Michael Scheuer
Michael Scheuer
Michael F. Scheuer is a former CIA intelligence officer, American blogger, author, foreign policy critic, and political analyst. He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies. One of his assignments during his 22-year career was serving as Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Stationfrom 1996 to 1999. He also served as Special Advisor to the Chief of Alec Station from September 2001 to November 2004...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublic Servant
CountryUnited States of America
violence arabia saudi-arabia
Most dramatically, and perhaps least noticed, is the violence inside Saudi Arabia itself.
dog exercise thinking
No one wants to abandon the Israelis. But I think the perception is, and I think it's probably an accurate perception, that the tail is leading the dog - that we are giving the Israelis carte blanche ability to exercise whatever they want to do in their area.
safety community special
The U.S. intelligence community is palsied by lawyers. When we were going to capture Osama bin Laden, for example, the lawyers were more concerned with bin Laden's safety and his comfort than they were with the officers charged with capturing him. We had to build an ergonomically designed chair to put him in, special comfort in terms of how he was shackled into the chair. They even worried about what kind of tape to gag him with so it wouldn't irritate his beard. The lawyers are the bane of the intelligence community.
christmas christian war
The war in Iraq - if Osama was a Christian - it's the Christmas present he never would have expected.
respect numbers unnecessary
Until we respect bin Laden, we are going to die in numbers that are probably unnecessary.
israel america police
It's very clear from what he [Osama ben Laden] said, what his lieutenants have said, that America is not even their main enemy. We're simply in the way of what they want to do in their own world, which is to destroy police states and Israel.
leadership senior thinking
I think Mr. Clarke had a tendency to interfere too much with the activities of the CIA, and our leadership at the senior level let him interfere too much. So criticism from him I kind of wear as a badge of honor.
done killing
You couldn't have done this without killing an Arab prince.
party character thinking
I think one of the most destructive things in terms of American security has been for all of our leaders, without exception in both parties, to identify Osama bin Laden as a gangster or as a madman, as an apocalyptic character who's out to destroy our civilization.
sister company-you-keep virginia
Sister Virginia used to say, 'You'll be known by the company you keep.'
community intellectual assuming
One of the great intellectual failures of the American intelligence community, and especially the counterterrorism community, is to assume if someone hasn't attacked us, it's because he can't or because we've defeated him.
mass-destruction doubt use
Well, the next attack in the United States will be larger than 9/11. And there's no doubt that if they have a weapon of mass destruction, they'll use it.
europe feet racism
It is clear to me that the racism was on the other foot, that really, society in Europe was much more racist - vis-à-vis Arabs at least and black Africans - than American society.
office desire addresses
So what we have is an American foreign policy that is inextricably linked to domestic matters. It is very dangerous for a politician who desires nothing more than to stay in office to address the mindset that any change in policy is appeasement. And Americans will accept that for a certain amount of time.