Free Republic

4 MIN. VIDEO:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eD_ybaXhXno

The RevPac event I attended on Monday night was an quite an experience. First of all, the choice of setting seemed designed to highlight some of the recurring themes in Ron Paul’s presidential campaign. While most of his primary opponents have held Manhattan fundraisers targeting donors in this city’s ever-dwindling, yet still potent, financial services sector, the rigidly anti-corporatist, free market dogma of the Paul campaign-highlighted by the appearance of bearish Euro Pacific CEO Peter Schiff-lent a new dimension to what would otherwise have been a routine campaign fundraiser. The optics of the event were pleasing, which I suppose was...

Michael Scheuer says rendition should be brought back as lack of intelligence has left UK and US unable to monitor militants. The Arab spring has "delighted al-Qaida" and caused "an intelligence disaster" for the US and Britain, the former head of the CIA unit in charge of pursuing Osama bin Laden has warned... The help we were getting from the Egyptian intelligence service, less so from the Tunisians but certainly from the Libyans and Lebanese, has dried up – either because of resentment at our governments stabbing their political leaders in the back, or because those who worked for the...

Remember Michael Scheuer? He's the former CIA analyst who penned an anonymous book called "Imperial Hubris" attacking the Bush administration's approach to terrorism. When we last saw him, in November, he was explaining to Tim Russert that American support for Israel is to blame for anti-American terrorism, and that Osama bin Laden is "in many ways . . . an admirable man."....

ON NOVEMBER 9, ex-CIA counterterrorism officer Michael Scheuer gave an interview to the Washington Post's Dana Priest. Scheuer, who ran the CIA's bin Laden unit from 1996-99, and whose latest book, Imperial Hubris (published under the pseudonym "Anonymous"), criticizes the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies in general and the Iraq war in particular, wanted to talk about his former employer. Scheuer told Priest that his bosses at the CIA (he gave the interview prior to leaving the agency) had "diluted the pool that supports our people overseas," which meant that "in the long term, we're less safe than we should be."...

‘Anonymous’ resigns from CIA * Says will now serve the national interest by talking publicly about Bin Laden and 9/11-Commission Report WASHINGTON: A CIA analyst who wrote a book criticising the US war on terror resigned from the spy agency after it banned him from publicly discussing his views, his publicist said on Thursday. Michael Scheuer wrote the book “Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror” under the pen name “anonymous” and formally resigned from the intelligence agency on Friday, after 22 years of service. In a statement to the press, Scheuer said that he blamed...

By Nicholas F. Benton (nfbenton@fcnp.com) An anonymous CIA analyst broke the contents of a scathing new manuscript on CNN yesterday that will hit bookstores next week calling the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq "the best gift we could have given to Osama bin Laden." The anonymous intelligence specialist, described as "an active CIA official," discussed the book, entitled Imperial Hubris, with CNN's David Ensor on the news channel late yesterday. Only the silhouetted outlines of his darkened face were discernible on screen, but he spoke with a chilling clarity and obvious appreciation of the capabilities and motivations of bin Laden...

Washington -- A new book by a senior CIA analyst who headed the agency's task force on Osama bin Laden sharply attacks the Bush administration's approach to Islamic terrorists, sternly criticizes the decision to invade Iraq and chides officials for trying to create a Western-style democracy in Afghanistan. The author, who writes under the name "Anonymous," argues it is not dislike of freedom, democracy and Western culture that led bin Laden to wage war against America, but rather his disdain for U.S. policies and actions in the Muslim world, particularly the United States' relationship with Israel.

Networks Jump on “Anonymous” Book Author’s Critique of Iraq War An “anonymous” CIA officer who was demoted from the position of leading the tracking of Osama bin Laden, lashed out in a new book, Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terrorism, at both the administrations of Presidents Clinton and Bush. But in jumping on the book’s criticism of going to war in Iraq, the networks on Wednesday night concentrated their stories on his attacks on the policies pursued by President Bush. Only NBC’s Andrea Mitchell gave a sentence to his criticism of how the Clinton administration...

An "anonymous" CIA officer who was demoted from the position of leading the tracking of Osama bin Laden, lashed out in a new book, Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terrorism, at both the administrations of Presidents Clinton and Bush. But in jumping on the book's criticism of going to war in Iraq, the networks on Wednesday night concentrated their stories on his attacks on the policies pursued by President Bush. Only NBC's Andrea Mitchell gave a sentence to his criticism of how the Clinton administration didn't take seriously the hunt for Osama bin Laden and...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A book by an anonymous CIA (news - web sites) official titled "Imperial Hubris," describes Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) as two "failed half-wars" that have played into the enemy's hands and complicated the war on terrorism, reports said. The 309-page book was written by a still serving Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) officer who from 1996 to 1999 headed a special office to track Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and who, in the book, is identified only as Anonymous, said the New York Times which obtained...

US 'losing fight against terror' 11 September attack A devastating new attack is a "pressing certainty", the book says US policy in the "war on terror" is harshly criticised in a new book by an intelligence official who says the battle against al-Qaeda is being lost. The author, identified as Anonymous, claims the invasion of Iraq has played into the hands of Osama Bin Laden and has not made America any safer. He also predicts a new al-Qaeda strike within the US which will be far more damaging than the 11 September attacks. There has been no White House comment...

INTELLIGENCE INSIDER WASHINGTON, June 22 — A new book by the senior Central Intelligence Agency officer who headed a special office to track Osama bin Laden and his followers warns that the United States is losing the war against radical Islam and that the invasion of Iraq has only played into the enemy's hands. In the book, "Imperial Hubris," the author is identified only as "Anonymous," but former intelligence officials identified him as a 22-year veteran of the C.I.A. who is still serving in a senior counterterrorism post at the agency and headed the bin Laden station from 1996 to...

Compare & Contrast(Regular type from the Guardian article and italic type from the frontpagemag article) On Saturday, June 19, 2004 it was reported Anonymous (an anonymous senior intelligence official [supposedly] from the Bush administration) "is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands." Progressives find it easier to blame the Israeli or American governments for their mistakes than to stare long and hard into the face of radical Islamist evil. People often...

Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands Al-Qaida may 'reward' American president with strike aimed at keeping him in office, senior intelligence man says Julian Borger in WashingtonSaturday June 19, 2004The Guardian A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands. Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the...

"...According to Scheuer, the tiny nation of Israel is not a valuable ally in the Middle East, but instead the author of a vast conspiracy to hijack the direction of American foreign policy. Scheuer explained to the CFR crowd that Israel dictates the course of its relationship with the United States. He explained, "we can no longer afford to be seen as the dog that's led by the tail." Scheuer further warned, "I don't think we can afford to be led around, or at least appear to be led around by them." So, not only has Israel "covertly" targeted the...

Al-Qaeda's Completed Warning Cycle - Ready to Attack?   03/03/2005 - By Michael Scheuer DCI Porter Goss's testimony before Congress on February 16 that Soviet nuclear material could be in al-Qaeda's hands is a troubling coda to speeches by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in late 2004. Bin Laden's October 30 speech was treated by the media as an attempt to influence the election. Most post-speech commentary also claimed the speech moved bin Laden away from war and toward political discourse. That the speech was directed to the American people is clear. What received little notice, however, is that...

WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden had no idea the U.S. would hit al-Qaida as hard as it has since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, a former bin Laden associate tells WTOP in an exclusive interview. "I'm 100 percent sure they had no clue about what was going to happen," says Noman Benotman, who was head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in the summer of 2000. "What happened after the 11th of September was beyond their imagination, " says Benotman, who adds that al-Qaida thought the U.S. was a "paper tiger." Sitting on the floor at bin Laden's compound in...

Bin Laden Looks for an Exit StrategyBy Stephen Schwartz : 11 Sep 2007 Since 2001, each September we remember. Today, we first think of the frontline fighters in Iraq, Americans, Iraqis, and other members of the Coalition in combat, first against Saudi-incited, Wahhabi terrorism - miscalled a "Sunni insurgency." But none of us forgets the terror inflicted on the whole world six years ago; the sudden appearance, after so many years, of a real sense of American national unity, and the equally-surprising commitment to change in U.S. policies in the Middle East. President George W. Bush, in vowing to...

"THE PATH TO 9/11"Sunday, September 10 @ 8/7c Monday, September 11 @ 8/7c V Only available on ABC and ABC.com. Shirley Douglas Madeline Albright NIGHT ONESeptember 11, 2001. Teams of terrorist hijackers board four American airliners and take control of the cockpits. Passengers and flight controllers quickly learn something is terribly wrong.... February 1993. On a similarly ordinary day, New York is stunned by a deadly bombing at the World Trade Center. The discovery of a traceable van part at the site leads to the arrest of one of the conspirators, and he is linked to a mosque led by...

Agent who led Bin Laden hunt criticises CIA Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Saturday July 8, 2006 The Guardian (UK) The man who led America's hunt for Osama bin Laden has said the CIA was wrong to disband the only unit devoted entirely to the terrorist leader's pursuit - just at a time when al-Qaida is reasserting its influence over global jihad. Shutting down the Bin Laden unit squandered 10 years of expertise in the war on terror, said Michael Scheuer, who founded the unit in 1995 and arguably knows more about Bin Laden than any other western intelligence official. He...

Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror, by Anonymous (Brassey's, 352 pp., $27.50) This is an alarming book, but not in the way its author intended. It delivers an urgent danger signal — not about al-Qaeda, but about intelligence services staffed with analysts who think the way the author of this book thinks. This latest attack on the Bush administration's war policies was written anonymously by Michael Scheuer, a veteran CIA analyst who headed the Agency's bin Laden unit in the late 1990s. His assessment of the War on Terror is grimly pessimistic: Everything the U.S....

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER NAMED IN CLASS ACTION SUIT FILED IN NEW YORK COURT ALLEGING DECEPTIONS AND FRAUDULENT MISREPRESENTATIONS IN BOOK ATTACKING ISRAEL The suit is the first time a former President and a publishing house have been sued for violating consumer protection laws by knowingly publishing inaccurate information while promoting a book as factual. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 2, 2011 FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER NAMED IN CLASS ACTION SUIT FILED IN NEW YORK COURT ALLEGING DECEPTIONS AND FRAUDULENT MISREPRESENTATIONS IN BOOK ATTACKING ISRAEL An historic class action suit has been filed against former President Jimmy Carter and the Simon...

In this clip from the Glenn Beck Comedy Hour, former CIA agent (and complete wacko) Michael Scheuer says the only thing that can save America from illegal immigration is for “Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.” Good grief. Beck, of course, nods and agrees with this warped analysis, and says, “Which is why I was thinking this weekend, if I were him that would be the last thing I would do right now.”

I only caught a little of Beck today. Generally agree with Beck, but this time I thought he was way off base. He had a retired guy from the special forces on, and in my opinion Glenn was talking over him and trying to bait the guy, but the guy held firm. In short, I got that Beck thought it was a mistake to have killed the snake because of the ramifications. If this is not the stance of a coward who is to afraid to do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may, then I...

-snip- America, once again, has validated the al Qaeda chief's decade-long and ongoing lesson for Muslims: America supports democracy only if its agents are elected; America will destroy any regime that threatens Israel; America will not allow a country to be ruled by Islamic law unless it has vast oil resources; and, for America, Muslim blood is cheap, it has no qualms about cutting funds used to feed Muslim children. -snip-

For more than a year, the media watchdog group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) studiously has been documenting on its Web site feature "C-SPAN Watch" what it refers to as the cable station's "de facto collaboration in disseminating" anti-Jewish and anti-Israel conspiracy theories. In particular, notes CAMERA, C-SPAN's daily public affairs interview program "Washington Journal" "has become a megaphone" for the antisemitic rants of those who blame pretty much all the world's ills on Israel and the Jewish people. Those rants, which often come in during the show's phone-in portion, frequently feature anti-semitic rants that...

For the past couple of months I’ve been writing about the “mainstreaming” of paleo-libertarian Ron Paul; he’s been a regular guest on Fox News and other networks, and his drones have been heavily involved in organizing “tea party” demonstrations. Lots of LGF readers didn’t want to believe this was happening.Well, it really is happening.The weird economic theories of Ron Paul are Winning GOP Converts. A funny thing has started happening to Paul since his long-shot presidential campaign ended quietly in the summer of 2008. More Republicans have started listening to him. There are the media requests from Fox Business Channel...

10/03/2006 - By Michael Scheuer (from Terrorism Focus, October 3) - The past week produced messages from the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who uses the name Abu Hamza al-Muhajir and may be an Egyptian by the name of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, and al-Qaeda deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. While there is nothing startlingly new in either message, both provide occasions for examining al-Qaeda's ability to stay on message, to learn from and try to redress serious errors and to deploy Islamic history and tradition in support of its case for a "defensive jihad" against the United States and its...

Texas Congressman Ron Paul appeared on the Sean Hannity Show on Monday, and the Libertarian leaning Republican confirmed possibilities for a 2012 presidential run. “We are going to announce I’m going to form an exploratory committee,” Paul said. That announcement will presumably happen, according to Politico, on Tuesday afternoon in Iowa at the Holiday Inn near the Des Moines airport. Paul is making the talk show rounds, appearing on programs like 'Fox and Friends' and dropping by the chatty den 'The View'. Along the way, Paul is also promoting and signing his latest book, ‘Liberty Defined.’ On 'Fox and Friends'...

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) told Sean Hannity tonight that he will announce his intent to run for President of the United States tomorrow. Ron Paul also praised notorious anti-Semite Michael Scheuer as someone he respects on foreign policy. And, of course, Ron Paul still blames the United States for Islamic extremism.

Ron Paul Recruits Anonymous to Attack Rudy's Foreign Policy May 22, 2007 3:37 PM ABC's Z. Byron Wolf reports: Presidential candidate and Libertarian Republican Rep. Ron Paul will enlist the help of Mr. Anonymous --Michael Scheuer, an author critical of Presidents in both parties and the former head of the CIA's Osama Bin Laden unit -- to argue that America's Mayor needs to bone up on his recent history. It's been a week since the Fox News presidential debate and Ron Paul is still playing up his tiff with Rudy Giuliani that night over whether US Foreign Policy, specifically the...

"The first one I knew of was an attempt to try and capture Bin Laden in the second week of June 1998 and the White house decided they didn't want to do it because they were afraid that if it went bad, or Usama Bin Laden resisted and it went bad and he were to be killed that America would be accused of assassination. The last chance that I know of consecutive opportunities on five consecutive nights in May of 1999 in Kandahar City, Afghanistan and we knew which house he was spending the house in on each of those...

rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter_wj041507_scheuer.rm Michael Scheuer, Former Head of CIA’s Bin Laden Unit (1996-99) Michael Scheuer, Former Head of CIA’s Bin Laden Unit (1996-99), describes Al-Qaeda’s Worldwide Influence. 4/15/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 28 min.

Six Questions for Michael Scheuer on National Security Posted on Wednesday, August 23, 2006. By Ken Silverstein. Sources Michael Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004; he served as the chief of the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is the formerly anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America. I met him for breakfast last week at an IHOP in the Virginia suburbs outside of Washington. Over...

A caller on a C-Span interview program Monday complained about "all these Jews" having "way too much power" in America and pushing the U.S. into wars with the Muslim world. He found his comments echoed and expanded upon by the studio guest. Michael Scheuer, the former director of a CIA unit assigned to track down Osama Bin-Laden, calmly expressed the view that American soldiers are now dying in Iraq for the sake of Israelis. (snip) The interviewer for C-Span's Washington Journal program did not react to the blatantly anti-Semitic exchange. Several other callers praised Scheuer for his position regarding Israel,...

Michael Scheuer, a former counter-terrorism analyst for the CIA, scolded CNN's Christine Romans Thursday for letting her support for the current President show. Toward the end of a lengthy interview on "American Morning" about the situation in Libya, Romans took issue with her guest saying America is "nearly bankrupt" leading Scheuer to respond, "You're just carrying the water for Mr. Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The configuration and physical impact of the bomb detonated last Saturday in Stockholm is best left for forensic specialists to evaluate. For the rest of us, the most important aspect of the event is that it constitutes yet another warning for the unctuously self-righteous, effeminate and oblivious West that Islamist attacks are based on what we do, not who we are and how we think. Taymour Abdul Wahab, the dead bomber, claimed his attack was motivated by Sweden’s contribution of five hundred troops to the U.S.-led Afghan war, the media’s printing of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and other Western...

And then there is Iran. Media coverage clearly points to the increasing likelihood of a U.S.-Israel offensive war against Iran. Do Americans want war with Iran? Can their economy stand what will be another unending war? Do 300 million Americans want to take on 1.4 billion Muslims who will be at least temporarily united after Washington and Israel start a war on Iran? Do these same Americans really want the violence in their towns and cities that Iran will sponsor after it is attacked? Can Americans trust their generals to put U.S. interests first after seeing General Petraeus kiss the...

Here’s my usual disclaimer: I would love to be able to stop criticizing the Obama Administration but it keeps saying and doing things that shock and surprise me or—if you want to put it this way—live up to my worst expectations. I’m sitting on a U.S. army base briefing officers along with a high-ranking State Department official who works on the Middle East. At one point, he gets a quaver in his voice and starts talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict making quite clear which side he’s on. Sounding scared he says: “While a lot of problems in the world can...

Noted free-speech champion Keith Olbermann has declared that we have to "legally stop" Glenn Beck. The Fox News host's crime? Not reacting strongly enough for Olbermann's taste when a guest made an over-the-top remark. [H/t reader JKF.] On the June 30 editon of Beck's show, former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer said: "the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to detonate a major weapon in the United States." Apparently Scheuer thinks that's what it would take to shock the country and its leaders back to their senses. Olbermann was infuriated that Beck didn't...

Two weeks ago Democrats were in full attack mode, intending to prosecute any and all who “tortured” enemy combatants. Thanks to the backbone of some former senior CIA folks and I might add, the Washington Post, there has been an abject reversal, culminating in a letter from the House Intelligence Committee to all CIA personnel. Here's the story. Recently the CIA has come under assault recently like no other time. The first insult was the appointment as Director of Leon Panetta, a political hack with no previous intelligence experience. The agency soon became a punching bag, in an orgy of...

While ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheuer likened Osama bin Laden to figures such as Robin Hood and Saint Francis of Assisi in his 2004 book, Imperial Hubris, one would've assumed that with the publication of The Al Qaeda Reader in 2007, which presents a very different picture of bin Laden, based on his own words, that Scheuer, at the very least, would have stopped depicting the former as nothing more than a man with grievances fighting tyranny and oppression. Yet, according to this article, in his latest book, Scheuer is now presenting Osama's writings as being similar to Thomas Jefferson's! I...

Michael Scheuer is a former CIA agent and analyst. In his 22-year career, he served as the Chief of the Osama bin Laden Task Force and bin Laden Station (aka "Alec Station"), from 1996 to 1999, the Osama bin Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorist Center. He then worked again as Special Advisor to the Chief of the Osama bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004. In his books and in many interviews he has detailed at least 10 cases where the Clinton administration refused to capture or kill Osama bin Laden when they had the ability to...

TERRORISM MONITOR Volume 2 Issue 1 (January 15, 2004) A RUSSIAN AGENT AT THE RIGHT HAND OF BIN LADEN? By Evgenii Novikov The Arabic television channel Al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape on December 19, 2003, that was said to be from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the right hand man of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In it, Zawahiri claimed that his group was chasing Americans everywhere, including in the United States. This claim helped raise the terror threat level. But where is Zawahiri, whose head now carries a price of US$25 million? Recent media reports have said that he is...

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay. Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred...

The CIA's former Bin Laden specialist, Michael Scheuer, has written a revealing article about KSM --- Khalil Sheikh Mohammed, the operational chief of Al Qaeda, who has now been convicted by a military tribunal. KSM's elaborate confession was published by the Defense Department, giving Scheuer a chance to show us how well he understands Al Qaida. Unfortunately he doesn't say anything new about that, while being amazingly candid about his own biases and that of his cohort at the CIA. It's not a pretty picture. Like Valerie Plame, Scheuer is an unabashed Leftist, as he showed in his first CIA-approved...

VIRTUAL KILLTHE CHRIS WALLACE-BILL CLINTON INTERVIEW DECONSTRUCTED HEAR: the only idea clinton was promoting during the interview the devastating case made against bill clinton by: Michael Scheuer, former 'hunting bin Laden' CIA Division Chief, and Richard Miniter, author of Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror DECONSTRUCTED INTERVIEW (play now) by Mia T, 9.27.06   "Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in '91 and he went to the Sudan. We'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again. They released him [bin Laden]....

'BIN LADEN ALIVE TODAY BECAUSE CLINTON, BERGER + CLARKE REFUSED TO KILL HIM' :Osama-Division CIA ChiefCLINTON 'MISLED AMERICAN PEOPLE' IN CHRIS WALLACE INTERVIEW by Mia T, 9.26.06 CBS Terror Expert, Iraq War Critic and former CIA head for hunting Bin Laden on Monday CBS Early Show....   Harry Smith: "Elizabeth Palmer live in Pakistan this morning, thank you. I'm going to go back now to Michael Scheuer once again. Let's talk about what President Clinton had to say on Fox yesterday. He basically laid blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for not being able to...

WASHINGTON - Former advisers ridiculed ex-President Bill Clinton yesterday for saying he had a plan to invade Afghanistan, topple the Taliban and kill Osama Bin Laden after jihadists nearly sank the destroyer Cole. "The only order we got from [Clinton] after the Cole was to put together a target list for air attacks," said Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama Bin Laden under Clinton. "What I was involved in could in no way be called a full-fledged plan to attack and overthrow the Taliban," he said. In his fiery interview on "Fox News Sunday," Clinton claimed he...