 We may have heard Ken on fresh air a couple of days ago. His book is just launching now. We're really thrilled to have Ken here, a frequent collaborator with New America Foundation. The president of Tara Free Tomorrow, a former federal prosecutor who was also a counsel in the House in Iran Contra investigation. That's a while ago now. You look too young to have been a lead counsel in the Iran Contra investigation. A regular contributor to CNN and to many other newspapers. And so what we had discussed was that Ken would give sort of 15 to 20 minutes of opening remarks, and then I would ask him some questions, and then we'd throw it open to the floor. And as you see, Ken and Andy have very kindly provided some Indonesian food. Usually we provide just nothing here. So this is a major departure for us. Thank you, Ken. Thanks very much. It is on, I think, it's just a matter of the audio guy just needs to bring him up. All right, how are we good now? Everyone can hear me. Usually that's never a problem, people hearing me. So actually, usually what people say, tone it down a little bit, Ken. The title of the book, let's start with that. Terrorist in Love. What do I mean by terrorist in love? It's usually the first question I'm asked. Well, the book tells the story. It profiles six people and their journeys, some from their childhood to jihad, and some away from jihad. Some towards a more radical jihad. But a theme that runs through the book is love or missing love. In Saudi Arabia, we find a couple, Abby and Miriam, the jihadi Romeo and Juliet. They fall madly in love. Childhood sweethearts accept one problem. Abby doesn't have the $30,000 dowry to marry Miriam. Her father forbids the match, finds her, who's 20 years old, a man of well over 60, to take Miriam for $30,000, which in the father's defense is more than he earns in a year as a janitor or a guard at an elementary school. So Abby goes off to fight in noble jihad so he can meet Miriam his love in heaven. Literally, Miriam goes to, escapes from this man who has to go and fight so they can die and meet again in heaven. Ahmad, nicknamed Bernie by the Americans, which you can find out why when you read the book. I think you should say. All right, I'll give it away. Bernie, you know, it's funny with him. Spent a lot of time with him, and he still to this day doesn't know why the Americans call him Bernie. Well, he had burns throughout his entire body, so that was kind of that. Gallows, humor of American forces call him Bernie, but anyway, that's why he's called Bernie. Anyway, he grows up in Saudi Arabia in a very conservative, traditional city in the heartland of the Arabian Peninsula. Never meets a woman outside his own family, and in fact, after the suicide attack, he goes, he does go to Abu Ghraib of all places, which is what motivated him initially to go and fight in Allah. He's scared to death when he gets there, but he meets an American army medic who shows him kindness, who shows him care, who nurses him back to health, terrorists who love. There's another fellow from Saudi Arabia. He is heir to the Wahhab family. The Wahhab family in Saudi Arabia is the family of religious clerics descended from Muhammad Abdul Wahhab, the founder of the puritanical sect of Islam that is predominant in Saudi Arabia. And in fact, most people don't know it, there are really two royal families in Saudi Arabia, the Al Saud and the Wahhab. Anyway, this young man is an heir to this very, very important privileged family. He falls in love too, but he falls in love with another man, which is forbidden, terrorist in love. There's a story of Shahid. He too comes from a family of privilege. His grandfather was important in founding the state of Pakistan as a Muslim state. His father becomes a lieutenant colonel, guarding that country's nuclear weapons. He goes to secular school at age 11. He's brutally raped by the headmaster of the school. He then, several years later, falls in love from afar with a young also fellow 13 year old girl. He is beaten and humiliated as a result, turns to God for solace and becomes increasingly radicalized, terrorist in love. So we see this in the book I saw throughout. I interviewed over 100 radicals and extremists throughout the Muslim world. 100 in depth. There was many, many more that I don't count in that number who would just give rhetoric and so therefore it wasn't a meaningful interview. I'm talking about really getting to know these people on a deep level. And this theme emerged again and again. Which is, let me, why did I do this and how did I do this before I get to some of the lessons we can learn from it? I was a federal prosecutor. I don't know whether Peter mentioned that and also a congressional investigator. As a federal prosecutor, the model that any prosecutor, a good prosecutor would adopt, this is not unique to me, is to really understand the people you're prosecuting before you convict them or are able to convict them. How does that really work? I had a case involving organized crime. It was a Sicilian mafia case. Part of the series of cases that helped to bring down the mob. Mine was a small part of that. It was in New Jersey. I spent almost a year on a wiretap with the FBI 24-7 listening to every conversation this family had. And believe me, 99% of them, sometimes we'd have to minimize it because it was mostly private talk, was quite banal. But then when we did the initial round of 50 people, arrested 50 people, over half of them ended up cooperating. I would spend not weeks with these guys, months, day in and day out talking to them, learning everything about them. Not only because it was necessary to bring down another 50 people in the next round, which is what happened because they became cooperating witnesses, but learning everything about their lives because when they hit that stand as a witness, they're gonna be cross-examined and you needed to know everything as a prosecutor. After 9-11, this was not the model of the United States. We reacted to the events that happened. It's understandable, but we did react. We didn't try to understand who our adversaries were. We didn't adopt the prosecutorial model, which is to understand first, in depth, then successfully convict. So that was my model when talking to these people. It was, I wanted to know everything about their lives so that I can understand them fully. And I think that gives you a very different perspective on who the people are and what you can learn. What are some of the policy lessons? We'll talk about this more, but I'm also asked this. Today is actually the 10th anniversary of the American involvement in the war in Afghanistan. 10 years later, first of all, it's remarkable if you compare the marking and commemoration of the 10th anniversary of 9-11 with the 10th anniversary of the beginning of America's involvement in the Afghan war. One had much notice and fanfare and today is passing by virtually unnoticed. Why? I would maintain the reason is because 10 years after our involvement in the Afghan war, we've still at a loss to understand what's really going on on the ground in Afghanistan. We're fighting. We've lost over 2,000 American men and women service members in this conflict, yet we are not closer to understanding. This book provides one of the first inside looks into Mullah Omar, who is the Taliban leader. One of the people profiled in the book is Malik. He was a dream seer to Mullah Omar, kind of a Rasputin, if you will. And he would interpret dreams from Mullah Omar. In fact, he would give him his own dreams. There's a very powerful scene in the book where he's with Mullah Omar and he's giving a dream, and this was about a year after the Taliban leadership to re-establish themselves in Pakistan and Quetta. And Mullah Omar used this dream to interpret why he should go and fight against Americans in Jihad. We'll get more into the policy later. What did I see in this book? I saw that for many two kind of startling facts, I think most people are not aware of and I wasn't. For most people who go and fight, they're doing this out of a motivation to do good. They're doing this out of a motivation because they believe they're doing the right thing. They believe they're serving God. However, among many of the leaders, an untold story is the corruption and the manipulation of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Many of these guys became disillusioned because of the lies, manipulation and outright theft and corruption. Now some Taliban leaders I spoke to would justify the corruption and the drug dealing that the Taliban is engaged in by saying this was just a mean to create resources that help with the Jihad. But it's not a justification that oftentimes goes down well among the rank and file. And for some it does, but for many it doesn't. And this is an unexploited opportunity I think that we have not seized upon is an untold story that could weaken very much this movement I think over time. What kind of message do I take away from all of this? I remember one fellow I referred to him, Shahid. Shahid and I were sitting in a restaurant after a long day of talking and we were eating food and the food we were eating reminded me of a dream that I had that morning which in innocence, I related to Shahid. No, Shahid, here's this jihadi, imagine the scene. He's got this long beard. He's got all these white robes and the whole nine yards. I mean, he looks kinda like, to me, Osama bin Laden, frankly, and I'm sitting across the table with this guy eating away and this was food that was foreign to him because the Pakistani restaurant where he wanted to eat was full. So we had to go to an Arab Middle Eastern restaurant. So we're sitting there eating and he wouldn't touch the food but we asked 10 times, this is halal and all of that. And I almost felt like asking, is this kosher? But anyway, we're sitting there and we're eating the food, it reminds me of a dream and then all of a sudden he says to me, he comes very quiet and he said, whispers, you have the dream that I've been waiting my life to have. I don't know what he was talking about. You had the vision that I wanted to have. And then he began to almost interrogate me in great detail about the nature of the dream. What did you see the man's face? It was a dream with a horse and somewhat vague like most dreams are. Did you see the man's face? No, I didn't see the face. He said, I told you everything I saw. I mean, I don't know. And then he, all these questions about it. And then he cries out in the middle of this restaurant, al-u-aqbar, and everyone turns around, al-u-aqbar, al-u-aqbar, you had the dream where you saw the Prophet Muhammad and because you didn't see his face, that means that you had a true dream and the devil can never take the form of the Prophet in a true dream. But this was a transformative experience for Shahid. He no longer, he was moving away from jihad. He was once part of the, his colleagues were once, later bombed the Marriott in Islamabad. So these are dangerous people, very committed. And so he moved away from, he was already moving away from this. But this experience with me as a westerner, as a Jew, he saw me in a totally different light at that moment. That I could have the dream where I had this vision in his mind. I never thought of it that way. It was actually transformative experience for both of us. And I think too of Kamal in Saudi Arabia. I met his father. His father is one of the most important religious clerics and officials, not only in Saudi Arabian, the Muslim world. The idea that I was an American, a Jew, and an infant, I was headed for hell. But Kamal went through a long journey which you can read about in the book where he goes from being a committed jihadi. But at the end, no, he's got a very different notion. Every American, every Christian, every Jew can go to heaven in his vision. So I had hope. Now I'll leave you with one story that was somewhat paradoxical. I was with this Taliban guy. And we spent the whole day talking. And then at the end of the day, he grabs my hand in friendship. Now this is holding my hand in the Pashtun world, which most Taliban are, is a sign of friendship. It's not a sign of anything else like shaking one's hand when you meet them. So he's holding my hand in friendship. And he says to me. And he begins to recite verses from the Quran and he's crying because a holy man cries when he cites the verses of the Quran. And he says to me, the day of judgment, this is what the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, the day of judgment will not come until every Jew is killed. And if the Jew is hiding behind a rock, the rock will cry out, oh, Muslim, true believer, kill the Jew. If the Jew is hiding behind a tree, the tree will cry out, oh, Muslim, there's a Jew behind me. Only the Garkar tree will not cry out because it is the tree of the Jews. And he's saying this to me. This is actually, he's saying this to me while holding my hand in friendship. I felt perfectly, at that moment, I was uncomfortable in the interview, obviously. But I didn't feel any danger from him. I felt friendship and caring from him. And he would never have killed me or done anything to me in that room. But on the battlefield, he's a committed Taliban fighter and he might well have done it. So I'm not sure what lesson we can learn from that. Makes a good story. But I think somehow there is a lesson from that. Somehow my experience meeting these hardened jihadis, seeing a lot of their good desires, there's one story in the book where it's a little different from that because this man, Zeddy, spent two decades, is in his word, a career terrorist for Islam. He's more of a thug. There's nothing endearing about this fellow and that's presented in the book. And he actually worked closely with the ISI, which is the Pakistani Army Intelligence Agency. Training terrorists, thousands he trained, and also smuggling arms to the Taliban. So as he said to me, you Americans are really funding both sides in the war in terror. You've given $20 billion to the Pakistani government and they in turn paying me so that I can train terrorists. They in turn giving me arms so I can go across the border and smuggle them to the Taliban. And actually he told me in 2008 that the ISI was harboring bin Laden inside Pakistan. And he said it was Northwest, first in Chitral and then in Northwest Pakistan. So the day that bin Laden was found in Abadabad was not a particular surprise to me because he told me generally that's where bin Laden was being protected. He also trained, this is very important to remember, he trained terrorists in a camp in Mansarra in the mountains. This is right next to Abadabad. He went to meet with al-Qaeda, operatives, and ISI people together in Abadabad. So something was happening. On that note, I'll sit down for my interrogation. I'm on the other end now. Ken, at one point we jokingly talked about a book being called A Jew Among the Jihadis. And what did you, I mean, what difference did that or did that not make to you as a when you were doing the reporting? I think it made a big difference. I wouldn't start out with this, but I kind of like to, and maybe this is from my time as a prosecutor, you know, from child molesters, which had to be the most vile people I've ever interrogated. Sitting in a room with a child molester for 12 hours is not fun, believe me. Your skin crawls. But from child molesters to committed criminals, I feel at some point in the process, and this is more an art than a science, a little bit of provocation is a good thing. And you know, at some point I usually tell the people, you know, I'm Jewish, or like I told Shahad, I had this dream or whatever. And just to kind of upset the apple cart, just to accept the, it's not something I would lead with, and I found it very helpful. And most people really kind of do a double take because I would say that of the 100 or so interviews, I would say, I don't think anyone had ever met, most of them had never, almost all of them had never met an American before, let alone a Jew. And so this was somehow a great enemy in their mind, and when we had established a rapport, and I would say that, it would almost kind of turn the tables around. I think one of the themes of your book, which may not be entirely comfortable for some readers, is that this is a lot to do with religion. I mean, in most of the case studies that you have, maybe Zeddy, the Thug, it didn't, but these were very committed religious zealots usually. Usually they're very committed religious zealots, and I found this among, I picked these people, I should say a caveat, six cases do not represent why everyone joins Shahad, obviously, and they certainly don't represent Muslims as a whole. I mean, that should be an obvious caveat, and I stated in the introduction, but I think these six were representative of what I found among the larger group that I interviewed, and that's why I picked them. And for most, it is a religious calling. They really feel, and that's why it's incumbent, not on the United States to impose our values on other people. The change has to come from the Muslim world itself, and from religious scholars and clerics interpreting Islam, and you see in this book, some people doing that. You see them going into Jihad and then reinterpreting the faith, like Kamal, to be open and inclusive and tolerant, and that that is the true Islam and not the teaching of al-Qaeda. But we can't forget that al-Qaeda and the Taliban read selected verses and take selected messages, like this fellow Malik, and interpret that as meaning that this is the word of God. One of the themes of at least the Taliban sections is the importance of dreams, which I think is not well, I mean, and I guess the sort of part of that observation is I think one of the things you come away with from the book is understanding, these people inhabit a very different mental universe, that I mean, because I think with the natural tendency that we all have to do sort of mirror image, meaning that basically everybody's kind of similar. I guess some of the themes of your book suggest that people are, there are some universal values, et cetera. But at the end of the day, I took away that most of these people who actually had very different views about the world, very different conceptions. And I mean, talk a little about the dream because most people don't put so much value on their own dreams. Well, the dreams are key. Among the Taliban, Mu'al Omar's authority as the leader of the Taliban comes from this dream he had and that the Taliban fighters know about where he saw Allah take the form of a man and this first led him to fight. And then another dream he had first led him to wear the cloak of the Prophet Muhammad, which is kept in Kandahar at a mosque and is a holy relic. And this was considered a great sign. And then the dream of this fellow Malik, there were two dreams he had, which Mu'al Omar was apparently very moved by, but more to the point, some of the more worldly Taliban, some of the Mu'al Omar's deputies use these dreams to, we're more manipulative about them. And they may have believed them, they may not have, but so Mu'al Omar's kind of a spiritual figure. And what I found, I mean, there's a lot of kind of fashionable talk, if you will, today about different Taliban factions, so to speak, Khani, this, that. What I found among all the Taliban I interviewed was that everyone really revered Mu'al Omar as kind of a spiritual guide, not necessarily as a battlefield leader, but as kind of the father figure of the movement. And it came from this dream culture and dream interpretation, which was very prominent, and not only among the Taliban, but among the Saudi radicals I met, it was universal. Yeah, the great Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai told me before 9-11 that he talked to Mu'al Omar and asked him about a dream that he'd had about a White House burning and if it had any kind of significance. So clearly, Omar was communicated to other people this thing about the importance of his dreams. That's right. In terms of, what were the mechanics of actually, you were in parts of Pakistan, whether it was a Taliban presence or you were in Saudi Arabia, where obviously there's a great deal of control of independent researchers from the outside coming in. So talk us through kind of the process by which you were able to meet people and get permissions and get the kind of access that you got. It varied from each country. It wasn't uniform. Saudi Arabia, I initially met a lot of the people in the so-called euphemistically termed care center, which is a halfway house that the Saudi government established to rehabilitate jihadis. If anyone's interested, I can talk about that. I think I've interviewed more people there than anyone else and spent more time than anyone else at that facility. So two of the jihadis portrayed in this book went through that. A third, I met through somebody in there. It was kind of off the radar and that's the member of the royal family, the religious branch. In Pakistan, it was different. We had done a lot of work in Pakistan and I made connections through American intelligence officials and largely through Pakistani journalists on the ground who directed me to folks. And then from the people I met, I would meet other people and some of that's described in the book. You know, you mentioned Bernie in the opening. What happened to Bernie? Why? Because you didn't quite explain that. No, I didn't. What is his story? Should I read the passage from the book or should I explain his story? Whichever you feel happy through it. I feel happy doing either one. How about a little of both? A little of both would be great because I was gonna read a passage from the book and then I didn't. So let's just do it. Of the 43 jihadi inmates I met in Saudi Arabia and interviewed, Ahmad al-Shayyia, Bernie had to be the most striking. His entire body bore the scars of the first suicide bomber in Iraq when he survived his attack. His face was covered with red pustules. His nose curved to a strange hooked point, almost like a ski jump. The fingers on his right hand ended in a stump that resembled melted candle wax. While his left hand fingers were twisted like the roots of a mizwak stick, jihadi's regli chew in imitation of the prophet Muhammad. And that, by the way, tastes exactly like the bitter herbs from a Passover Seder. His fingernails were little more than yellow brown stumps, the color of toes infected with athlete's foot. Sitting in the prison faux-tented reception area or modulis with the air conditioning going full throttle, I was accompanied by Dr. Ali, Ahmad's prison psychologist, a phenomenal host with whom I shared many long dinners and who had received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Edinburgh. Ahmad was shy and modest. It took much prompting for me and most of all, Dr. Ali, who had prod Ahmad with what they had discussed in therapy sessions. As is fitting for both a student of Sigmund Freud and the Holy Quran, Dr. Ali helped Ahmad begin his singular life story of a failed suicide bomber with a dream. Even if a dream from Abu Ghraib. Burned beyond recognition, his skin charred and dark, Ahmad al-Shiaia could dream of only one thing, dates. Not the light tanned Sukkari dates his family had once so proudly grown in the center of Saudi Arabia. The best dates in all, Bereda, his grandfather always bragged, Ahmad couldn't stop dreaming of the rival dates from the distant eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The bitter black cloth states his grandfather always scorned. The Holy Quran told Ahmad that as a moderate fighter in the way of jihad, he would be eternally nourished in paradise by date palms. Yet instead of the sweetest Sukkari that grandfather said would be the food of heaven, his veins were hooked to salty water. Instead of wearing robes of silk and reclining unjeweled couches as a holy book pledge, Ahmad lay on a stiff white bed. Missing two were the dark-eyed, full-breasted virgins, chastised pearls offered by all of the most high to any martyr. He hadn't reunited with his family as promised either. His younger brother cherished grandfather beloved mother. He was alone. Ahmad had been thrown into the fires of hell as the Holy Quran warned all sinners. He'd come to Iraq to fight the Americans on noble jihad, but his suicide mission instead had ended at Abu Ghraib. And all Ahmad could think of or dream of was dates. Essentially, Bernie was, I mean, he was recruited by al-Qaeda and then they tricked him into a suicide mission. He didn't really fully understand he was going. That's correct. And you know, there's an interesting story. Would you explain how that happened? There's an interesting story. Ahmad arrives or Bernie arrives in Iraq. He's with 45 other jihadis and the leader of al-Qaeda is exhorting them all to suicide missions. He's saying, this is the most noble thing you can do is to die on a suicide mission, die and serve God. In any event, among the 45 people the al-Qaeda leader asked, are there any volunteers? Anyone want to join? Not a single person raised their hand. Nobody wanted to join. As Ahmad said to me, I came to Iraq to fight. I wanted to fight. I wanted to do some good on earth before I go to heaven. I don't want to go right away. So that was his feeling and apparently shared by a lot of them. So the day he was kept, they didn't train him. They didn't show him how to use a gun. They kept the jihadis in kind of an isolation. They had nothing to do. They would pray five times a day. The boredom was endless. They would move him from location to location from safe house to safe house because the Americans might come. He never saw any Americans. But there was a sense of impending doom at every moment. He's desperate to do something. He's complaining to the leaders, I came here to fight. He's very sick from the food. He's very lonely. He misses his family. He came with a friend. He separated from his friend. He's all alone. He keeps complaining and said, finally we'll send you on a noble mission. They bring him to Baghdad and they say, all you have to do is drive this truck. Don't worry about anything else. So I don't know how to drive a truck. Don't worry, we'll go with you. We'll show you every step of the way. So the morning he gets in the truck, for the first time he's in Iraq, somebody actually talks to him. The two other jihadis are joking around with him and it's very much, you'll have to read the book because I've been asked about this but I somehow don't want to state it publicly, read the book what they're talking about. Kind of what any two young men, three young men talk about between the ages of 16 and 25. You can use your imagination. That's what they're talking about. Well, should I test say? Read the book, read the book. So you'll see what they're talking about. This is a PG kind of. Yeah, well maybe even a little bit higher I think what they're talking about. So they're talking about this and you know why they're about. And then right before a concrete barrier, the Iraqi jihadis suddenly they drive, they suddenly jump out of the truck and say, I'm gonna drive it ahead. And he has to take over the steering wheel because the truck is swearing, swerving, I'm sorry. So he has to take over the steering wheel. He said, I didn't know what was going on. And he said, but I knew something bad was about to happen. And literally seconds later the truck, as soon as they got out they detonated it. It was full of 26 tons of liquid explosives that blew up. It killed six people, innocent people. And by some, as Ahmad said, I was saved by God. God wanted me to live for a reason. God wanted me to tell the world what al-Qaeda is truly like. The Saudis, you know there's some criticism of the Saudi rehabilitation program. Thank you very much. You okay? I don't know what happened. Thank you. There's some criticism of the Saudi rehabilitation program that people, some recidivism and blah, blah, blah. But I mean Saudi officials that I've spoken to say that's not really necessarily the point of the program. Rehabilitation is fine, but the point of the program really, if you step back from it, is to show to the Saudi people that we have done absolutely everything we can to rehabilitate these people. And if they go back to being militants or terrorists, essentially that they've been afforded every opportunity. Is that kind of, how do you assess the Saudi program overall? I have a slight, I'm not sure that's exactly right. I mean I think that's, when I first went to Saudi Arabia and first visited this facility, I've been to a lot of jails as a prosecutor. It's still a jail, it's a nice jail, but if you're not allowed to have your freedom, it's still a jail. When I went to this, sign read, Department of Interior, Ministry of Interior, which is the most feared and powerful agency of the government of Saudi Arabia. It comprises the secret police. So, Department of Public Relations, Care Center. So I said, after my Saudi host, I'm not quite sure that that's the message you want to give so that it's about public relations. And this is just a show to show the outside world and the citizens that we're really doing everything we can. They do on Saudi TV. I mean I've seen many of people who are former jihadis interviewed on Saudi TV. They go into the Saudi schools. So I think that is the most valuable aspect of this program, that these young men who went to jihad and who are so-called rehabilitated, go out into the community. But there was, apparently, this public relations aspect of it to say, look, we're doing something to the outside world and to themselves. They have, to their credit, had a fair amount of success with the program, I think. There is recidivism. There are people, it's described in the book, Saeed Al-Shariri, who Kamal knew and who told other people at the prison that this was all an act. He was going, as soon as he got out of this place, he was going to go back from jihad and indeed he became the number two commander of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. So, and he told that to the Americans. He said, I was just, when I went to Afghanistan, I just went to buy rugs for my family's furniture store and riyadh and bin Laden has divorced himself in Islam and he told Kamal and other people at the center who he trusted that it was just a, it was a lie for jihad in his words. So a lot of people go through this so-called rehabilitation and just say what they think others wanna hear. But it's been successful with other people. I think overall it's basically a success with that caveat. Yeah, yeah. You were writing the book and interviewing these folks before the Arab Spring. What do you think they would have said about it or did they say anything that indicated that they thought change was coming or that al-Qaeda's ideology was dying? Yeah, most of the people in the book that I've interviewed I've stayed in contact with. So I have actually gotten reactions to the Arab Spring from them. And one is mentioned in the book and Kamal thought it was a really- Is that your phone? I don't, it might be. Okay. It might be it stopped. If it's mine, it stopped and I forgot to turn it off. That's terrible. The host, he's speaking to you, forgets to tell over the phone. But his reaction to it was this was, he said to me, this is the face of the true Islam. In Tahrir Square, we have Christians and Jews, men and women together. Bowing before the only sovereign we should ever bow before, the Almighty. Right, well, let's throw it over to questions. If you have one, can you wait for the microphone? Identify yourself, we'll start here. Thank you very much. I'm after Harusin, I work for Ways of America, partial to the border region service. We broadcast to the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan. I assume the book must be very interesting as I speak on some of the... If you allow me, there is just a small joke in about the suicide members in our Pashtun area as I come from Peshawar. A suicide member goes to a place where he won a detonance and it just did not went in fully and he fell unconscious in the hospital. And then he says that, oh my God, I was promised 72 version when he sees around the nurses around him and he said, these are just for you. And then the doctor counts and he says, this is just a joke shared by many people on the text in their cell phones and on the web. My question is, did you give any attention to the Saudi Wahhabi Islam influence on the militant Islam around the Muslim world and particularly the one in Afghanistan in the... I think this is, the book is not... And Peter wrote the forward to the book and Peter makes clear in the book, in the forward. This is not a book of analysis or policy. It's a book of trying to really understand from the inside. Somebody said to me who read the book and I've never seen this show so maybe some of you have seen it. There's an HBO show called Intreatment where apparently people go through their intimate confessions to psychiatrists and you get to observe that. And this person said, your book reminds me of Intreatment Among the Jihadis where you get to hear their inner thoughts and their inner motivations. So the book is not really a policy book. It's not really set up that way. But it does discuss your point. And this is very, very important because from Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars exporting its interpretation of Islam from the Wahhab tradition. And I think that's why the story of Kamal in the book is so important because if that Wahhab tradition can be somewhat modified and less strict and Kamal who's a descendant believes he can, he's going to the texts of his forefather saying the clerics of today are misinterpreting Wahhab himself. So this is real hope I see because it has been a huge problem in Indonesia where I've spent a lot of time in Pakistan, Afghanistan. This export of the Saudi Wahhabi faith has really, you know, they're local people there like Maududi. But again, Maududi was very close to the Wahhabis. People don't realize this. He went to Saudi Arabia. Maududi, for those who don't know, is kind of the premier founder. He was the founder of the Jamat party which is talked about in the book in Pakistan which is a religious party, kind of like the Muslim brothers of Pakistan if you will. But he got a lot of his ideas from the Wahhab tradition and he actually, that was important to him. So I think your point is very well taken. By the way, has anybody that you profile on the book read the book yet? No. Do you think they're going to be happy or unhappy? No, they're going to be unhappy. It's one thing, look, they knew I was writing a book and I was upfront about that. I told that to everyone I was interviewing. But it's one thing, and some of them I spent a lot of time with and went back and forth continually, but it's one thing to intellectually know that you're telling your story and then it's a friendly forum and you're talking and you're discussing things. It's quite another to actually read it in print and in a society where a lot of these revelations are, for any human being, the fact that they were raped at 11 years old is not something that they really like publicly displayed. So for some of them I did take steps to protect their identities because of the personal nature and because of the real danger that they will be in if exposed. I'm Mitzi Worth, I'm with the Naval Postgraduate School. I'd like to know how you basically set up these interviews. How did you get them to open up to you? And did you know, was that relatively easy and did you know that that was gonna be easy to do when you got in there? No, I didn't know it was gonna necessarily happen. This book kind of wrote itself in that I was doing a lot of interviews of radicals. More for the public opinion polling that I was leading in many Muslim majority countries. So it wasn't that I was necessarily, had in mind to write a book, but some of these people I came across, their stories were so compelling. They were so different from everything I thought I knew. Every image I had before of these kind of evil horrible people that it led itself. And I don't, I can't account for that other than say to some degree it was luck and that I've spent more than two decades interviewing and interrogating people in this kind of a way. I'm used to it and I've had many criminals open up to me and just like after they open up to me and then I end up prosecuting or something, and they're not necessarily so happy about the results. So, but you'd be surprised. I mean, you know, I'll take two TV shows for people who are a fan of TV. There was one 24 with Jack Bauer and he would torture people and I'd tell me what I wanna know and all of that kind of stuff and you know what, that doesn't happen in the real world. You never get confessions that way. That's nonsense. It never happens. I've never seen anything remotely like that. Then you look at the other show, Go On Order, where they kind of befriend the guy and they get him to talk and all that. That's more realistic. That's really the way people open up. And it really was amateurs. If you look back at the history of how America got involved in torturing people after 9-11, it was people who had no experience in this area were writing up studies and doing it. And the professionals and many at the FBI, they'll tell you, this is just kind of Hollywood 24 type stuff. It's not real. So, you know, part of it I did based on my experience. Over here. Thank you, Rosh. Thank you. Michael Kraft, I'm a former of the State Department of Counterterrorism official now a consultant. I'm curious, from your overview and from your initial description of some of your love or emotional factors, generally overall observation to what extent most of these people were motivated by some kind of emotional factor as opposed to policy or poverty and also to what extent or what drives this seems to be a common theme of blaming the West and America, in particular for the outside problems. I still remember when we first went to Afghanistan, a Pakistani who was interviewed on BBC was saying, everything that's wrong in the world is the fault of America and the British. Do you see any policy implications or suggestions in terms of the public diplomacy effort? Yep. No, I certainly do and what, look, I think the important point to remember is no one's, everyone is complex. Every human being has a different story and we all operate out of mixed motives. What has been ignored is what we have done in the West I think is to generalize why people go to Jihad and focus on the political factors. They're certainly there, of course. And how do you disentangle them? Look at Abby who goes to fight because he wants to meet Miriam in heaven. Was that a political factor? Well, if we weren't involved in Iraq, how would he be found an outlet for it? So there's politics involved. Was it a cultural factor? Well, it certainly was because he couldn't marry his girlfriend because of the $30,000. Was it a religious factor? Absolutely, because he thought he would go to heaven to marry her. Was it a personal factor? You bet. He was very unhappy young man when he couldn't marry his sweetheart and to see his sweetheart married it's a very interesting scene in the book, how they manipulate her into marrying this man. And I'm not gonna give it away because I do want you to read the book. I'll be candid about that. So there's these complex motives. And then, but what's interesting too is why people become disillusioned with the radicals. Usually it's because of the corruption that they see because they have this kind of idealism propelling them and then they see the corruption which is endemic to everything in human nature. So I think that's a missed opportunity in public diplomacy. I think these people's stories is a missed opportunity in public diplomacy but most of all I think as Americans what we must remember is we cannot impose our values on other people. That is where a lot of the anti-Americanism comes from, this feeling of imposing our values. I led a survey in Saudi Arabia and Saudi said the most important priorities they had for their future were free elections, free press and free speech. The policy from the United States they hated the most. Even more than what they viewed as American unconditional support for Israel which believe me they hated was America trying to impose its vision of democracy on the rest of the world. So and particularly the Middle East. So I think that's the lesson. We need a humbler foreign policy. We need to go back to Teddy Roosevelt, speak softly and carry a big stick and even Bush when he ran in 2000 said a humbler foreign policy. We didn't get that but that was the right words. Following up on my craft question, I think we're now 10 years after 9-11 and Jason Burke has actually just written a piece for us on the AFPAC channel based on his new book The 9-11 Wars. And he says one of the first lessons that we have learned after 10 years of sort of thinking about this is it's not who becomes a radical, it's how they become a radical. And that sort of, that work began in a sense with Mark Sageman's first really great book in which he basically showed that it was a group process. To what extent that bought people to the jihad often it was family members or friends or people joined the group. If you look at the 9-11 plot many, they joined as friends in a group. Did you find that in your interviews or not? Yes and no. Some of them and I found that throughout the hundred interviews and that's, and Sageman's work is exceptional but it's based on a lot of secondary sources in westernized environment. So it may be different from what I found. But I found sometimes a group dynamic is very important. Bernie or Ahmad joined because of his friend and it was a group endeavor. Abby didn't talk to anyone, went off to fight because he wanted to die and meet his sweetheart in heaven. Shahid, again there was a group dynamic that propelled him but they're also an individual dynamic. Kamal was through the internet. He became radicalized on his own through the internet. So it just depends on the person and I don't think one size, and I found this throughout all my interviews. Everyone has a different life story and I think we have to be careful about generalizing. Every hand? Thanks. My name is Mataab Gareem. I'm an academic, retired from PewDieCette Center. I have, I heard your interview yesterday on NPR, I believe. Yes. I was driving and had some interesting questions to come but I have two clarifications and a question. I have read, I'm a Muslim, I read Quran thoroughly in English because I understand that better than Arabic or my own language which is Urdu. And I found it nowhere saying that a person who is a jihadi and he kills others would go to heaven. It's nowhere in the Quran and it's purely misinterpretation of likes of Islam with Latin who perhaps know Arabic and they tell people who are Pashtuns or other Pakistanis that are anywhere else who don't know Arabic that that's what the Quran says. That's one. It, rather it says that a person who kills others is one person kills humanity. So for sure a terrorist would never go to heaven. That's the belief of Muslims. The second one, it's very clearly said in Quran. The second one I have never read in Quran that a Jew or any other person, especially Jew and Christian would go to hell because Muslims are allowed to marry a Christian and a Jew because they're men of the books. And so without conversion. So that means that if a person marries a Jew or Christian this pass will go to hell. So it's not true though. And that again the person who told you this, he didn't know this apparently he was misinterpreted. After having said that, let me explain I'm sorry. You know there's gonna have to be a question. Yeah, it's a question related to religion. I have been studying sociology of religion. That's my field that you know in each society there are people who are radicals. They're extremists, irrespective of religion, irrespective of race. We have seen in every religion, we had IRA in Ireland. I'm sorry. And we had others. There's gotta be a question. I heard from you at least perhaps my misinterpretation that it's Islam which is moving them towards extremism. Is that the right way to look at it? It's their interpretation of Islam that's moving. And this is discussed in the book. No, I don't have a view on that. I mean this book chronicles Muslims who interpret their fate differently from you and some who interpret it as you interpret it. And it chronicles both. And I'm not a Muslim. I can't interpret it. I've read the Quran too. And I think you have to read the book to see the context of it. Yes, my name is Kamibat. I write for the Pakistani Spectator and I'm a Punjabi and I have Wahhabi and the urban background. I went to Madrasa because my family was too poor to send me to any fancy school. And what I talk with them, I talk with several of them in 2005. I was in Pakistan and they are very kind of high ranking and these are Lashkar-e-Taiba. And since I speak Punjabi and they spoke very openly, my question to you is I honestly found them very ordinary people like myself who didn't have job and they just had a lot of ambitions. They couldn't get things they wanted in their lives. And after two or three hours, I took nap in their offices and just went here and there. At the end of two or three hours, once they are exhausted, they talk about getting American visa. They want to learn how much money they could make in America. And on the top of that, I don't know, I'm not Islamic scholar, but I heard that when you go to heaven, you get women, when they drink like red drink, I would guess wine, you could see from here. So at the end, they want white women, basically. Okay. Well, did you observe those kind of? Absolutely. I mean, I had this experience many times with jihadis and we had a long discussion and then at the end of it, they would turn to me and say, how can you help me get a visa to come to the United States? Well, in fact, I mean, Ken, as he sort of indicated, I just want to expand, Ken has done some of the best polling of any organization in the Muslim world in all sorts of countries, including Saudi, the first really independent poll in Saudi Arabia. And I think one of the takeaways from your polling is that, yes, there's a rejection of American kind of imposition of democracy, but there's usually huge numbers that want an American visa or a better, a more open American regime when it comes to visits and this sort of thing. There's absolutely no question about that. And it's kind of a love-hate relationship with the United States. I mean, you know, most jihadis I met, really, I mean, you'll read it in the book. I mean, how pro-American they are, it's astonishing. It's absolutely astonishing. What do you mean by that? I mean that why they don't want the United States telling them what to do. They love American TV shows, they love American culture, even very religious Islamic people just have a lot of admiration for the United States. When it comes to American foreign policy and what they view as America's role in the world, that's one that breaks down. Let's turn over to Harry. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I was curious to know, what was the impetus behind creating this book and what do you hope to achieve by it? And more importantly, why the title of terrorist in the book itself? The impetus for the book really came from my feeling, and this was how I started the organization, that we were responding to 9-11 by reacting rather than trying to understand. It's very important to understand, not only for dialogue, but to respond correctly. Think of this, if most of these people are motivated by good, most of these people are motivated by desire to follow their religion, how is a completely militarized response gonna change that? It's a question. In front here. I'm Al Richmond, former State Department. One, I wanted you to clarify, Ken, did you mean complaints about American democracy when we're not supporting what we advocate? That is, we're supporting non-democratic regimes? I wanted you to elaborate that. Second, it's a widespread policy issue. What is the footprint of American forces in Arab countries? How much of that is an underlying motive, please? You know, it's the feeling, I'll just tell another kind of funny story in the book that illustrates this. Kamal said to me, you know, Bonanza was apparently Osama Bin Laden's favorite TV show. And he goes, he says to me, I'm sure, this is a little tongue in cheek, but I'm sure this is a CIA or Mossad plot, because how could Bonanza possibly be Bin Laden's favorite TV show when you have that character that you didn't remember the name, that Lauren Green character, blah, blah, blah, telling us all what to do all the time. That's the image of the United States that people have in the world, that we are out there saying to the rest of the world, you know, you have to follow our way, our way or the highway. Lauren Green and Bonanza. People want to find their own way. Yeah, more that. You know, it's a huge factor, obviously. I mean, it was in Iraq. I mean, I think in Abu Ghraib and our presence in Iraq was undoubtedly a recruiting poster for the jihadi movement. Well, just to ask a sort of, you know, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago has done a long, you know, look at suicide attacks. And his main claim is it's largely a nationalist response to foreign occupation and the religious component is pretty small. Do you agree with that? I don't. Because the religious component was the foremost, whether I spoke to people in Indonesia, Pakistan, the Middle East, the religious component was the most important for them. So I just don't think that's right and I don't think it's right. I mean, if you, you know, I don't know how many people that he actually talked to in coming to that conclusion. Well, I mean, this is based on, you know, the University of Chicago's very large data set. I don't agree with him either, but I'm just based, you know, what do you, I mean, in terms of your... It's not what I found. Right. And when I interviewed, you know, these folks, it's just not what I found. And it doesn't explain cases like Pakistan where there's been an epidemic of suicide attacks which are clearly not a response to foreign occupation. No, there is no foreign occupation. Right. I mean, and it's not... And in Saudi Arabia? In Saudi Arabia, it's the same thing. So I don't think that's right. I think that sometimes it can be a response to foreign occupation. Again, one size fits all you have to be very careful about. Right. Let's get some in the back, Jennifer. Thanks. Hello, I'm Rob Dubois, a security advisor and the author of PowerfulPeace.net. And I appreciate the book. I can't wait to get into it because it's the human side of the terrorists. The terrorists is a two-dimensional cartoon character. Real quick, Ken, you've got to watch looking for comedy in the Muslim world with Albert Brooks about a Jew sent to the Muslim world by Fred Thompson. Real quick, I've had the same conversation you talked about with the jihadi that embraced you as a friend with the commander of Russian special forces. When we understand human beings as the human being first and then all the dirty dark secrets about our background, our religion or whatever the objectionable factors are, it becomes secondary. It's less important and less of a barrier between us. How would you like to see this book used for the policy we're talking about? Because if you can reach constituents, you can reach politicians and they won't see the two-dimensional terrorist in a man-dress. Yeah, I would like, I mean, I'm not sure. I don't have all the policy answers and I really feel like the more you learn, the more you know, the less you can actually come up with clear-cut, right answers. But I really like some policy makers and military leaders to read this book because I think I might give them a different insight. Hi, I'm Mike Shoemaker from Coast Guard Headquarters. I had sort of two related questions. Have you interviewed any American jihadis to see if they have similar views to the ones that you interviewed overseas? And the second is, you talked about dreams. I was told by a former State Department person that numerology plays a role in Islamic thinking and how Al-Qaeda does things that certain numbers mean certain things. If you could comment on that. No, there's a scene in the book about that, actually, where the number 19 apparently had some significance and that's discussed at length and that is discussed in the book. And in the book, everyone comes from a different background. I mean, there are the kind of people that you talked about who grew up with nothing in dirt poverty, who go to Madrasa. It's the only education Malik had. He wasn't offered none other. He couldn't go anywhere else. So he went there and that's what he learned. And then so he had in this notion that he was trying to follow the right path and do good in the world. And he became a Taliban at 19 years old. He became in charge of a whole region of eastern Afghanistan for the religious police at 19 years old. What did he know of the world? Nothing. So he came from that kind of background. There are other people who came from a background of great wealth. Kamal had in his control a fortune of $143 million. He was on the cusp of transferring that over to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. And I won't tell you what stopped him. You don't have to read the book. Sorry. The US Treasury Department? No, it wasn't the US Treasury. But can imagine, I don't know, this is an educated audience and I'm not just saying that. I can tell from the question. But the 9-11 attacks cost $500,000. That's the general consensus. And al-Qaeda is basically broke. The Taliban is not flooded with money. I mean, so that kind of fortune had it been transferred when it represented a real threat. But my point is everyone comes from a different background and you can be radicalized by personal events in your life. It's not just one thing. It's not just America invades a rock and everybody becomes radical. That is a myth. But I think the gentleman had a potentially, from the Coast Guard, had a potentially very good idea for your next book, Ken. Well, there you go. American jihadists. And I didn't answer that. What I wanted to say is, no, I haven't, but some of the people I interviewed came from great wealth and great privilege as people in this country a lot do as well and who have become radicalized. So Bin Laden came from a very successful family. So it's not always the model of coming up from poverty that does that. In fact, many of the leaders don't. And many of the people I interviewed did. Lady here. Hi, I'm Julia Faff. I spent 2007 to 2009 teaching in Kuwait business. My husband was a defense attaché. Just a couple of things. Your description of the lone bearded man you were describing in the beard was some of the stories my husband told me when he went out to meet with the Salafists. He said it was like going to a Baptist potluck dinner. They were all very nice to him. They all were wonderful. But my real question goes, it seems like there's a theme running through this. And I saw this when I was teaching that there's a sense in which there can be a poverty of purpose. Not poverty of want, but a poverty of purpose. And in all the descriptions that you've given, it seems like you're going after love. You're going after erasing something. But it seems like purpose plays a huge role in why they may choose to become jihadists. Yeah, and part of that is somebody who spent so much time in Saudi Arabia. And I think this is true in the Arab world in general. And going to this question about purpose is a huge underemployment problem. I mean, Muhammad Atta, if he'd gone back to Egypt after his PhD in Germany, he would have been a cab driver for sure. So to what extent is this lack of purpose or this underemployment or this sort of defeated expectation as part of any of this? I think it's part of it. Ahmad, Bernie, who goes to Iraq, couldn't find work. And that was true of half the young Saudis in his country. It's also a product of the education system. In Saudi Arabia, public schools, these are government schools, half the classes are religious classes. People are not taught skills that are useful in the world. So you graduate, you may know the holy book, but that may be all you know. So to compete in the 20th century world that we're in, the globalized environment, that's difficult. 21st century, thank you. Even if that was true in the 20th century, Any other questions? Hi, I'm Konstantin, I'm a fellow here. I just had a quick sort of following up on this methodological question. The question of language, sort of what language you conducted the interviews in, the ones where you may have used an interpreter sort of, you seem to have developed this sort of sense of intimacy with a lot of the people and how using an interpreter may have sort of affected you. It depended on the interview. Three of the people I interviewed was largely one-on-one. They spoke, I don't speak Pashto, they spoke fluent English. You know, when you go to the education system and they went to good schools and they spoke, when I say fluent English, I mean fluent English. Same for Kamal, Kamal was raised in part by an American tutor. His English was flawless and his immersion in American culture was amazing, even to me. So for some of them, and it enabled some of the closeness, there were, Malik is a Taliban who went to the Madras, I was talking about him. He did not speak any English, very limited, and I relied on a journalist. And then later Shahid to conduct the translations. And then for Abbey and Ahmad, I had Dr. Ali and my favorite translator who I talk about in the book, so it depended on the interview. And having Dr. Ali, their psychologist there, was vital because when each of them wanted to clam up with me, he would say, no, it's okay, why don't you tell him the story about such and such? And I always wondered at that moment whether the Saudis had a different definition of doctor-patient privilege than we have in the West, but anyway. Well, that raises a pretty interesting question. As Saudi, of course, I mean, going back to the question of who's gonna be made unhappy or happy by the book, I mean, Saudi Arabia is such a closed society and there's so little real reporting about what's going on. How do you think they will react to it? Because after all, you have this, I mean, Saudi Arabia plays such a big role, both the rehabilitation program and also this character Kamal, who's a member of the Wahhab family. Do you, what do you, I mean, are you gonna get a Saudi visa again? Let's ask that. I don't know the answer to that. The Saudis will have to answer that themselves. I hope so. I have friends in that country I'd like to go back. And Saudi Arabia is a corner of the world's oil reserves. I mean, it's very important to our future. And the future of the Muslim world, as one gentleman pointed out, of the spending of the billions and billions and billions on building madrasas and you go to Pakistan, you go to Indonesia and you physically see these places that the Saudi government has built and you go inside and you hear the teachings. So it's very important. Hello, yes. My name is Shoji Motoka. I'm currently the visiting fellow of Johns Hopkins University of Science. And I originally came from the, Japanese public broadcaster NHK and I used to be a former bureau chief of Islamabad for three years, 2006 to 2009. Actually, I'm surprised to see you are American and American person could do this such kind of exclusive interview with these people because I also did some kind of things. But in Pakistan, Japanese is kind of advantage because we are low profile target of these people. Although these people kind of have a kind of sympathy to my country because they are using Toyota or Nissan for this attack or this, I'm sorry, this is just joking. They drive two engines. Anyway, yes, in Pakistan, I know how people are going. Of course, American people are followed by such and followed by the ISI or you can easily become a really high profile. Have you ever feel any kind of experience or have you ever feeling about some dangerous things or some harassment from these people? Well, Zeddy, who is profiled in the book, told me, he said the following and he had worked for the ISI, I was paid for the ISI, which was the fact I was able to corroborate through several sources. But anyway, he said to me the following. He said, Ken, I wouldn't be taking vacation anytime soon in the stately mountains of Pakistan because in Pakistan, accidents happen even if coincidences seldom do. So was he threatening you or what was he? No, he was giving me a warning. I mean, he really felt that I might be targeted by the ISI. I mean, for the disclosures in the book about ISI helping the radicals. Well, we'll find out, won't we? If I go back to Pakistan, it might limit my career. Anyway, that's what he told me. I'm not, you know, we'll see. Hello, I'm Ursula from the Brookings Institution. I have a two-part question. Okay, I'm having a little trouble hearing you. Hello, I'm Ursula from the Brookings Institution. Oh, hi. Hi, I have a two-part question. You've clearly gone deep into the depth psychology of the people that you've talked with. I would be interested in how it has affected you to be in such contact with such violent people and how it might have changed or not, how you view both yourself and your mission. And also, I'd be very interested in your perspective on the ethics of interviewing live terrorists, meaning ones who are out large, planning, and could detonate at any moment, both for and against. But I would just be interested in hearing what you have to say about that. There is a, those are both excellent questions. There is a scene in the book where one of the, when someone basically gives me his dream or vision of a terrorist attack, and then several months later, that attack occurred. I don't know whether he was, I didn't have specific evidence that he was planning an attack because I would have told someone, obviously, I wouldn't have told someone in Pakistan, but I would have told someone in American intelligence for sure, and they could presumably communicate it. I didn't have that specific kind of evidence, and it was only after the fact that I put two and two together. And I'm not really sure that is, that vision was the attack that occurred, but it seemed like it might have been. So it was not the kind of, I mean maybe that comes from my experience as a prosecutor where I want hard evidence as opposed to these kind of dreamy type stuff. So not something that would stand up in a court of law. That's for sure. So I didn't feel any need to report it, and it really didn't even make sense to me till afterwards. Your first question is, did it change me? You bet it did. It changed me quite significantly. To be in a room with somebody or at that restaurant, and then we went up to the room and there is a very, very, kind of to me moving scene in the book where this fellow who was a committed jihadi, you know, and there was a lot of discussion with Daniel Pearl because the group knew I was Jewish. They Googled me on the internet. And one of the people in the group before this other fellow he told me came, they were talking about doing a Daniel Pearl on me. And so this guy met me and I have this dream and he has these conversations and he tells me about his childhood and how he was raped. He never told anyone in the world that the highest kind of dishonor among his fellow people to have that kind of secret come out. He's telling me all this stuff. And then he, I almost saw his beliefs undergo a transformation before my very eyes. You bet it moved me. It absolutely moved me. Okay, we got about 10 minutes. So we'll take these three questions and then we'll. All right, thank you. Cheryl Smart from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. You've shared some wonderful insights on the variety of motivations for these individuals and also that religion is an important common motivator. I wonder if you can share any insights on that upper level of leadership that you mentioned and what you saw or what you heard as their motivations and especially if they're the role of religion at that leadership level as well. That is another extremely insightful and excellent question. Because what I saw at the upper levels and what I saw people from the lower levels talking or the mid levels talking about the upper levels is that for some of them indeed religion plays an important role. But you have in these movements people who are corrupted and I met with one Taliban pretty high up guy who really wasn't, it's not in the book because he wasn't terribly insightful. He was full of rhetoric. And it was actually quite funny because I was sitting with him and he kept looking up at the sky. He kept looking up, looking up, looking up. So I finally said to him, why do you keep looking up like that? You know, I didn't do it quite in that tone of voice. I thought it maybe was some religious thing that I was missing or whatever. He said, well, I'm afraid where the Americans are gonna drop a drone on us. Okay. I said, well, at least, well, if they do they'll take out an American citizen along with you. But you know, sometimes the Taliban and the other leaders justify the corruption that they're engaged in by saying, oh well, the goal is for religion. And you know, that's why I say your question's interesting. Query, is it for religion then at that point or are they still religious beings when they're stealing and lying and doing all of that or are they just justifying their behavior? They could still be believing in it. I mean, I don't know, but it becomes a problematic fact for them. And I think it's a missed opportunity from our side. We just don't see the corruption. And believe me, the people in the movement see it. And it's very ugly to them. And they're not convinced by their leaders' justification that it's all done in the name of religion. Eddie Hussain, who's a former member of his, but I hear wrote a piece immediately after Al-Waqi was killed saying it would be more effective just to release his three arrest records for solicitation of prostitutes when he was living in San Diego than to have killed him with a drone. I would actually agree with that. I think to expose the human foibles of some of these leaders out there to get that kind of information out there, hopefully through Muslim sources, hopefully through religious clerics in the Muslim world who want to distance, that has more credibility, I think. It's also very dangerous, right? I mean, the guy, the well-known cleric in Lahore who criticized the Taliban, I mean, he's now dead. That's right, it's very dangerous. In the back and then. And people in the movement are true believers and that's why it's dangerous. Yes, Scott Rickard with ALS Group. First of all, thank you for risking your life for this story. When I first saw the title, I thought it was something like, you know, Robert Spencer was doing a James Bond book or something. So. It's not. But after this experience, I like your opinion on the writings of like the, you know, the Robert Spencer's, the Pamela Gellar's, those types and just your opinion of that type of writing. Yeah, no, it's, you know, Peter suggested my next project might be interviewing. Actually, I am writing another book and one of the themes in that book is how sometimes, this was from going over Scott and seeing the other side, so to speak. And I think here in America, we have a great danger when we demonize and when we vilify people and, you know, Sharia in Oklahoma. And I think, you know, that's a very dangerous kind of mentality that can take America on a path of destruction and create a conflict that doesn't exist. Lady in front. You have to give her the mic because she gave me the bandaid. She's so well equipped. She's well equipped. And I don't know how I cut myself. Must be on the coke can. It's probably a. It was a paper cut from the book. Well, that's, there you go. It was a paper cut from the book and I'm prepared because I have four children. But you said it was very, dreams were very important. How easy is it to make up a story and say it was a dream? Well, I don't think it's that easy. You know why? Because when I had my dream and I shared it with Shahid, who was very immersed in this dream culture and he knew the Quran by heart. He was a Huffees, which means he could recite the entire book. So he was very, and he knew all the, he's deeply into the religion. So if I had made something, if I'd made that dream up, he would have caught me in it. And then, believe me, it wouldn't have been such a friendly experience with him. He would have saw me as a betraying. I mean, it would have been the end of the, I don't know what he would have done. He might have even taken on a knife and killed me on the spot. I don't know. The fact that I answered those questions and boy, thank God I did. The way that comported to his view of what the dream should be. So I think it's pretty hard actually to make up these dreams because they have a lot of intricate rules to them about, you know, you'll see this when you read the book. You know, there's a whole canon of dream interpretation and what a particular dream means and why it says this and why it says that stuff. So actually I think it would be difficult for someone to make it up. Even for their leaders to, if they wanna do something, I dream that. No, I just don't think it works that way. I think that, you know, because I just think they have the dreams. Now what may happen is that if you know dreams are important and you wanna do something, maybe your unconscious takes over and you have a dream. But I think making up a dream would be something that if ever found out would get you. How do you find out though? Because you do, because it's not just, I went to the, you know, have a certain dream. There's a whole culture of dream interpretation and so if you, you know, misstep this at all, people would see that as inauthentic. You know, it's interesting in the 9-11 report there's a lot of discussion of the dreams that people within Al Qaeda were having. And bin Laden was very concerned about the dreams people were having within Al Qaeda before the 9-11 event because he felt that some of these dreams were getting so close to the reality of what was gonna happen that he actually told people to stop talking about their dreams. So not only in the Taliban, but also within Al Qaeda this was an important. And in fact, one of the people who had the dreams is mentioned in the book, that is actually in the book because he, I mean, he was at a terrorist training camp trained by Zeddy and he had this dream which everyone interpreted as the 9-11 attacks, the day of the attacks, I mean. So when it was on the TV, he had this dream the night before that he told everyone. I mean, you know, dreams are quite subjective and so you can, you know, interpret them as you wish. Well, we'll interpret this as a really wonderful event and thank you for doing it. Good, and it's not a dream, you're all in reality in this room. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have extra books, how should we do that? I'm happy to. Oh yeah, and also Ken will be signing books for those who would like. Yes. Here, what about Chris Hedges' book, War Gives Meaning to Life?