The Brian Lehrer Show

Brian, when did that jarring background music start during your pre-show rundown? Perhaps it has always been there and I am only overly sensitive to it now since that dreadful attempt of "hipping up" the news during the early-morning program "The TakeAway" and their need to add unnecessary background noise to a news program.

U.S. invaded Iraq unprovoked. Seems like U.S. is aggressor to me. Don't know why there should be any Q about it.

The initial reading you did sounds very much like what Michael Scheuer (?) wrote in Imperial hubris.

P.S.

There was an item on WNYC earlier this morning about Zawahiri's answering Qs online. What is your guest's analysis of those Qs & As.

US overthrows Iranian democracy in 1956.

Clinton administration kills 500,000 Iraqis from 1993 to 2001.

US endorses and funds Israeli war crimes in occupied Palestine and Lebanon.

Sound like acts of war? Acts of terrorism?

Maybe we should take with an ocean of salt the US claim that it supports democracy in the Middle East.

Could you ask Prof Kepel. How would he think the "war on terror" could be either won or resolved.

Will these be used as a vindication by the Bush administration now? What does the author say to such an interpretation of his findings?

Oh great idea Brian "how can we (US) exploit the friction between Al Qeda and Iran"...so u want us to create 2 enemies and then get in bed with 1?...Or we can stoke the flames of hatred on bothe sides...either way that isn't what America should be doing...

The Amazon.com link you have to the author's book is wrong. Please correct.

Wow! THANKS for a great segment. Too good to be lost in the ether. To be circulated widely.

P.S. Please tell the professor the English idiom is "to pull the rug out from under"....although his English is excellent with the occasional charming bits.

Good call from Nick. We are not evil, we are just selfish in pursuing our interests all around the world, and our need for oil is a paramaount, almost instinctual interest. And thus 60 years of really bad policy based on securing cheap oil and thus suppressing nationalism.

I think bin Laden has been dead for years. Al Qaeda has become very sophisticated in using the internet...why no high quality viseos (as we used to see)?

What does the so-called "unanimous agreement" in the quote regarding the jihad and the reasons for the jihad refer to? What persons are called upon as the authority for all muslims calling them to jihad? My impression has always been that religious authority is diffuse in Islam.

It's a measure of Qaeda's success that we buy into the idea that we're the primary enemy. Fact is, if it weren't us, it would be someone else. A movement like that requires and enemy and the U.S. is just a handy target. In this respect, with his bluster and aggressive posture, Bush continues to play into their hands. The U.S. is a player in Qaeda's game.

Very interesting and educative segment.

I heard that one of the questions asked to Zawahiri was whether there were women in al-Qaeda to which Zawahiri replied flatly "No." And my initial reaction was one of disgust, and then I thought about it and I decided that if there was ever an organization that women were better off being excluded from, this would certainly be it!

Good to hear Mr. Kepel. It’s a counter point to the Neanderthal notions of Jihadism by the American media.

The American 'war on terror' seems to me like trying to kill an entire ant farm with one single toothpick.

Good segment. And thanks to Prof. Kepel for answering my Q.

midtown...everything on wnyc is aimed at hip crowd now...everything is about blog us this read our live blog that...

There was a book called the New Jackals that was written pre-9/11 and discussed bin Laden and al-Qaeda. And one thing that struck me when I first read it was that Ramzi Yusef was hoping that the first attack on the WTC in 93 would've collapsed the buildings NOT because they wanted to demoralize us (as has been repeatedly stated by our leaders) but because they wanted to ENRAGE us and cause his to do something rash like invade a Muslim country. This, in turn, would rally the Muslim world against us and they would have the great war against the West that they'd been hoping for.

It hasn't turned out exactly like that because, to be honest, while we did a bone-headed thing, we could have still done worse. We could have reacted in an even more irrational way.

A start to remedy Al Qaeda is kill Osama Bin Laden. Hunt him down in Pakistan and kill him and anyone who is with him.

Bin Laden's success in terrorizing the United States is largely the result of the materialization of the conception of the "counterattack": while the 9-11 attacks had little direct strategic importance for the U.S. economy and society, the emerging threat of a few Muslim Americans or Muslim Europeans becoming a fifth column and of sophisticated technologies becoming self-destructive weapons not only struck fear and suspicion in many Western societies but also forced them to rethink long-held convictions on such issues as freedom of speech, immigration, due process, and multiculturalism.

A list of al-Qaeda attacks makes for ghastly reading.

The first known operation was the 1992 bombing of a hotel in Yemen, intended to strike at U. S. troops en route to Somalia but instead killing two Australian tourists. Subsequently, al-Qa‘ida was implicated in the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, the car-bombing of American military training personnel in Saudi Arabia in 1995, and the car bombing at a U. S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996. Following those attacks, bin Ladin's name became synonymous with the death and destruction of the 1998 twin embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the crippling of the USS Cole in 2000, and finally, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.