, we see that if they message. Its more and more a message. If you hear isis were al qaeda, does it really matter . Is the same ideology that was branded in the handset heads of many of these people by Osama Bin Laden. So, what we had today is a message that directly benefits from the chaos that exists. If you want to drown the narrative of extremism, you cannot drown it with the war in syria and the war in iraq and the war in yemen. If you want to do that its like trying to put down a kitchen fire with eight small little towel while the state was still on. Its not going to happen. Its providing imagery, places where people can go and train and feel part of the group and unfortunately, allies and enemies are utilizing these civil wars to score points and these guys are embedding themselves and their ideology and their message in the middle of these political conflicts, so what are we today . Isis is definitely dwindling. Isis used to say remaining and expanding. Well, its a definitely not remaining and obviously not expanding or could they are losing terrorists left and right in iraq and syria so, in the same time a qaeda is laying low and building the network, rebuilding the network, benefiting greatly from the civil wars as i mentioned earlier. So, al qaeda is very happy to have isis take the credit for anything happening. Let them focus on isis for a bit until we are ready and when isis is no more, when theres no caliphate, and that allegiant will cease to exist. , so what will happen to all these people that are members of isis . I think many of them will go back to the mother organization. Now, they will knock a back to the organization if Ayman Alzawahiri is still the leader because they really hate Ayman Alzawahiri and i dont blame them. Hes so boring, i mean, i try sometimes to watch his 45 minute video tapes. By minute number two i went to blow myself up just to stop listening. [laughter] i mean, hes the most boring human being you can imagine, no charisma whatsoever. He never did anything successful. He failed at every corner of his life, but i think whats going to happen is al qaedas wise men if you want to call them, the older guys and al qaeda, i think they have a trump card to play, no pun intended. [laughter] i swear. Figure of speech. They are losers, bigtime. Anyway so what they are going to do is i can see after isis ceases to exist i can see them bring in hamza bin laden to be the new leader. First, hes up there like a young, a millennial. He was trained for the last seven, eight years by some of the top commanders and al qaeda come a people that his father did not have access to their counsel because all of them were together in house arrest in iran in the same place. He gets married to the number 2 of al qaedas daughter who has been involved in virtually every terrorist attack that happened against us in the world. He masterminded the east African Embassy bombings himself. So, i think hamza will be the person and hamza already had about five different messages. At the very beginning they always called him brother Osama Bin Laden and the monastic mess last message, announcement and message both referred to him as shake hamza bin laden which indicates a promotion because you cannot be the leader of al qaeda without having the title shake, so i think if you listen to his a statement and i have been listening to all of his statements, you will see something interesting. He never attacks isis. He never mentions the caliphate. Thats something Ayman Alzawahiri does. Ayman alzawahiri always attacks them. Hamza doesnt peer she says whats whats happening in iraq and syria and libya and somalia, whats happening lg era in bali and everywhere, all these guys are the followers of Osama Bin Laden. He says look, he people in the west, we used to be only an con heart and now, now were everywe in his town, he tried to copy his father. He tried to copy his father. His town is exactly the town of Osama Bin Laden and his message identical to what bin laden used to say. Same statements sometimes. In his last statement the one before last when he gave his commandments for modernism in the west he said look, try to kill as many people as you can, so dont just take a knife. Try to do it right. Then, he said and always leave a message while you did it. And im telling you why you did it. So, im telling you what to say. Number one, our land are occupied the land of the two holy places meaning saudi arabia is occupied. We did not hear that since Osama Bin Laden died. We do not hear that since 9 11. He brought it back. Palestine, if we dont live in peace in palestine, you will never know peace in america ended the west. Will, thats a bin laden said himself, but also we did not hear that and how long . Long, long, long time ago. Then he talked about stealing the wealth of the muslim world; right . We did not hear that prolonged time. Hes bring it back. He only had one thing we did not hear his father talk about, whats happening in syria. The murderers of the saud regime and the russians, which he said we are doing attacks in the west because you are supporting them. You are supporting the iraqi citizens. That silly think the added a frankly, he cannot not mention syria one of the largest affiliates of al qaeda is in syria. Hes bring back the original message of Osama Bin Laden and i talk about his character, his childhood. He was a poster child for al qaeda. The early days if you look at old videotape of al qaeda he is always saying these fiery speeches, poems when he was a kid. Hes training with them and he told his father, father, when i was in jail i learned a lot and you will be proud of me. Are learned about this, about that, but now i see on forged by steel and ready to march with the legions under your commander. Bin laden from all of his sons who have been released and he wanted only to people to come and join him. His wife who has a phd, older than him and she has only one son, hamza and his wife wasnt just a wife. She was his advisor. She was his wordsmith. She was his concierge a couple literally. He wanted her to come not because he missed his wife after she had been in jail. He wanted her to come and he threatened his commander if you dont bring him here i will myself go and bring her here, which is commander thinking i think he lost his mind. But, then we know why. Because he wanted her to basically work on his statement on the anniversary of the 10th anniversary of 9 11. He wanted her to tell you what to say; right . And when they could not bring her to him he actually was convinced finally and he sent her a letter saying the 10th anniversary is coming and you know how important this is, so i told his chief of staff to buy you a computer and usbs and please start working on the statement for the 10th anniversary of 911, so she is the son of hamza who pushed hamza moran more towards following up in his fathers footsteps like the woman behind the father and the son. So, today we see al qaeda trying to wait until isis totally dwindles and i believe when isis totally dwindles i think a new bin laden will come and claim that message, claim ownership that message. And i think they will be successful with that, so six years ago on may 2, 2011, we killed bin laden, but ladies and gentlemen, the story of hbo did not even begin. Thank you and i am open for questions the first question is always the easiest. We know it from strategy, kill them off, drive them out. Weve had messages or weve tried people in the government have tried to do social media and films in the kinds of things they do and our efforts were called laughable by some expert last night. If you could talk to tromp and he would listen to you there are a lot of this, sorry. What would you suggest . How do we deal with their message . What we offer instead . Thats actually a good question and is you probably expected the answer is not as easy, but im going to try to simplify it as much as i can. Glass track at this book called slaying the hydra because i believe that terrorist group is like a hydra and how do we kill the hydra . Some stuff we need to do. First of all we need to deal with the threat as it exists today, not as it existed 16 years ago. So, what are the incubating factors beating the threat today . Number one, civil wars happening across the middle east number two, Regional Power using sectarianism to settle scores against each other and create geopolitical influence in the middle east. Number three, a narrative that claims the us and the west are at war with islam and thats why you have to buy back even though that narrative 95 of its victims are muslims. They killed way more muslims than anywhere anyone else. They are blowing up mosque in saudi arabia and kuwait. Last ramadan they blew up the mosque of the prophet where the prophet is buried and then they say they were the defenders of islam. So, we have to expose them and we cannot expose them as government. Any government in the world including the us when they do this kind of messaging people will laugh at them and they will left the more than saudi arabia and tromp putting their hand on the orb saying go away, galway, so this is not going to work like this. You have to allow Civil Society to send up, communities to stand up and didnt every country its going to be different because theres no cookiecutter approach. The threat we have in the us is very different than what they have in belgium or france or germany. We dont have communitybased crewmen in the us like they have in brussels for example. We dont have that. Most of the threat we have is through social media, people who are disenfranchised, people alienated. A listen to the message and they get brainwashed and have no connection with the terrorist groups. They are inspired by the message of a goahead and do a seen that in new york, in san bernardino, in orlando. Its a very different than europe, so what we need to do in the us is to develop a message based on the threats we have here at home and how we can make the message inclusive, so there are a lot of things we need to do, but all these things on talking about fit under one thing called a strategy and believe it or not 16 years after 911 we still dont have it. We have no strategy. Best on you a strategy. We tried that. You cannot kill them all. Its impossible. If you keep doing the same thing again and again and again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. We had to develop a comprehensive strategy, but only from the things that i mentioned and there is a big list that we can go through, but for the sake of time, you see we need diplomats. We need Civil Society. We need Law Enforcement. We need military because there are some people who are inside these terrorist groups and i was good attacked when i say that. There are only two ways out. A bullet in handcuffs. We have to put that also on the table. We had to understand that, but as long as there are more recruits joining we wont have enough bullets and we wont have enough handcuffs, so we need to basically stop the influx of recruits to these organizations. What is screen that influx . It differs from one country to another, but there is one common factor today, these simple words that brought you blood, new fronts of jihadi with these groups and thats why we have 5000 foreign fighters from europe, 7000 in the former soviet republic, 6000 from tunisia. We have about 40000 for buyers who want to join terrorist groups in iraq and syria and im not talking about those that want to somalia or yemen. Granite, most of these guys likely died. 20 of them were able to go back to their countries and we have seen the havoc they were able to create and there are some people who are still there, but they still can instigate an inspired, still convince people back home or family members back home where friends back home to conduct terrorist attacks and i think we have seen many manchester from the result of the investigation, so we need to basically find solutions to these things. Eight i wish the solution was as easy as calling them losers. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for your service. Thank you, sir. The recent crisis that has unfolded in recent days, uk police cut off us Law Enforcement from access for an hour. Then they realized they need us more than we need them, so its back with all due respect. Also, today president appearing at nato and apparently his National Security staff had to go and clean up his mess so to speak after his speech at nato. So, thats not news. On sorry. Would you think the longterm consequences of this sort of schizophrenic approach will be an zero so your thoughts on the looming terror into production. I love that. I cannot wait until i watch it. It will be weird watching it. The movie, tower. I know norton will come in, but its one of my favorite books. I say that . I guess i can. Larry wright is a mentor of mine, so the first question i think about about the information sharing with our partners in the uk, look, i worked with the folks in the uk and action was involved 18 years ago in an operation manchester parting the libyan fighting groups of al qaeda with the Manchester Police. The Manchester Police have total jurisdiction over the greater city of manchester. The people who handle terrorism in the uk are based in london and it used to be they used to do intel and then after 911 make combine them together, so i had the pleasure to work with those guys and they are the best of the best and i have nothing but amazing respect for our partners in the uk and as an investigator who was involved in highly sensitive investigations and disruptions i know firsthand how frustrating it is to be working against time, to try to figure out who the terrorists are try to the rest of them and suddenly the most precious information you have that gives you the upper hand you see it on cnn or you read in the New York Times its so frustrating and let me tell you i dont think that its only frustrating. I think its dangerous and i think it risks lives that i think its reckless whoevers doing the lakes. They need to be held accountable now, i dont blame all the leaks to our people here in the us. I think thats not fair. They are talking about the leaks, for example, of the bomb and the detonator in the New York Times. Well, i happen to trust the New York Times. I happen to trust if the New York Times said that they get the pictures by sources in the british Law Enforcement. I happen to trust that. I dont think they going to say they got it from sources in the British Government if the people who gave the pictures are in the United States. They could have said lawenforcement. Why did they say british . The leak of the name i totally agree with our british colleagues and it seems that it was leaked here in the us its an International Investigation. We should not i dont want to repeat what i said about how much i hate leaks, but its an International Investigation just after it was leaked in an ap story, the libyans said we arrested his father and his brother and this is his father and brother, so the name was going to come out. I think theres a lot of frustration going on. I dont blame our british partners for being so frustrated and upset pick i understand how it is when you are trying to deal with an imminent threat that cause the government of your country to raise the Terror Threat to critical meaning imminent attack taking place in to see some of the information you have on television. I would be very frustrated, but the only thing i kind of not there yet to blame all the leaks , to people in the United States. May be american media, yes. About, not necessarily people in the lawenforcement and Intelligence Community in america. Im not there yet. Thank you. Thank you. Third question is the hardest is what ive been told. Thats the sixth question, my friend, so go ahead. Fair enough. Previously you answered a question about the balance between military, Law Enforcement, dramatic tactics and im curious since 1998 and the Cruise Missile strikes in afghanistan and sudan, these sorts of tactics, airstrikes, rates, drug strikes a been a very quick sort of Swiss Army Knife and i was secure is how you break that inertia of using these military tactics in place of longerlasting strategies when they get such a favorable public results. I think its a good question and i think we always go and depend on our military because they do the job very well and they are amazing at what they do , but i dont think its fair to have them deal with all the competencies of our politicians here in washington; right . We have been afghanistan afghanistan has been the longest war more than world war i, world war ii and vietnam altogether. Of the reason we have been there is because under three different administrations the politicians havent been able to break a deal in afghanistan. So, what we do is the things that washington at once to do best. They break in and kick down the door. We will deal with it later. Then, can you stay there into this again . Do what they can . There like what, seven, 8000 miles away from home trying to secure a Tribal Society thats never known the meaning of central government, having the same strategy that the russians used for 10 years and it does not work that well for them either. Doing what . Where the diplomats . How are we going to have a deal in afghanistan . We can just put redlines renovating its and say to them they will do a great job. The military kicked out taliban and afghanistan in a short time, secure the whole country and then politicians failed to deliver. When they failed to deliver we say we will stay in afghanistan smore. The military deal with it. Its not fair. Just because they do a phenomenal job we should not pass them to do every job. Thank you very much. I find what you say very interesting because in the great uprising anywhere, the intrigue within the organizations personalities is fascinating. What concerns me know not just about your presentation, but about the way the issue is being dealt with is the three points you mentioned. We dont seem to be able to understand ourselves. In other words, we dont know what weve done in the name of america. Most citizens have no idea whats been done throughout the world and its a shame that we use our young people to fight in these wars, which two large degree we have contributed to. In other words, we are continually cleaning up their own mess, so the point im getting at is beyond the intrigue, how will we understand the true dynamics of our foreignpolicy, what weve done the truth within their message which exists and how are we going to grasp whats going on now so there isnt this endless buyer of hate because the world has to move on . I think my answer is one word, knowledge. Thats exactly the reason i wrote this book and that is the reason i brought wrote the way i wrote it as a novel. But, you dont deal with our foreignpolicy. Its there, but im not giving you a lecture about our foreignpolicy. You the reader will come to the conclusion it torture was right. You will come to the conclusion if the iraq war was in our National Security. You the reader will come to that conclusion about our alliances in the region, what works and what doesnt. I dont want to lecture anyone. Let them make their own conclusions after they read the facts as the bad guys see them and i call them bad guys because i think they are evil. I think they are bad guys. I thought them for so many years, so yes, they are bad guys and they are evil, but you can make your own conclusion. We dont have that knowledge. We dont have the deep understanding of what the enemy is and i agree with you and i have said so me times speeches, you know i always im a big i love some zero and have a lot of his strategy effects, but i think the biggest problem we have in this socalled war on terror that its not like we did not understand the enemy. We forget who we are as a nation we lost our moral compass. You know, that gives you an idea how smart he has. And what we do to create the enemies which we continually have to fight. I hope people will get who do in conclusions. How does the United States perspective or non perspective on the war on terror compare with that of the russians . Can we trust the russians to be a true ally on the war on terror could make i dont know if theres an agreement frankie between the administration and between the pentagon and Intelligence Community about how to approach syria and how to approach the whole situation of russia. I thought it was interesting when the president s so to the leaders of the muslim world. I think he lost an opportunity to speak to the muslim world. You dont use google and a lot of them talk against it. Most of the people in the muslim world are against this thing. I dont see it eyetoeye with you. Many over the big clergy spoke out in the muslim world. Its like my saying why i dont white people protesting dylann roof killing black people in charleston. He doesnt represent you. He represent himself and the ideology that brain washed him and radicalized him. Identity knock one of these guys that jump and say, theyre not speaking up, theyre not standing up. 95 or the victims are muslims them people who are fighting isis today in syria and iraq and yemen are muslims. People dying on the frontlines are muslim. It has an shia killing sunni, sunni kills shea, turks killing arabs, arabs killing persians. What we see today is something we have seen in the 16th 16th century and 17th 17th century. Russian czars and turkish assaultans and okay cia kraifs and theyre battling each other, and they battled in the 16th 16th and 17th century, history is not over. History just return. Thank you for being here and thank you for you service. Im wondering how you think we should approach the problem of the spread of the radical ideology. You hear that a lot of the spread of wahabiism in belgium and france and europe. Yes. How do we go bat actually combating this kind of radical ideology which is its more issue rational and based upon some kind consecutive radicalization and radical interpretation of the religion. Id like to use radical wahabi. Thats something we have seen since 1979. Since the took the mosque in mecca as hostage. The saudis think they need to do smog to indicater to the extreme elements in the society and create an alliance between the religious and the house of saud. The told him why fight the king, decide maybe i should call myself the protector of the two holy places or the servant of the two molely two holy places. Why fight them when you can fight the infidel russians. Paid people to go to afghanistan. And then they supported them and then they felt that, you know what . Theyre riding a tiger and god knows what is going to happen to them when they get off, and we have seen what happened to them. Then they said, okay, iran is trying to expand its revolution in Southeast Asia and africa and so many different places. We have to counter iran. Those sunnies, the moderate regular sunnis are fool sod they wont deal with shia at all. And unfortunately that backfired in some many different ways. In the old days we have seen what happened in bali in indonesia, and now its happening again to counter iran, and suddenly supporting the groups like al qaeda became okay because theyre the moderates. The people we hate is those guys, isis, and i think this is one of the thing is wish the president force the saudis to do instead of putting his hand with the orb, with base through the two entities, saudi arabia and egypt that create most of the terrorism around the world. Egypt because of the torture of these guys and saudi because of the ideology. We need to hold these guys accountable because theyre first people going to be targeted, and who going to get hurt by this terrorist threat. How we combat it, it differs. I think in the United States, we need to create a space, a cyber space, for the good people, the bad people have spaces. You can go on radicalize yourself to be a white supremacist or jihady or big got. Wheres my spacer or your space . Wire creating a 501 c 3 , bringing in madison avenue and bringing Silicon Valley together in order to create a platform that can be inclusive, an american platform, who we are as a nation, a melting pot, shining city on the hill. Ronald reagan used to say you can live in england but youll never be considered an englishman. You can live in france but never be called a frenchman. If you live in america you are an american. Thats go back to that. Thats what made america great. Lets go back to that. When we do a counternarrative. We cannot say, this is called cde and only for me muslim commune because every muslim will be issue dont know what youre talking about. Right . And then you bring these people, who can barely speak english, they look different, they have big beards, die just came from pakistan and now an imam and see he is a representative onus him community. Really . Nobody came to me or my family members or friends or my community to ask me about how i feel about it. Right . So, what we need to do is re we need to have a come mensive platform against comprehensive platform guess against the extremism. Tolerance is an american value. We give you that platform so you can educate, you can connect with other people, you can mobilize against hate and against extremism and then you can do with it whatever you want. All the branding and everything. Its up to you. So you can stand up against white supremacists, stand up against islamists, stand up against anybody you want. So we need to create that space because most 0 of the problems we have in america is based on identity. People who have nothing else to do. They watch these states. Theyre losers. This guy in what you call it, in orlando, wanted to be a cop. Nobody will hire him to be a Police Officer and then he flipped and went crazy. So, there are so many Different Reasons that these guys went on the path they went on, but theres something in common, which is an identity issue that kind of alluded them to a specific set of historic and religious and theological term addition of how these groups see the world today. Before asking my question i want to say i really admires you. I admired your totally rational stance against torture. Sorry thank you, very smart lady. Well, ill come and pat you. My question maybe its simplistic put you talk about it just seems that death runs through all of what is extremist are thinking about, killing other people, but also death as a martyr is treasured or preached. I dont see how you combat the people who are so wedded to death. Thats why i mentioned, maam, there are some people that if they really want to go to heaven, we should give them a ticket. I believe in that. Then let them go and see the 69, 79, whatever number of virgins they get. Its between them, viagra and god. I think what is going to happen is, you know, we need to discredit the ideology, discredit the message to prevent more people from joining. We cannot sustain what is happening by allowing more and more people to join. People are joining not because of the ideology. People are joining because of the images they see in civil war areas. People join because of assimilation problems, for example in europe. Peopleare joining because sectarianity. Everybody gets into this universe, this orbit. A different great that suck them in and i think we need to have a solution that based on different regions and different countries. I think what we need do first is protect our own country by developing a strategy in the out to limit this extremism and then at the same time engage with Diplomatic Initiative in order to express to our friends friend our foes around the world there is no zero sum game here. You need to have a political solution. Not go and give them 250 billion worth of weapon to add to the fire already raging in places yemen and syria. Not talk about how many hundreds of billions of dollarouts get and jobs, jobs, jobs. I love jobs, jobs, jobs, believe me. Who doesnt. Want these things to come to america. But you are talking to a muslim world where millions of people are hungry in refugee camps. Youre talking to a muslim world that people have no infrastructure. Midnight most to the arab countries have no electricity 47. No water. Children are dying and you see the pictures of what is happening in yemen. Youre talking to a muslim world that more than 56 65 of young people dent have jobs. Youre talking to a muslim world that is in total mess and you tell them, heroics i just took 350 million of your money. Jobs, jobs, jobs. I love this. Thank you. The substance of the speech is great because the bar is so low, with all due respect. Didnt say radical islamic extremism. Didnt say were in war with but the substance itself is disastrous. Because that is what theyre using. Stealing our money. Yeah. Exactly. Thats the message of Osama Bin Laden. If you have time, google the 1996 declaration of jihadie by Osama Bin Laden and fair to the summer that took place in riyadh. We wouldnt backward to the 90s. [applause] so much for that wonderful talk and all your questions. The book is available for purchase at the registers. If you want your copy signed line up you my left, your right. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] youre watching booktv on cspan2. Television for serious reader. On after words Temple University professor examines gender identity in an interview with sarah ellis. And at 11 00, henry olson at the ethics and pock policy center look ted policy of president s Franklin Roosevelt ronald reagan. That happens tonight on booktv. Good afternoon. Welcome to the gaithersburg book festival. Im julian. A resident and a member of the Democratic Central Committee representing district 16 which income pats the city of rockville and