the saudi government. because we have forces on the arab peninsula. because we re in afghanistan until the american people realize or are told by their leaders that this war is about what their government does and not how they live and think, we re never going to realize the dimension of the en enemy we face and we re never going to be able to stop the growth of the next generation of awlakis and bin ladens and samir kahns. jon: interesting thoughts from michael scheuer, who used to be in the unit in charge of bin laden. thank you. thank you, sir, always. jenna: a lot to think about there, and we will certainly continue to stay on that story. in the meantime we re tracking republican candidates today as they spread out on the campaign trail. michele bachmann is meeting with supporters in north carolina, a state that went for obama back in 2008, but may be tetering back to the right. herman cain, heading for hollywood in the meantime, he s fresh off a surprising
ask you questions, look directly into that notebook a little bit and we re looking forward to that, catherine, so thank you very much. reporter: having for thank you for having me. jon: some of the questions are already in and they are did. for more on the death of ann wa al-awlaki and samir kahn, let s bring in michael schuer, the head of the cia bin laden unit, a former cia counterterrorism analyst. we get differing opinions as to how important he was, and what his death means, michael. what s your take? oh, i think it s a good day when you kill them. we killed two of them, two of the important people they recruited to bring the war to the united states, really to the english speaking world, to india, to britain, canada, australia, and the united states. it s a technical victory, a good one, but it really doesn t move the ball forward strategically. representative king was exactly 180 percent wrong, this is an important
you. you ve actually met with al-awlaki s father who many may not know was a high yemeni government official. yes jon. he was not only extremely prominent in his own country, but his tribe, his family, was just amazingly influential. they were advisers to prime ministers, his father was an agriculture minister, i think, when i met him during my days in yemen. but that was why this man is so irreplacable, because he was not only welcomed at home, he knew america, and he knew american vulnerabilities. jon: so you disagree with michael scheuer, for instance, whom we had on earlier, who said if you kill al-awlaki, another one will take his place. i don t disagree that another will pop up to take his place. i do question whether will be as alias ann wa anwar al-awlaki was at inspiring terror and operating it.