 So Karen, let's start with the title, Why Subtle and Why Tools? First of all, thank you for your kind words on the book and thanks for this discussion today. I'm really looking forward to it. Why Subtle and Why Tools? My basic sense of what went wrong after 9-11, and I'm always curious to hear your thoughts on this, is that so many of us have focused on strategic problems and tactical mistakes. And with the idea that if we sunset the policies, we're okay, or if like during Obama, we don't use some of these tools that I'm going to get to in a minute. But the fact is that the dangers are not just the policies. The dangers in this particular story that I'm telling are the way in which those policies came about. It's sort of the culture of governance that was redirected and compromised after the war on terror. And my argument is that these subtle tools that I mentioned in the book, there are four of them, really change the way we do business in Washington, in domestic and international affairs, and that we can revise the policies all we want. But until we make it not acceptable, not okay to use these tools, we're in trouble. And so that's the subtle part is that it's what we don't see that comes before the policies themselves and on the way to the policies. And we don't see them because we've just sort of adjusted ourselves over 20 years to them? Because they're behavioral. They're not necessarily named, although I think when you know you name them, they become like, you could say, how subtle is that? But you know, when you name them, you're like, yes, of course, but until you name them, you don't really see them. And so that's where the subtleties come in. Can you name them for us? I can try. And by that I mean many things because it changed over presidencies and over time, but essentially cloudy, fuzzy, imprecise language. And that was used, this is not the first time, but it was used in a very aggressive intentional and heightened way after 9-11, particularly with the first pieces of legislation, but continuing throughout the war on terror in a number of places. The idea was if, for example, in the authorization to use military force, you don't name an enemy, then the president has the power to go after whoever he wants, which is what we've seen happen over time. And I can go through many instances of this, but and it's lasted till this day, it became a powerful tool in enabling the executive to do what it wanted to because the category was so broad. This law is supposed to be the opposite. Something the founding fathers talked about a lot. It's supposed to be precise. It's supposed to be contained. It's supposed to be enumerated. And we just sort of got away from that in what I think is a very damaging way. The second one, this will be no surprise to anyone, but I'm still putting it as a subtle tool is secrecy, right. The secrecy that we know we have to have for national security matters in the classified setting, et cetera, et cetera. The secrecy that was embraced by Bush, and continually even during Obama, even after his proclamations about, you know, a commitment to transparency, and that was ramped up and transformed under under President Trump is really something that we need to address and that we need to have punitive responses to when it's used to the extent that let's say Trump used it where he didn't even create the record. Right, it was all on a continuum though from writing secret memos to just not creating the record itself, and many other things which we can talk about if we get into it. The third thing sort of follows from the first fuzzy language and that is what I call a term which you might not like which I call bureaucratic porousness it's kind of a big term. And what I mean by that is institutional fuzziness and imprecision, and the best example of that but not the only example was the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which basically took things from treasury and agriculture and defense and justice and health and human services and more and just sort of lump that together under the pretense that this is all about counterterrorism, which it quickly became about other things, largely the border which it has, you know, gradually morphed into today. But that kind of disrespect for institutional integrity, which also boils down to a disrespect that others have written about for professional integrity and professional professionalism is something that you've seen this administration actually try to respond to actually I would argue that this tried to respond to a number of these things or set out its intentions this administration being Biden, and the fourth is the willingness to bypass laws and norms and that these other three tools fuzzy language secrecy institutional porousness, basically allowed for to erase this notion that, if you needed to laws and norms could be pushed aside, national security war, and a couple of other concepts where they're keeping the American people safe, and you could just do what you wanted and and and these tools were used in tandem with one another in a number of instances throughout three presidencies and that and so these are the tools and and I think they need to be addressed and they need to be addressed. If for nothing else, then they sort of erase the notion of accountability. And if you don't name what the laws about well who could be held accountable for the fact that you created a law, you know, created a law that did XYZ if you, if you don't punish secrecy, if there's no, you know, correction that's immediate and if there's no, you know, accountability for the individual who writes memos that justify torture even though it's against domestic military and international law. Why would secrecy, you know, not be practiced. If the DOJ and the DHS are allowed to just operate as one organization, and it goes on for 20 years. What does that mean in terms of the size of the powers of the government in that sector. And in terms of bypassing laws and norms I think that's more of an, you know, obvious one which is how far have we come from a respect for the rule of law and constitutional principles since 911. That makes sense. Yeah, as much to unpack there. Some of these abuses were the work correctives made right I mean the secret prisons closed the coercive interrogations ended the universal surveillance of all American communications when it became public as a result of the Snowden revelations. Some of these things were fixed right. And the argument that the policies were sort of fixed like even in surveillance they weren't completely fixed and but the fact that they weren't rejected in a public way. The fact that they came into being this, you know, by under the guise of national security that's still out there. The fact that you can create. They talk about repealing and replacing the 2001 AUMF right. And that replacement because there are some very important things about this replacement that are these subtle tools and one of them is that it had we have to name an enemy. We have to name at least given indication that there is an end to hostilities that's in sight what it would look like, even if you just mentioned it which look, this is a contradiction to all the authorizations for force that preceded it, as well as to the declarations of war. So this this, we can't have a new one that just says something that's just as fuzzy. It doesn't matter if we sunset one if we place it with something that comes about in the, in the same way and the same thing about secrecy. If you can, if it if the policies were bad, what about the fact that we didn't know about the policies for how long, you know, the surveillance, for example, that in and of itself, to my mind has to be addressed. Otherwise, you can get away with whatever you want to get away with as as a government. Yeah. I mean one of the. How would you sort of assess me seems to one of the main impacts of 911 was to greatly increase the power of the executive and the presidency. I mean, as a. Is this to an unprecedented level I mean is there been any other, I guess, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus right and they've been. But how would you how would you score this in the broad sweep of American history. Yeah, I think this is unprecedented in that, first of all, there's more, more things to have power over. I would I include also the global the global network both virtual and physical. But I do think it's unprecedented that doesn't mean that other presidents, Lincoln being one FDR you could argue in some ways being another that just sort of, we're going to do what they were going to do the way they wanted to do it often in the war, right and war and security. And, but this is unprecedented in the sense that the emboldenment of the presidency by Congress, right by the courts, the absolute willingness to virtually eradicate checks and balances, and to violate the sense of the you know separation of branches of government that to the degree to which this was done in so many ways is unprecedented and there was no other than you know some pundits on the outside there was no counterbalance Congress fell down in its job and the courts. Definitely punted often saying in you know judicial opinions, it's not our job to second guess national security policy that comes out of the executive. That seems like a cop out. Yeah, it seemed like a cop out then and it seems like a cop out now which you know is, yes, that. I mean that the Supreme Court seems right differential to the president on matters of national security. Is that I mean is that been very static throughout the last 20 years or has it got worse better. That's interesting because we have so you know you look at Guantanamo right so and the detainee problem that the people could say and people have said, look that the Supreme Court weighed in on this detainee issue by saying they had to have, you know, they had to be able to contest their rights you know with habeas proceedings, etc. And, but that's very little in the scheme of things and right now I'm not sure the Supreme Court's going to make its next decisions, and, you know, just in that vein. So, what I would say is this, the 20 years has something to do with it well if you have a limited war that isn't going to go on forever, then you think you can maybe redress it there can be sort of a reset. It goes on this law, which is for a generation. Where does the reset exactly go to, and I think that's what's happened in the courts, which is that there's a, there's been a kind of knee jerk deference to the executive. During the Trump administration that that courts tried to stand up, but particularly on immigration matters in a variety of circuits across the country, particularly in the West in the ninth circuit but also elsewhere. And what did the Solicitor General's Office do it, it stepped in, and what did the Supreme Court do it allowed that it. What they did was they interrupted the proceedings that usually go from one court to a higher court right and pellet, and they just interrupted the court process. So this is during the travel ban issue during the travel ban issue and also in some of the immigration context cases but mostly in the travel ban, and it just gives you a sense of how once it's okay to violate process a little bit why not just do it. And without any idea that okay there needs to be some accounting for this right and it's, it's, it's not about punishments about wrong. Therefore we're going to redefine this position in this way. You know, you only get to interfere in the process X number of times and X something like that I'm not, you know, I'm sort of riffing here but something that's precise that's contained that understands that power given is power taken. You mentioned Guantanamo, you of course have written a very good book about the first year of Guantanamo. So, and you, that book came out what 2005 or I can't remember nine I think it was 11 years ago so 12 years ago. Did you have any idea that it would still be open. When you wrote this book did you have any idea that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was still the operational commander of 911 would still not be on trial or not being not be tried, not be tried. It's unfathomable to me as a citizen that we haven't tried the 911 co conspirators you know alleged 911 co conspirators it's on it's such a travesty to the idea of justice it's such a violation of the idea of justice. Seriously and we talk about why we can't get out of this era why well this is one reason trials are meant to explain to narrate to put an endpoint to to settle things. Talk about subtle to settle things we don't see so much and how it terms of it affects us and what it is. So I never thought that was possible in terms of Guantanamo itself and the detainees. I don't remember but I do remember that I was thinking wow it's going to be really great when I can write Guantanamo's last 100 days. That was like 12 years ago, and I still don't see it. I mean what is so let's just drill down a bit on that I mean you follow the issue very closely and it seems that there've been multiple changes of prosecutors and defendants and co vids intervene and I mean is there any prospect of a real trial. I read I think on your very very useful daily brief, something about KSM maybe going to trial next year. Yeah, even is that feasible. Yeah that's probably not remember that every time the judge and the prosecutor changes. The people in charge those positions have to educate themselves about the case that's the legitimate way to do it so they have to read through thousands and thousands and thousands and years of documents right these guys have been at Guantanamo for 15 years. So all of the documents that be created around the case. So it's not like they can snap their fingers and have it, however, and you and I both know, had they tried this in federal or you can disagree but I don't think you will. But had they tried this in federal court, like Eric Holder wanted to do like we tried terrorism cases prior to 911 and after 911. There is no case that would have lasted this long. It could happen. It's a deeper bench. And I mean bench in terms of just support staff teams prosecutors who understand and know al Qaeda and terrorism. You know that that's one solution that probably won't happen. Another solution would be to take the death penalty off the table and allow some some please some plea deals to go forward if defense attorneys we go for that. So there are options. But you and I both know that the Biden administration, you know, I mean obviously Eric in work for the Obama administration and there was a completely foe controversy that somehow you couldn't try terrorists in the Southern District of New York. And in fact, there have been multiple multiple trials of terrorists in the Southern District of New York since that without any, you know, problem. There was a completely foe controversy. You know, if the Biden administration really wanted to close Guantanamo wouldn't they try it again or all the political costs just so much that it's not even worth trying. I think they've made gestures to make it look like they want to close Guantanamo. You know, they cleared for release five additional detainees right, you know, I think it was at the beginning of the summer or sometime around then. But that doubled the number who had been cleared for custody the question is, will these review boards continue to meet and in a fast way think about. Look, a lot of this work was done before when they were thinking about this at the very end of the Obama administration so they know which countries they can work with and which countries they probably can't work with to resettle these individuals. They know what the conditions of security are that they want from certain countries, and what they need to what they need to insist upon to, to be able to present to Congress, they need to do it in a responsible way. They know the parameters in a way they didn't really know until they started to do it at the end of the Obama administration. So, and they've started, you know, all of the trials begin are beginning to take on a kind of momentum so isn't the trickier question just putting the trial at Fort Leavenworth or because I mean I presume there are still some sort of relatively innocuous people that can be shipped off to Kosovo or whatever. And then you have KSM and others who clearly have admitted their own role in 911. It's reasonable to have a Guantanamo military tribunal on a US military base in the continental United States where is that just too politically costly. Well that's interesting that you say that because the reason they can't do it is that for the past 10 years they, the appropriations bill for the Pentagon has said basically that you can't transfer any detainee here for any purpose whatsoever, right from Guantanamo. It was came out of committee this version that you know it usually passes in like December it came out of committee this year without that clause. Now, who knows how far that will get, but you know it's one of those glimmers of light you just want to hold on to so it's not impossible. I actually think it's more likely that it might go into the federal court system where, you know the idea is, to your point about the the faux narrative after, you know, when they tried to when Holder tried to bring the cases here. You know, there was a Guantanamo detainee who was transferred to federal court, Ahmed Gailani to the Southern District of New York, who had been at a black site and had been tortured, and the evidence in his trial, some of the most important evidence according to prosecutors came from a witness that had been identified during the torture of Mr. Gailani. And that case happened. All right, it didn't have a decision that everyone liked because even though he's serving a life sentence, he was acquitted on 284 of 285 charges but the fact is the case happened, it was resolved, there was a jury, there were all the security measures you should have seen what it took to get into the courtroom and the amount of procedures they had. And we can handle these cases and the idea that the federal judiciary can't handle these cases that the civilian courts can handle these cases. And the whole 911 question is so I think damaging to the sort of character and sort of legitimacy of the courts themselves, they have to handle, they have to be able to handle these cases and if torture is something that keeps coming up they need to be able to adjudicate that that's what it means to have an actual rule of law and not just one that you use when it's convenient. Yeah. So, I mean, presidents as different as Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W Bush kind of have a had a pretty similar approach on a number of issues. Being the judge jury and executioner and drone strikes Biden did suspend the drone strikes by it appears that he started again in Somalia so it's and of course he the two drone strikes in in Afghanistan which one of which was clearly a disastrous mistake. But there seems to be sort of a kind of unity of, you know, the differences of course but, you know, they, they all use drone strikes they always special operations, special forces, they all want a light footprint, at least, you know, you know, there's there's there's no more big conventional army so how do you sort of think about that since there seems to be sort of bipartisan consensus around many of the tools that you describe. Maybe not the subtle tools, but at least kind of the ones that work that are more obvious. I think, and this does go to the subtle tools. The idea that the President can the executive writ large can just decide who what when we're and why to attack with a drone strike, let's say, it cannot really be the case that why can't there be a process by which you have to bring it to, you know, Congress to some, you know, visible committee something where you say, this is who we want to attack where we want to attack them, not just the National Security Council it's it's broader than that and it's more balanced you know checks and balances. than that. And we don't have that now. And so, yeah, we've come to accept that just when the executive wants to bomb somebody, they do. It used to be that you have to sort of say we're bombing this person I'm not saying they don't say it to themselves, but we're bombing this person at this time for this reason. For example, you know, Obama used the word imminent, right for for killing, let's say on our lock in American citizen. So the idea was, he posed an imminent threat someday. It wasn't an imminent, we could say here's when where and why right or why we probably knew but here's when and why. The definition of imminence was sort of expanded in a sense but it was was was it completely wrong in the sense that because Marty laid him and then David Baron right wrote the opinion. Both of whom, you know, and serious lawyers and I mean, I'm going to paraphrase I think their reasoning you tell me where it's off. You know, I like he was training people to attack targets in the United States. He was doing so on a pretty consistent basis. There was no evidence that he was stopping doing that. He obviously tasked the underwear bomber to blow up an American plane over Detroit. And, you know, apparently Obama had no Obama didn't give us a second thought the constitutional law professor was like, you know, he didn't, he didn't give us a second thought over this one so what was, you know, what should have happened that do you think or what was this the right decision. Now I'm not a real fan of the memo that set this out but one thing in it also is that he couldn't be captured. That was one of the ideas that he couldn't be captured and and and therefore killing was the only alternative. We do have something called due process, which has to do with you know, the rights of American citizens. The only way you can renounce that right is not by somebody in the White House saying you've, you've, you've given up your right to be a citizen, you have to actually renounce it and you have to say those words, and one form or another. And so, you know, do we not trust ourselves to be able to, you know, capture and try somebody like this, do we need a system of being able to try to have people that we've captured in one country or, you know, look at Guantanamo that's a mistake. But, but I think it shows the weakness, again, of our distrust in the justice system which is kind of what road justice is about right I write about that kind of extensively there which is, we've just abandoned our trust in that system to work so that's one piece of it the other piece of it was and this is true about the Obama's administration writ large. They didn't think about someone else picking up these powers. They, they don't seem to have thought about the fact that once it was okay for people who thought they were acting within the Constitution within the rule of law, whatever that somebody like Donald Trump could came along and then the strike against Soleimani, right, which he uses in the same way right afterwards we hear was imminent. It was imminent attack. And then, you know, when journalists and others drove, you know, delve down and say well what was the resistance what was going to be attacked was it these bases was it what exactly these embassies. There was no they are there. And so, well you know that that raises an interesting question because you mentioned the Soleimani strike, I was surprised that Trump administration didn't will clearly articulate that that basically it was the same reasoning as the Alakie strike in a way the Alakie strike was much harder case to make because he was an American citizen Soleimani wasn't you didn't hear the Trump administration use this argument publicly. You know that's exactly well they did use the word imminent without you know compare actually one of the officials does, I think I write about it one of them does. But but there's a different reason for that, which is that and this goes to that the heart of the Trump administration. You really didn't vet as far as we can tell the strike in the way you would want a National Security Council, you know, procedurally working. And so as a result they hadn't come up with a legal rationale that they were going to use. In the week after there's a whole chapter on this in the book with a week after you have Esper saying one thing, you have bar saying another thing, you have banned and everybody's has a different legal procedural framework that they're using. In fact, there's a story about you know Esper going on NPR and having to come back on, because he, he said what he thought was the case but then when he got back to the office he was told no no no that's not the reason we're using today. So, you saw it they were confused they were conflicted which is what it means to bypass laws and norms if you don't follow the norms of how you make a decision of this magnitude. There are other consequences and this was one of them. So, it so it was just a complete confusion and that I that fell into the confusion what what we're there rationale. Okay, and just to remind viewers listeners, please use slider if you want to submit a question. And I'll just take the first question that just came up. It's an interesting one. Do you believe the lack of trials of 911 conspirators is to hide Saudi misconduct from Jack Keeland. What's interesting there's I was just going over some of the sound for a different reason some of the, you know, allegations that the press has made in in these four requests and trying to figure out about what the Saudi role is. I think I wouldn't say it was specifically that I do think that we've grown into a pattern where when they as a country where when things are just so complicated it's not worth getting into. We see it as not worth getting into. And I think the role of the Saudis how limited how precise, where it was, who was giving money to whom in the United States and what that actually means in terms of the royal family, where it was all coming from. It's so has been so neglected for so long and now to get back into it just seems like why what what is there to be gained from it. I still think I think that has a lot to do with what's going on Guantanamo. We seem to have gotten ourselves into a situation where when it's just too complicated. It's just not worth it. I want to turn to some specific quotes in the book that I found striking. Essentially, you say that without all the things we've just discussed the path to Donald Trump might never have been laid. So what what what did you mean by that. We have a few hours for me to tell you. Let's take. I mean Donald Trump is sort of the, the all of this burst onto the scene all at once. So for example, secrecy is one obvious one that I think people know about Donald Trump took secrecy that was already established right we can keep secret. We can sort of use that as a big rubric for them and he based and look we've seen it through Obama and in a number of ways, including with the torture report, but you know not releasing all 6000 pages of the torture report. But before Donald Trump decided not to create the record. And so what does that mean. That means, we don't let as John Bolton others have reported, we don't really know what was said at certain meetings with foreign dignitaries and others because Trump made it issued an order you can't take notes at this meeting. So there are no notes of it right. As you're saying that Karen it suddenly cuts me, you know, we don't know who is in the White House at any given time right I mean the, I think the White House sort of registration. The White House login, they said they exactly thank you for bringing that up. So you so you didn't have to sign in so no they did not didn't have to. There was no place to sign in right. Same thing with the border. Look what happened at the border when they separated you know sort of to switch categories here when they separated children and you know families. They did keep a record on purpose of who they had separated sound you want to know why we can't find parents why this has been such a hurdle to reunite families. Well if you don't create a record. There are lots of things that can happen afterwards, and a lot of things about the detention camps, haven't been recorded. That's a lot better than having to worry about for you. Things that'll come down the road and maybe these secrets you know how we're treating people Guantanamo or decisions to make to strike certain individuals might come out. There's just no record of it. And we see this in other ways I mean Trump really you know stymied the use of subpoenas by the White House and by the courts in terms of getting White House officials to testify in a way that's really amazing how it worked. So, you know that to me is a kind of secrecy and what I would say with Trump was that he understood how if you combine secrecy with fuzzy language, we're going to put a lot of bad guys in Guantanamo, you know, we're going to take all all Muslim ban, you know, rather than, you know, eventually there were specific, you know, some specifics added to it but the idea that this was just carte blanche for these countries that what you end up being able to do is lie, much more easily, because there's there's nothing. There's both a lack of precedent for the language, which is something Trump did on numerous occasions and a lack of precedent and a lack of documents to be used to counter the lying people so just that's, you know, one kind of example. I think another example and how these tools morphed into tremendous abuse by Trump has to do with the institutional fuzziness the lack of integrity between institutions and what that meant or within institutions. The fact that the Department of Homeland Security created as a counter terrorism organization became a weapon against the southern border immigrants coming in in the southern border in such a massive and uncontrolled way, particularly during Donald Trump was built into the, you know, fabric sewn into the fabric of its creation from the start, and Trump used DHS as his law enforcement agency, and with with William Barr and sessions, helping him. You see the guards from the border being who many of whom were deputized without any real training which you know has been reported in many places, taken to Portland for the black lives matter protests again. What's the, what's the consistency between border guards, professionalism training legitimacy mission and, and, and Portland, it was who Donald Trump could send there. That was what, you know, a short experiment where 911 didn't really work out the way that al-Qaeda planned and that, you know, instead of free, almost 3000 people being killed. You know, a couple hundred people got killed and I mean how how it our Howard history of unfold that I know there's a kind of big what if question. Let's say there were a few dozen Americans were killed but it wasn't a catastrophic attack. The powers didn't collapse. I mean that's another way of saying that question. It's a really good question because it still would have been, you know, a significant thing that a terrorist attack had taken a place. I do think the Saudi connection at the outset here to the earlier question would have looked in been looked into like, what was the relationship between state power and non state actor. I do think the federal courts would have been handed the case, because that was how we tended to do it even after the 98 bombings of the two US embassies in East Africa. I also think it would have, you know, you speak more about this than me but the idea that bin Laden had more, you know, bin Laden wanted us out of the Middle East. But he also talked about how if he and I could be wrong but you tell me how if he attacked, you know, the financial capital world and the government institutions at the center of the United States, sort of the country would unravel via its response the democracy that we so embraced would unravel by our response. I don't think that that would have happened. I think it would have been because it would have been a more measured attack it would have been a wholly different response that doesn't mean that there weren't people looking for more powers at any excuse, right. And so that could have still, you know, that would have been another way that of looking at this question is like, were there did this, did this, the whole sort of subtle tools universe just suddenly emerge after 911 or their roots in earlier presidencies. 100% there were roots earlier. And you know, a good example of that is Attorney General Barr, right, and his experience. Many of them had come out of Reagan, you know people who are in the Trump administration had come out of Reagan but many of the people who were in the National Security apparatus early on were infused with people who would come up let's go back to the Federalist Society right, which had been pushing for more executive power for, you know, decades prior to 911. There were a number of legal. I'll ask you a question about that. What, why did they, why did they want that. And what's what's what's the, what's the purpose. You know, it depends on how cynical you want to be. Some would say the levers of power lead to, it's such a good question, the levers of power lead to helping corporate interests and helping one's own personal interest. So that's one cabin thing. Another thing is that some just don't trust Congress to do to to adhere to principles that many think are very important. And those principles have to do with not going down the road of diversity. Right. There are many people we're seeing this now, you know, that don't really want the diverse sharing the sharing by so many diverse elements, you know, they are lingering and powerful trends of racism, among other things, and that the President can can outweigh Congress and therefore make it so that the country doesn't continue to go down this road of over inclusiveness, over flexibility. So that's, I think that's another reason I think there are people who there are factions in the United States that have always been uncomfortable with limits on government power through the fourth amendment, right, which involves the through the second amendment, which is first, I mean, first amendment, which is, you know, freedom of speech and assembly, and that discomfort has always been there that what will we have, we will have sort of, you know, a tyranny of a truly democratic country. And so, as I say, it depends on how cynical you want to phrase it but, and that was recognized early on, you know, particularly, you know, in the 60s and afterwards. And we're talking about the authorisation of the use of minimum course, you say in some ways it's going to be a law with either technical or geographical boundaries and lacking definitional limits when it came to the enemy. And we talked a little bit about that earlier. Walk us through kind of what the, do you think that was intentional? Was it just a heat of the moment or how did this develop? I think for many, it was the heat of the moment. I think for the White House, it was intentional. I think, but I don't, I don't think you could so easily separate them, which is why one of the things that I really wish it happened after 911 when we talk about all of this, this this trend towards, you know, untethered powers. Couldn't there have been a rethink at some point? You know, six months, one year, 18 months. Couldn't there have been a, okay, we know we reacted in ways that, you know, in our best moment we wouldn't have reacted. A truly understandable overreaction. All right. But just, but can't we, can't we rethink this? Can we rethink the authorisation of the use of military force and give it some specificity? Can we rethink some of the parts of the Patriot Act? Can we rethink all of the powers that have been mixed up with inside Department of Homeland Security? And that moment never happened. And, you know, in a way it's never, it hasn't really happened. It still hasn't happened. It's 20 years. So I had to write a book, that's why. Yeah, I mean, it's been laudan and being captured or killed that the Battle of Torah Borah in December of 2001, along with, you know, much of what remained of Al-Qaeda, that could have been an inflection point. Absolutely. And you've written about this and you've talked about, you know, you've made this point about the way in which, you know, the pivot from Torah Borah to Iraq, which was already underway by December of 2001, was, it wasn't just a missed moment. It was, like, a missed necessity, right? And it also, you know, precipitated the next phase, which was nation building, rather than, you know, going after Al-Qaeda. So it led both to the war in Iraq and to the endless war in Afghanistan. So I think you've made that point really well. And I'm a student of yours. So I agree with it. Professor. What about this sort of another theme of your book is sort of the, I guess, the militarization of national security policymaking, which obviously became, I mean, you know, the CIA became a power military organization to a large degree after 911 and then the Trump administration hired a pretty large group of retired and serving senior generals. And can you reflect a bit about all that? Yeah, this is the one of more uncomfortable things that happened with that. You know, you hear local places like places with like 800 citizens or 1500 citizens, I mean, really small towns, having these immense amount of military, you know, vehicles, for example, that were, you know, sort of post 911 vehicles that were then distributed around the country, right, just in case. And so, both from the very top levels that have to do with, you know, changing the dimension of our agencies throughout more militarily, we sort of accept a kind of militarization, but I would have said something different. I just, just I want to add to that, which is that we say militarization this kind of is a counter to something you said but it's also the you come up with the term the intelligence of vacation of the country, which has military consequences, which is that the number of offices that were stood up across the executive with an intelligence mandate that could interface in some ways, some more or less with the intelligence community that thought of themselves and define themselves in their mission statements as intelligence departments, for example, TSA, but certainly not only TSA, the proliferation of that has really completely altered how government thinks about its functioning and it dovetails with the secrecy because if it's intelligence and national security, then, you know, that also is something we're not going to know about and so I would say it's this combination of militarization and the way you've described, and intelligence of vacation. And I don't know that there's a way. I think it's harder to come back from the intelligence one to wind it back than the military one in some ways. Yeah, you know, one of the things that when I was working on my book about Trump and his generals that struck me and I wrote a note to myself and I was reading your book. Yeah, I was struck by, you know, in Britain there is no written constitution. And of course we have written constitution in the United States. And Trump kind of showed how much we do have an unwritten constitution in the United States so we weren't really aware of and I wondered if, like, you sort of felt that as you were writing the book. Do you talk about norms a lot and. I think that's right I think I think that's a really smart way of talking about the erosion, you know what is the power of norms. The perception norm, rather than a law, you know how easily can it be broken and or redone so the unwritten constitution part would be the norms when you decide to kill an atop Iranian general that's a state actor and not just a non you know right that's a state actor. There are certain procedures and norms you have to go through. There's no law that says it actually has to be like that it's just it's kind of unwritten right how government functions. Sometimes it's written and sometimes it isn't you notice that one of the interesting things that Attorney General Merrick Garland has done is to create this document saying this is going to be the new norm for relationships between the White House and the Department of Justice. We're going to have independence in these ways. Here's where we're obviously going to have some kind of interdependence and intercommunication, but it's a way of addressing the kind of unwritten constitution unwritten constitution idea that you're talking about like, okay, I can't rewrite the Constitution but I'm going to write a paper on norms and policies. This is Merrick Garland, right, I'm going to issue this paper on norms and policies that will address that and even in an unwritten constitution, the best practices should be on paper and not just invisible. Right. So, I think there's a sense of what you're talking about. I think this is a question from Davis Termin of New America. And essentially, it's a question about undercover officers, kind of weaponizing and juicing sentences and with particular reference to the Padilla, the Padilla plot because it supposedly surfaced through our missiles and undercover officers and of course you wrote rogue justice which reflected a fair amount on these issues. And what, I mean, is this still a big issue or is this sort of declining because the number of terrorist cases are declining or is this why do you come down. Okay, so it's a thank you for that question, David. And so, you know, it's very interesting I noticed that when journalists call these days they'll often confuse informing cases and entrapment. They see them almost as equivalent. And they're not. The idea is that you could have in theory robust robust contained responsible informant cases that's how the FBI works across a variety of sectors and has for a long time. What happened in a number of the terrorism cases was that the line between a legitimate inform informant case and a entrapment case began to get sort of, you know, blurred over. And there are a number of reasons for one wanting to have more and more cases I think you know and you could say it was to keep us safer. The reason was the lack of under covers and the use of informants right under covers who work for the Bureau who are trained to work for the Bureau, then you get these guys who, you know, are facing deportation, some facing jail time facing, you know, serious penalties who are asked, you speak Arabic, you know these guys you're Muslim could you please be our informant. As soon as you go down that road, your quality control. You know, it roads. The most, you know, notorious of these cases in my mind was the case of James Cromedy which had to do with the bombing of community centers in Riverdale. And, you know, just to give you an example of I can't even tell you what went on in this case it's it's it's at one end of entrapment. On the other hand, we see other cases where informants actually played a role in illuminating things that we might not have seen before that seemed, you know, more interesting and have more there there for example in the JFK plot at JFK to blow up the airline and the case revolved around kind of this terrorist network way beyond the defendant themselves. That was actually I think informative and interesting and so there's a whole range on this and I hate when they get all lumped together as if it's just one policy but you know when a policy goes awry like in Lodi another example, you know of a case when a case goes awry it's very hard to to bring it back to looking like a legitimate strategy. That's the point that no one has ever successfully argued an entrapment in these cases, because the, the, the, the info, you know the prosecutors are running these cases are very careful about making sure the informant gets the person on camera to say multiple times. Yep, I really want to go through with this and that's very persuasive for a jury right. Yeah, prosecutor turns to the, to the jury and says the following. So, I asked him if he would you know go through with this, you know after 18 months of not him not wanting to go through with it I asked him if you go through with it and he said yes, would you have said yes. That's that's how it plays out in court, and the jury says is not going to say yes I would have said yes right. So, it's a very hard it's very and you know the entrapment defense includes you know if you can if the government can show some predisposition it's kind of a two pronged case if the jury can claim some kind of predisposition. And you know they used anti Semitism as predisposition in the case I was talking about the Riverdale case. So all these ways you can pull on different strings which is, you know what the prosecutor's job is in and it's because of the way it's not just about terrorism cases the way the entrapment defense is set up or trap and prosecution is set up. It's bigger than terrorism cases I think it's just very hard to argue that there was real, even if there was entrapment in the way that anybody listening to this would think of it. It's a very hard matter to argue it. Correct. And in fact, in the chromity case you've mentioned I think the judge himself said that chromity was I think he used the phrase shake shake spearing in in his buffoonry. Yeah, basically. A woman judge. Yeah. So I didn't go through. And so she and she just, I mean, her hands were tied right because of guide guide sentencing guidelines. And that, you know, in fact judges have the authority to be able to do what they want within sentencing guidelines they don't but this is another thing you know to say, I didn't have the authority to do it a little more authority and one of her you know she gave all of them chromity and his three code defendants 25 years and her thing was just you agreed to go along with him so that's just as bad you know so there was no attempt to really, you know articulate this and that's because I think terrorism cases are very, very hard to, you know, if you're weak on to look what happened we lost the 911 trial because I'm a guy Lonnie, you know only got a life sentence. So, you know what I'm saying is it's like. So yeah, I don't love that when judges say that but she did say that. This is a question from the audience. I guess relating to your overall, I mean, the book overall. Don't you think this relates to the belief in American exceptionalism fear of being blamed for the next attack and the emotional reaction to a tragedy. Which is why I think there needed to be a reset or a rethink at some point in time. And I, and I do think we need to legislatively or normatively if you prefer really think about that which we haven't all we ever talk about is you know, some kind of, you know, analysis of this part, you know, commission or report on this part or that part. But I think there's something about we need a commission into the response to 911 and how we learn things. And one of the things we learned was, you need to reconsider, not just, you know, little piece of legislation by little clause of legislation but reconsider in the aggregate what this was. So the answer is yes. I notice in the defense authorization bill, there is money for an independent commission to look at what happened in Afghanistan this, and this would not be, you know, it would really be independent they wouldn't, they wouldn't. That wouldn't be answer all your questions but it might might answer some of them right. Well, I think it could answer a lot of them I think focusing just on Afghanistan. Depends on how they define you know what they mean by but let's just say it's on the 20 years of the US presence in Afghanistan could tell us a lot among the things that could tell us is and this gets you know into the procedures and secrecy and bypassing you know what was and what wasn't reported correctly back to Washington. Right that's one of the things we've seen about Afghanistan is that how much you can get away with. I also think the question of that I tried to dodge before, but the question of who made money on this is going to that's going to be a large part of that Afghanistan report and I think that's going to be a very brave enterprise to take on. We have one another question and about four more minutes so I'm going to get to this question is a recourse outside organization or political strategy etc to hold accountable the various systems of checks and balances that failed. In other words what now I mean and you kind of suggested one what now. I actually think that's a really good idea which is there a assessment of checks and balances that we can come up with and therefore look at it and right now we don't have that but Peter think about all the different things that New America, you know, does in terms of looking at, you know, policies and weighing them and sort of, you know, giving numbers to them. I mean, it's doable. It's vast, but I do think there should be. Oh, when we get to the end of this, how do we know that checks and balances have been, you know, followed, there's no way to really do that to date, and we could set up new norms. Well, like something else I learned from your very useful daily brief which I read religiously every morning. It seems to be a movement. It's this is kind of a smaller part of the bigger thing but like a movement to really enshrine in law for the prevention of what happened with the waiver on Mattis and the waiver on Lloyd Austin for, you know, senior military officers that become Secretary of Defense. That seems to be a smaller part of the bigger question which is, you know, the kind of doing something about the authorization for the use of military force so maybe as you get as we end this can you talk about a the small question and be the big question and what you think is likely to happen and what will it look like. Yeah, well the small question on you know the waivers for Mattis and Austin were, that's again, you don't just push aside laws and norms that you have the idea of having civilian control of the military was real and it was put in place for a reason which was to have some kind of check and balance within the agency itself so that the, the militarization that you're talking about had some kind of reflection on what does it mean for the society what does this mean for our political identity what does this mean for the character of the country. I think we need to push that aside. First Trump, and then, and then Biden and for all of his wonderful characteristics pushing it aside in my mind was not pushing it aside was more important for sort of resetting the tone of just pushing these laws and norms that happened over this period of time. In terms of the larger issues, I think we need a serious rethink. I think it's the 21st century. I think that so many of the push and polls on government and the executive are so different than the founding fathers had them. I think you know you see these panels to think about rethinking the Supreme Court. No, I think we should have a calm, thoughtful this is what think tanks are for you know we could divide up among ourselves, you do most of the work I'll just take a little and just sort of be not be so scared because of the partisan moment we live in of rethinking certain things and saying maybe we need a little more here, maybe we need a little less here. Unfortunately live in an age where it just seems that the urge to power for personal political gain. It just stymies any real open minded thought so that's my kind of, I wish, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Well, hopefully will not be gathering on the 30th anniversary of 911 to discuss that nothing really changed in Guantanamo still. God stop. Thank you for a brilliant presentation. Thank you for everybody who listened to this and go out and buy Karen's book it's really should be any anybody interested in journalism politics and law over the last two decades will find the book very illuminating. Thank you so much, Peter was a pleasure, as always.