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
men worry enemy
Bin Laden does reprehensible activities, and we should surely take care of that by killing him as soon as we can. But he's not an irrational man. He's a very worthy enemy. He's an enemy to worry about.
sister company-you-keep virginia
Sister Virginia used to say, 'You'll be known by the company you keep.'
country moving taken
What we face is a scared populace, and because it's scared, it's willing to put up with what I think are inevitably more moves toward the constriction of civil liberties, mobility within the country, the ability to travel overseas, all of those things we have long taken for granted.
strong thinking leader
Our leaders continue to say that we're making strong headway against this problem. And I think we are not.
done killing
You couldn't have done this without killing an Arab prince.
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.
past reality years
There is no way to avoid the reality that the American government in the past years has been the most spectacularly hypocrisy-driven government in the world. We rival the Soviet Union in some stages, in some ways, in hypocrisy.
respect numbers unnecessary
Until we respect bin Laden, we are going to die in numbers that are probably unnecessary.
christmas christian war
The war in Iraq - if Osama was a Christian - it's the Christmas present he never would have expected.
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.
country war islamic
The second part of that war was that Muslims came from all over the country to Pakistan, and they met each other. For the first time those men had an awareness of the Islamic world as a whole, not of just Egypt or Algeria or Indonesia, but of what Muslims call the Uma, the Islamic community. And that's an extraordinarily important thing. And that emanated in Pakistan.
war thinking self
It's not a choice between war and peace. It's a choice between war and endless war. It's not appeasement. I think it's better even to call it American self-interest.
violence arabia saudi-arabia
Most dramatically, and perhaps least noticed, is the violence inside Saudi Arabia itself.
believe thinking terrorism
I don't believe in inevitability. But I think it's pretty close to being inevitable...Yes, I think it's probably a near thing.