MP3 here. (45:24)
“Well, you know, the only people taking ‘marching orders’ from Osama bin Laden, as far as I can tell, are every presidential candidate (Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush) except Mr. Paul. Mr. Paul has it very square about what the motivation of our enemy is, and it’s certainly exactly what he said it is, intervention. …
“Really, it is the American political establishment that is marching to al Qaeda’s beat, not Mr. Paul.”
Michael Scheuer, former head analyst at the CIA’s bin Laden unit and author of Imperial Hubris, discusses:
- His view of the legitimacy of the new bin Laden tape and the mention of his book
- His belief that current U.S. foreign policy is exactly what bin Laden wants and that Rep. Ron Paul M.D. has the best understanding of the enemy’s motivations and how to deal with them
- The sad fact that bin Laden wins whether America leaves Iraq now or later
- The “near” and “far” enemy
- The situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and what he believes should be done there
- Why he believes that al Qaeda wants to detonate a nuke here
- His support for the conclusions of Robert A. Pape in his book Dying to Win that suicide bombing is caused by foreign occupation and view of the role religion plays in al Qaeda’s motivation (they believe they’re defending theirs)
- The role of the mujahedeen in the 1999 Kosovo War
- The lack of threat posed to America by Syria and Iran and of cooperative links between Iran and al Qaeda
- The expansion of the war to Africa
- The impossibility of an “al Qaeda in Iraq” takeover in the event of U.S. withdrawal
- The degree of the danger that AQI represents in the long term
- The review by he and his CIA colleagues of the evidence of connections between Iraq and al Qaeda before the Iraq war and their report to George Tenet that there were none
- His view that the vast majority of post-9/11 domestic terrorism prosecutions have been bogus cases of entrapment
- Closed borders
Michael Scheuer is a 22-year veteran of the CIA and the author of Through Our Enemies Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America and Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror.
