You frequently say that the CIA is the best place in the world to work. Why do you say that, especially in light of the fact that you seemingly resigned?

Energy Policy:

One part about Imerial Hubris which really rubbed me the wrong way was the suggestion for more domestic oil exploration, especially in ANWAR. Not because our dependance on foreign oil makes us critically vulnerable and funds our enemies, but simply because I doubt there is much oil available in the US: 2/3rds of our oil is imported, and alaskin oil is

Rather, what do you believe would be the security impact of taxing imported oil to pay for our foreign military campagns, by say $5-20/barrel?

Darn, part of comment got cut off, continguing in first part, alaskin oil is \http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/petroleum_supply_monthly/current/pdf/stable2.pdf)

ERGGH: "Less than 6 percent is from alaska, source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/petroleum_supply_monthly/current/pdf/stable2.pdf"

Stupid movable type not recognizing a backslash followed by a less-than as a character.

Potential questions for Mr. Anonymous:

1. In Imperial Hubris, you claimed that the Taliban and al-Qaeda would come back with a vengeance in Afghanistan, steadily increasing in power, collapsing the newly installed regime in Kabul, and forcing the U.S. out (absent a massive military response). So far, there seems to be no evidence supporting your prediction. What gives?

2. Why do your two books contain almost no discussion of Sayyid Qutb, even though you acknowledge him as an influence on Osama bin Laden in your first book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes? Don't Qutb's writings and ideas do some damage to your contention that Islamists' hatred for America is not existential?

3. Do you believe that your former employers at the CIA allowed you to publish Imperial Hubris with the intention of damaging President Bush?

4. In Imperial Hubris, you acknowledge that Islamists want to destroy Israel, not to seek peace with it. Yet towards the end of the book, you claim that the survival of Israel is "not the issue." Given your warnings about terrorist access to WMD, how can you support that assertion?

5. What's your reaction to increasing incidents of Islamist violence in Europe, such as the murder of Theo van Gogh? Are all these acts merely responses to the provocations of U.S. foreign policy, as you contend?

6. If Islamist hatred of the U.S. is based solely on what Americans do, rather than who they are, why did not Osama bin Laden or any other Islamist figure call for a jihad against the Sudanese government for genocidal acts against black Muslims in Darfur? Don't they hate Sudan for what they do?

7. If events over the years prove you wrong, will you write another book about that?

1.)you should ask him about that post you had recently about how the world is starting to doubt the primacy of the United States and what that does to the war on terror. Maybe, as Thomas Barnett postulates, as globalization turns into a Chinese and Indian phenomenon and not merely American-led does that help us in the war, because people won't have the US to focus on when they get angry about globalization?
2.) What is the administration doing to integrate the muslim populations in Europe, what should they be doing that they aren't doing, is this endeavor important to the WOT?
3.) Is there a conversation going on in the administration about communication strategies? Could he talk about how the CIA ran the battle of ideas during the Cold War and how that can help us engage in the battle of ideas across the Middle East?
4.) What does he think of the Iraq elections? What does he think of the fact that no gvoernments have embraced bin Ladenism? What is the current rate of recruitment of jihadis? Where does he think the next hot spot in the WOT will be?

One more:

You seem to share the widely held view that al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups have a virtually unlimited recruiting pool. Doesn't this notion need to be questioned? We would never assume that any traditional military force has a recruiting pool that it can dip into endlessly without grave trade-offs in quality and effectiveness. Moreover, it would seem that a fanatical religious organization like al-Qaeda would attract a relatively higher proportion of misfits, idiots, and psychopaths. Given U.S. firepower and an overwhelmingly favorable kill-to-casualty ratio, why shouldn't a lengthy war of attrition work in the west's favor?

Were you wrong about Afghanistan? If not, why not? What do you think of the job that Barno, Khalilzad, and Karzai have done there? How cooperative and helpful has Iran been?

-Can you name an empire that retained its power through passivity in the face of aggression?

-Did powers that remained proactive in the affairs of their sphere of influence during Decolonization (such as Britain and France) retain greater influence in the world compared to those who withdrew passively (such as Germany and Spain)?

Ask him why the capture of Alqueda leaders has dried up.

Are your policy prescriptions really just a way of getting the Bush Administration to change its policies in the Middle East? It seems that no one in their right mind would actually back a "Shermanesque razing of infrastructure" in the Arab world. What I got from Anonymous' book was that US policies in the Middle East are so misguided that the military option is the only way left of achieving success, other than the much easier option of unilateral withdrawal. Thus, I would ask anonymous whether his motive in writing the book was to convince US policy-makers that what is really needed is a dramatic change in US policy toward the Middle East, and whether his Shermanesque military policy prescription was intended to have more of a shock value than to be viewed as an actual policy reccomendation.

Confronted with the possibility of enduring Muslim hostility toward the United States, my instinct is to divide hostile Muslims. So, if it were me, I would ask Scheuer about the impact on Muslim opinion of Darfur; of contrasts between the American and Arab responses to the tsunami disaster in Indonesia; of Sunni assaults on Shia Muslims in Pakistan and Iraq; and of differences between Islamist objectives and those of the Iranian clerics, in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

My assumption is that the impact of Sunday's elections in Iraq will make themselves felt in the Muslim countries only over time, and will be much greater in some countries than in others; I'd ask Scheuer if he thinks this is correct. Pakistan's internal politics we see only through a very dark glass, so I'd ask him about that. Lastly I'd ask him about American public diplomacy, a personal hobbyhorse of mine because I think our failures in that area encourage most foreigners to think the worst of us.

The only relevant topic I probably wouldn't ask about is the impact of Arafat's death and the recent Palestinian elections. I just think it's too early to tell what these will lead to, and conversations about that region have a way of going on and on without resolving anything.

Honestly, I think Scheuer is insane. He suggested completely razing the Middle East to stop terrorism. Ask him exactly how many nukes he wants to hurl over there? And when the rest of the world freaks out, how many nukes will it take to shut them up?

Why isn't Russia's total war against Chechnya working?

Dude, I thought the guy was being at least a little rhetorical there, as in posing the either-or: EITHER pave the Mideast & put up a parking lot, OR heed my wise advice. Kind of like "Bush OR Kerry"; you're not supposed to long for a 3d alternative.

""Intelligence reform by Oprah" is the way he put it"

And he is right. I agree with him completely. Still, I want to know what he thinks about the election in Iraq. Is he happy that John Kerry lost his bid for the White House? What does he think about President Bush?

President Bush understood that the Muslim world must be encouraged to enter the 21st Century. Our very lives depend on it. Altruism is not our primary motivation. Thank God that our current elected leader essentially did not listen to the "elites."

President Bush understood that the Muslim world must be encouraged to enter the 21st Century. Our very lives depend on it.

Over at Crooked Timber, there's a link to photos of a Turkoman family whose mom & dad won't be entering the 21st century any time soon. Their lives, apparently, depended on something else.

Six children were in the back seat when their parents made the wrong choice at a checkpoint. The poster thinks the girl soaked in her parents' blood is the really striking photo, but I keep coming back to the little boy (what is he, four?), blood-free, back to the wall, watching his sobbing sisters and the soldiers who just killed mama and papa. I can't describe the look on his face; the caption says "bewildered." Especially if you have children of your own, take a look at this little boy.

The photographer says the Army has told him that the family's been "compensated," which is "usual in these cases." These cases, he said.

what is he, four?

Gosh, Oprah and Sally Struthers all in the same post.

Let's go to the caption and add some emphasis: US soldiers in Iraq approach a car after opening fire when it failed to stop as requested. Despite warning shots it continued to drive towards their dusk patrol in Tal Afar on 18 January.

the 9/11 survivors

Raise your hands if you think there was just one group of the 9/11 survivors. Yes, there were at least two groups, although all the press attention went to just one of those groups. The other main group held news conferences but just couldn't get the media to cover them. Why? Perhaps because they favored preventing illegal aliens from getting driver's licenses. If there was an Oprahization, the non-biased media was partially to blame.

As for Scheuer, I would have asked why we aren't pressuring our friends in the middle east to stop propagandizing against us.

And, I would have asked him how many years or decades we're going to be in Iraq. From the Chicago Tribune's 14 `enduring bases' set in Iraq: From the ashes of abandoned Iraqi army bases, U.S. military engineers are overseeing the building of an enhanced system of American bases designed to last for years... Now U.S. engineers are focusing on constructing 14 "enduring bases," long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops expected to serve in Iraq for at least two years. The bases also would be key outposts for Bush administration policy advisers.

why are you wasting time interview that shelp......you shoud interview a guy that knows what he's talking about....i suggest Thomas Barnnett, author of Pentagon's New War Map

One critical reason why it took the mujahadeen 3-4 years to wage a wide spread insurgency against the Soviets was because that's how long it took for the US to get their covert operations up and running in theater.

Unless a powerful foreign intelligence agency is getting involved in afghanistan, his analogy is completely moot.

"Over at Crooked Timber, there's a link to photos of a Turkoman family whose mom & dad won't be entering the 21st century any time soon. Their lives, apparently, depended on something else."

It is indeed very sad that these people were accidentally killed by our troops. But what is your point? Such unfortunate incidents occur during any military engagement. The main thing is that Saddam Hussein deliberately slaughtered many more human beings during his long reign. You are unwittingly arguing that tyranny should never be opposed because some innocent victims will inevitably be caught in the cross fire. If we consistently follow your logic an Adolph Hitler could conquer the world without ever firing a shot.

Of course these "unfortunate incidents occur during any military engagement." That's why war is terrible, and why it should be resorted to only in self-defense. This was not a necessary war; it was not in self-defense.

(Remember that we did not go to war against Hitler because he was evil, or because he was a tyrant. We did so because he declared war on us.)

If Saddam's tyranny wasn't such as to cause his own people to rise up against him, I don't think the U.S. had the moral right to tell the Iraqis "hey, your government is so bad that tens of thousands of you have to die in order to get rid of it." That's for the Iraqis to decide--or should have been, anyway. Unfortunately, Mr. Thomson appears to believe that the Iraqis are children or primitives who can't be as advanced as the U.S. (and must be dragged "into the 21st century").

As it is, Mr. Thomson and many other Americans appears to think that America can be the culture-bearer of the world, spraying civilization out of the barrel of a machine gun. That sounds like Wilhelmine Germany to me, not the United States of America, and it makes me feel more than a little sick.

Anderson, the whole point of the various exterminations with mass graves etc was that iraqis *did* rise up against Saddam. We told them we'd help, and we didn't.

This reminds me a little of the russian advance on Warsaw. They didn't want to deal with a polish uprising during their own occupation, so they got the poles to do an uprising against the nazis, and then they waited until the nazis had slaughtered them (and took serious losses themselves) before they moved in and took over.

Terrorist Recruitment in US Prisons:
What is the level of intelligence on current recruitment? Threat assessment? Solution?

Invaded the Wrong Country:
After Afghanistan, would the intelligence community have supported operations of any sort in any other country? If so, where would the US stand NOW in the war on terror?

“As it is, Mr. Thomson and many other Americans appears to think that America can be the culture-bearer of the world, spraying civilization out of the barrel of a machine gun.”

Our motivation is primarily that of self preservation. We cannot stand back and allow the Bin Ladins to encourage the nihilistic Muslims to attack us with impunity. They started this fight---and we must end it! Culture is often spread through a barrel of a machine gun. What’s new about that? We must do everything within our power to bring the Muslim World into the 21st Century. There is no other option. Anyone saying something different is lying to themselves.

I also hope everyone views the movie, Hotel Rwanda. The genocide could have been avoided had the Belgians not left so early. Unfortunately, the goofy Left screamed for the colonialists to leave Africa prematurely. The Africans were not ready for self rule. Thankfully, the Iraqis seem only a few years away from standing alone on their own.

J Thomas is of course right that, when it might have been both moral and prudent to assist the Iraqis in toppling Saddam (rather than pushing in & doing it for them), we sat on our hands. I don't think JT means to suggest that we're allowed to show up 12 years late, as if we'd just checked our phone messages.

(The Warsaw comparison is interesting; haven't heard that anyone in Bush I's admin thought we should let the bad Iran-loving Shiites get themselves killed, but who knows.)

As for the inimitable Mr. Thomson:

Our motivation is primarily that of self preservation. We cannot stand back and allow the Bin Ladins to encourage the nihilistic Muslims to attack us with impunity. They started this fight---and we must end it! Culture is often spread through a barrel of a machine gun. What’s new about that? We must do everything within our power to bring the Muslim World into the 21st Century. There is no other option. Anyone saying something different is lying to themselves.

Really, it's hard to know what *not* to emphasize there. Refutation would be futile, given that our axioms seem to differ profoundly.

I only wish that Bush & Cheney had given that speech when they were trying to get us to invade Iraq, as we would've been very unlikely to follow their wishes, and someone else would now be president. Alas.

Doesn't Bin Laden and Al Qaeda wan't to reestablish the Caliphite? Isn't that why he is fighting the US?