I'm very pleased this afternoon to be joined on the Warning podcast by somebody that I regard as an American hero, the former FBI agent Ali Soufon, the chair and CEO of the Soufon Group, and he is generous enough to join us from Doha Cutter where he has just landed and is a little.
Bit jet lagged.
But nevertheless, good afternoon, or good morning or good evening, Ali, whatever time it is in Doha.
Good evening, Steve. It's a great honor to be with you. To thank you very much.
There may be many people who don't know about your career, and I want to let you unfold it in your words. I imagine when the calendar turns to September, it brings you back to twenty two years ago, this month, the clock was ticking. Why don't you tell us where you were twenty two years ago, what you were doing, and what you had spent your previous years obsessed about, focused on and trying to stop.
Twenty two years ago, September eleven, two thousand and one, I was in Yemen, and the reason I was in Yemen I was leading the FBI team investigating the USS call. Somebody like me I never thought in a million years I would be an FBI agent. I guess only in America. I came from van On, which was really suffering, you know, during the Civil War, and I went to school in the US. I graduated undergrad from a school in Pennsylvania
and Mansfield University. It's in rural Pennsylvania, and then I went to graduate school in Villanova and by the time I finished my graduate work, the FBI offered me a position as a special agent. At the time, you know, the only reason I applied it was a bet with some friends to see how long I will last. In the process, I was interested in national security. I was interested in the act of non state actors and the impact on geopolitics. However, I was not thinking that I
will be working in national security. I wanted to be an academic and when the FBI offered me the job. At the time, my favorite show was The X Files. I don't I don't know if you know your listeners remember the X Files. So I was like, hey, you know, why not, I'll go and join the FBI and stay a couple of years and then I go back to
academia and the rest was history, you know. I became a VI agent that was assigned to New York, and because of my interest in the Middle East and the activities of NUN state actors in the region, I wrote a paper a memo about this person that we should be paying attention to his names Sosamma b Laden, and I believe you will create a lot of damage uh
to our interests in the Middle East. That memo made it to the head of the National Security Division at the time, John O'Neill, who became my mentor and who I lost that day on nine eleven. He was in the World Trade Center when the attack happened. And you know I started to work al Qaeda and Bin Laden. I was involved in the nine not only in the nine eleven investigations when it was called, also in the East African embassy bombings and a lot of the plots
that al Qaeda tried to conduct. In the time period between the East African Embassy bombing in between nine eleven, we disrupted many plots around the world and were able to be successful in arresting members of all kinda recruiting individuals on the organization. We were able to have a lot of successes during that time period. We stopped plots around the world in Europe and North Africa, in Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula. We were able to disrupt a
plot in Jordan. It's called the Millennium plot. Al Kaida at the time and its allies were planning to blow up hotels and attack borders crossings with Israel and even a plan to assassinate the Pope when he was doing baptism with the Jordan River. And I was proud to be the case agent in charge of that investigation for the FBI. So we had a lot of successes and that's what led me to Yemen. When the attack on the USS Call happened October twelve of two thousand, I
was put in charge of that investigation. So as a case agent, we were with the team, you know, with my team as the team, and we were supported by the military and the State Department, the intelligence community and the Naval Criminal Investigative Services and CIS to invest to gate that attack. And at the time, we developed so many leads after we identified who was behind the call attack, we identified so many leads that led us to Southeast Asia.
Meetings in Southeast Asia that members of al Qaida who were involved in the call attack directly and indirectly. We're involved in people who were involved in the call itself. We're, you know, at these meetings as well. So we were asking our intelligence community, our own government, our own agencies about information, if they know anything about these meetings. We're always told no, no, we have no idea what you guys talking about. We developed our own leads. We were
able to get more phone numbers, more addresses. We asked our own government, do you know anything about any of these numbers, any of these individuals.
No.
On nine eleven, I was giving a folder, and that folder included everything that we've been asking for since, I have to say, November of two thousand. On September, a lot of people that I was looking for, yeah, September eleven, and the people that I was looking for in Yemen and around the world. Some entities in my own government knew that they were in the United States, and they were told me some of them were on the planes
that hit the World Trade Center in the Pentagon. So for me, nine eleven it's a day of sorrow anger. I don't believe nine eleven happened twenty twenty two years ago. I still believe you know, it just happened yesterday. The emotions are very rose raw still. I remember these feelings, and I remember, you know how we needed to put emotions aside, put anger aside, because we needed to prove to the world that al Qaeda and Bladden did it.
Find the evidence that our government needed in order to convince leaders in the Muslim world, who many of them did not believe that al Qaida was behind it, and to have the international community also agree with the US that Beladen and al Qaida based in Afghanistan, we're behind that. And that was my first job. Immediately after I was told those people that I'm looking for you know where in the US, and uh, we're able to do that. We're able to go back.
To uh the the people you know too.
Many asked for individuals that we were integrating before, and all these leads led us to Biladin's personal bodyguard, a guy by the name of Abujenda, and we uh, you know, I had a conversation with him, you know where he basically, not knowing identified the photos of seven of the hijackers as Kuida members. At the time, I did not even know that these people were hijackers. We showed him photo books the very first time. He looked at the photo
books and the photo book includes so many pictures. See, I don't even remember the amount of pictures we had. We had people from the East African Embassy bombing from the USS call. But then we had people that the government, you know, the FBI headquarters in d C and the White House were sending us individuals that were arrested. Many. I recall many of the photos of Steak, you know,
because they have turbans and they have beards. They arrested them and figuring out that they are Taliban or Al Kaido or they are part of the second wave of attacks, and were showing him all these photos. You know, at the beginning, he didn't identify anyone except bin Laden and a couple of main leaders. That there's no way he won't know who they were. But later on the second time he did the same thing. And then I asked him to do it for the third time, and he
was confused, like, you know, I'm cooperating with you. I identified the people that I know. Why are you asking me? And I said, well, oh yeah, just for for friendship's sake, since he's claiming he was a friend.
At the time, and and I think he I st recall he get to page number six or number seven from the photo book and he was turning it, and that's the only page that I knew, the only one that I knew he knows.
That person from my investigation. So I went back and you know, I said, so you're telling me you don't know this guy. And I told a body of mine who was the NCIS agent assigned to the case. He was my partner at the time, Robert McFadden. See, I told you, so this guy is full of it. And Abujendal was upset, like, how dare I question his integrity? So I told him what he knows about that person, gave him details that nobody knows except a person who is really over there. And then he said, oh, yeah,
I know this guy. Yeah, So I identified that person. And then I told him, I said, look, you don't know who I know in this book. Said when you first saw me, you were shocked, you were surprised. You never thought that I was an FBI agent, You never
thought I was an American intelligence officer. I said, so, you don't know how many people I have in this book who are exactly like me, but we're undercover in al Qaeda, and they can tell you a lot of things about the organization and about your relationship to them. You won't know who I have no idea who they are in this book. You know, there's a lot of people I don't know, but I'm not going to tell you who they. You know the people that I don't know. But in the same time, you don't know who we
have in our custody and talking about you. So you better look at the book again and identify the people that you know. My god, he identified so many people, including seven of the hijackers and with their leader Muhammadatta. And at the time I did not even know these people. I did not know they were on the plane. And that's when the president at the time spoke to the American people when he said that al Qaeda and Beladin,
we're behind the attack. And our information was taken around the world from you know, the president of Egypt at the time, Mubarak, to Musharraf in Pakistan, to the king of Saudi Arabia, and they were given the proof that it was Bladen. It was al Qaeda network who were behind the attacks on nine eleven.
Before I asked you a question about the legacy of those attacks and the wars that followed. Talk, if you will for a moment about your friend and your mentor, John O'Neill, who was a colorful character so far as the FBI agent's go.
John was a character bigger than life, you know, and people in the bureau either they loved John or they hated John. I mean, they're you know, you don't You don't have people who who are in the middle of this. There's no gray zone. But John had only one thing important in his life, and it was the mission, and it was the FBI. Everything else was just a side show. He was amazing in the way he can see the threat, can understand it, and can know everything we need to
do in order to be ahead of it. He saw a lot of these things coming. That's why he took a new agent under his wing. And here I am a new person in the FBI office in New York hanging out and having dinner or you know, having meetings and you know, briefing the person in charge of national security. That's usually did not happen in the FBI during that time. John supported us, supported us in all our missions gave us everything that we need. If you're dedicated to the mission.
If you're dedicated to the job, John was your biggest fan. If you thought of the job in the Mission of counter Terrorism as a job, then he's going to give you a hard time. He used to tell me all the time. You know, terrorists don't work nine to five. Terrorists don't work seven days a week. Sorry, five days a week, you know, And every time like I was, you know, once going to an engagement party and he wanted me to go with him for some meeting. And I said, Boss, I have this engagement party and I
need to be there. And he thought I was getting engaged. He said, are you getting engaged? I said, no, Boss, I'm not far from it. He said, ah, because if you are, you have to come and talk to me about it. I said why. He said, do you know why divorce is so do you do? You know? If what's sorry with my chat? Like he said, do you know why divorce is so expensive? I said why? He's
because it's worth it. And that was John. You know, it's just like you have to be only married to the FBI, only married to the mission, only married everything aside, but you know, last time I saw him, it was
his last day in the FBI. He was retiring from the bureau and I was heading back to Yemen and just a few days before nine to eleven, and we went to get a sandwich from you know, a restaurant across the street from twenty six Federal Plaza FBI offices in New York, and he was asking me about my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, and I said, yeah, I'm thinking about getting engaged. And he said, you know what, that's great, that's a great She's a really good woman.
She's been, you know, handling your shit all this time, all these years. Gave me a big hug and uh. And I was like, what what happened here?
You know?
I thought, I thought he's gonna, you know, give me hard time, and uh, that's it. That was the last time I saw him. He went to be the head of security or the Word Trade Center and a few days later he uh died in the attack by al Kada, in the attack by the people that he was trying
to stop. And he was an amazing supporter for US during the USOS call, and he pushed so much to get information that we were told him and I and all the people who are working on the case that this information did not exist, and this information I led to his death because it existed, but somebody refused to share it.
Now the person who ran the CIA has been lying. Didn't unit alex station with somebody named Michael Sure.
Talk about him?
Mhm. My interaction with him was very limited, frankly, but you know, I'm really disappointed with some of the stuff that I heard him saying in public. You know, I saw at a congressional hearing where he uh supposedly not supposedly he said it's there for people to google and see it. The best thing that ever happened on nine eleven, that the word trade center fell on John O'Neill. That is, that's for me, shocking, and that speaks volume about about
the character of that individual. I didn't know much about him before I knew people. Some people liked him, some people hated him. But I think that specific sentiment that he expressed in Congress shocked all the people in the committee when he said that speaks volume.
And he, of course was the head of the unit that denied you so much of the information that you needed to crack the case. And to stop the attacks. I wanted to ask you, when you look back, how close do you think you were to stopping or being able to stop the attacks if you had the information that you had been told repeatedly didn't exist, that CIA didn't have.
And that's something that I honestly, I don't think there is a day that passes by that I don't think about this. It doesn't crosses my mind for a second. So you want to tell me, I'm looking for people who I believe they were involved in the murder of seventeen American sailors in Aiden and people who are connected
to them. People that I'm looking for and the FBI is looking for in Southeast Asia, in Yemen, in the Middle East, are here in the United States San Diego or New Jersey or Virginia or whatever they were at the time. You want to tell me we want to
be on those people like White on Rice. You want to tell me that we won't be monitoring them and trying to figure out what they are doing, or even arrested them and trying to, you know, debrief them on or interrogate them regarding the meeting in Southeast Asia that they were involved in. Regarding some of the leaders of al Qaeda that they were meeting and what they were planning. I mean, there is no way that that we won't
be on them. We won't try. And you know, we know, we know how we do work in the FVII, you know, mapping the whole threat and arresting these individuals and at least they could have stopped and run away. At least nine eleven probably could have been delayed or could have been stopped. And this is not only Mew saying that.
I mean, if you look at the nine eleven Commission report, they talk about, you know, opportunities that the plot could have been stopped or delayed, and one of them is sharing the information with the USS called team, you know, the FBI team investigating the USS called That's one of the findings. You know, at the beginning, there was so many you know, deception about if informations were shared or not shared. I think the nine eleven Commission put that
to rest. And also on the same time, now we have many of the reports government reports had been declassified to include the CIA's own report that said that this information was not passed to the FBI on a timely basis. To the FBI team investigating the USS called on a timely basis, and it held for entities in the agencies and individuals in the agencies, to include the director, accountable
for not passing that information. However, like everything else since then, I did not see any real accountability for you know, holding people responsible for not doing their job. And I think this lack of accountability goes hand in hand with lack of experiency, and that's what creates a lot of distrust eventually, uh in the American public.
Uh.
You know, remember when we all believe that there is a mushroom cloud and there is you know, w MD in Iraq, and we all believe that, you know, your torture worked, and we all believed, you know, whatever the government told us to believe, and then later we realize
that it's all wrong. And then we the American public realizes that there is no transparency and they have been led to and and unfortunately that contribute to the lack of trust that we have today between large portions of our population towards the institutions and towards the government.
When when you think about that collapse of trust and institutions and the FBI, good news bad news situation in twenty twenty four. Good news on the Republican debate stage, there's a Southeast Asian American VVK Ramaswami. The bad news is he's talking about, well, we really don't know how many federal agents FBI agents, CIA agents were on the planes that hit the towers on nine to eleven. And so you see wackadoodle conspiracy theories mainstreamed around this event.
In this country, you have presidential candidates that are considered serious from the Republican Party talking about abolishing the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The institution has become profoundly politicized over the Trump era. How does that make you? How does that make you feel? Do you understand it the basis it?
Now?
Do you no?
I actually think about collapse of trust in the institution?
Does it?
Does it drive you? Does it drive you crazy? Does it? Does it? Does it make you want to cry? How does it? How do you feel about that?
It frustrates me. Look, I'm a person who left the FBI after I felt I you know, I stayed after nine eleven. I found out who was involved in nine eleven. I led the team for about you know a few years after nine eleven until two thousand and five, and then I realized that you can either, you know, lead or be led, or get the hell out.
Of the way.
And at the time, I decided to get the hell out of the way. You know, I mean, I was here. I am fighting for the truth of what happened on nine eleven because I was inside the enterprise, if you want to call it, and I know exactly what happened, and I know how information were not passed. And at the time, when you're standing up and doing this, do you know how difficult it is, how many people will
have the sharp lives for you. I used to say to people in headquarters and the FBI, some buns when they tell me, like I've been traveling to Afghanistan or to Yemen or to whatever mission, say be careful. I said, well, you know, I'm fine. You know I'm not going to be in DC. I need to be careful in this, but not on the front lines. So I was, you know, it was difficult for me to do that. And so having said that, I look.
At the successes that we have in the US government, and I look at the men and women not only in the FBI, but also on the CIA, the people in the field, the people on the front lines, not the people you know sometimes during that time period, the people around the George Tennant.
But I'm talking about the CIA men and women in the field now and back then. I look at the military operatives, the Seals, the Delta that they do amazing work in keeping Americans secure, the American public secure, and fight for the United States, and I see how much sacrifices these people do. I see how many sacrifices I mean, a woment of the FBI do on databases domestically and internationally.
And it's very difficult for me to see individuals like you know, the people that you mentioned, who have no idea about anything. They never read a report about nine eleventh. They don't know. You know, the truth is really more complicated than just brushing it with conspiracy theories on lie
because it it gives audience. I think it makes it very difficult because if you want to avowlce, let's say, the Federal Gurrea of Investigation, you know, the bureau who fights counter terrorism, who fights spies, who protect the nation against industrial espionage, who protect the nation against the foreign agents, and UH and and and Uh you know, uh, individuals who are trying to do us harmed, who fight to protect our communities regarding uh you know, pedophiles and crimes
against children, organized the crime, white collar investigations. Uh so you just want to get rid of all this just because you had a crooked guy who did not want to believe he lost an election. I mean, come on. And it's sad to see it coming from a party that always claimed to be the national security party, the party who fights for national security. You know, I'm disappointed to see all the things and to hear about all
the stuff, and it makes me. It makes me sad, And because I know a lot of these people, and I know how much they sacrifice for the sake of the nation. But unfortunately, we live in a time period where we have a lot of crooks and they talk about the world. They give an opinion about the world and about the United States that actually, frankly reflects reflects their own character. It's a confession of their own character.
That's why they say these things. Uh. These people, I don't believe they believe in the fidelity or they believe in the bravery or the integrity that the men movement of the CIA or the FBI or the malodority live by and unfortunately, you know, it's we have something called the First you know, fortunately we have something to have,
the First Amendment. Unfortunately we have people like them taking advantage of it in order to create more division and in order to create hatred against against the institution that keeps us safe. Look, you know, don't get me wrong. I stood up when we had problem, when the institutions were lying to the American public, some of the institutions. I stood up and I fought, and towards the end, the truth came out. That's exactly what's great about America.
You know, if I was in China fighting the Chinese Intellivisions Agency because they were lying to their people, or in Russia, or in North Korea or Iran or in Saudi Arabia, I will be subjected to a bone saw or to a bullet, or suddenly I'll fly through a window. That's what happens. But in America, you stand up, you do it right, you fight smart, you fight hard, and the truth will come out. Look, we're not perfect. The Founding fathers never claimed that they created a perfect system.
But we always strive towards a more perfect system. And that's with our politics, that's with our institutions, that's with our everything, and that's where we are. And I'm sure now we are on a lower a little bit. You know, the city in the Hill lost a lot of its shine. But I am confident with the system that we have, with the people that we have, that the truth eventually
will come out. Look at you know what we're talking about nine eleven and torture, on all these things on the water in Iraq, all the stuff that I stood up against. I had a lot of supporters in the FBI, in the CIA, in the military, in Congress. Some of them were supporting me behind most of them, actually you were supporting me behind the closed doors. Not a lot
of people. And you know, you know one of my biggest supporters who helped me, you know, go through all these things and just made me know that somebody is watching my back as Senator McCain. And guess so what you know, Eventually the truth came out. Eventually these documents were classified. When I wrote a book about what happened on nine to eleven and what happened with torture, and how the American public would lied to. The book was
heavily declassified, heavily redacted. The FBI told me there is no secrets in this boot, go ahead and published. Another agency said absolutely not, and they redacted the hell of that book. But you know what's too great about America. As frustrating as it was for me to have big sections of my book redacted, the sections that make my point about you know what I want to say to the American public, all of it to a reacted. The awesome thing that nine years later those same people said, okay,
you can publish. We were wrong. We went through the legal process. Fell judge looked at the case. They said, you know what, No, you have no right to tell him not to write these things because these things are not national security. You're redacting them for different reasons. That's
what America is all about. So as much as the system frustrates the hell out of it, as much as the system made me through lived through hell, but also the system worked because we use the same system to fight back for truth and for doing the right thing, and we were successful. I didn't have packs behind me, I didn't have you know, uh money, I didn't have lobbyists, I didn't have any of these things. I just had the truth. And guess what we won. And that's what's
great about America. And that's why I believe that with all the things that we see, with all the pessimism, with all the partisanship, I believe towards the end, truth will come out. And and and for those people who say all these bad things about the Bureau, and I'm not, you know, trying to defend the Bureau, the Bureau will defend itself. And they defend themselves, even though they are very bad at it because they don't talk publicly most
of the time. But let's go one by one, nine to eleven, Okay, every single investigation, and to include the CIA, they said that if the information was passed to the FBI, nine eleven could have been stopped. Number one, Number two the Iraq War. The only agency, the only agency in the US government that refused to say Iraq has the WMD and connected to all these things that administration was trying to sell to the American public was the FBI.
The only people who investigated a lot of the stuff that has to do with the banking crisis or toward all these things. The only people who did not, you know, allow their people to be involved in torture. Were the FBI. Trump himself was so happy when the FBI reopened the case on Hillary Clinton before the election and now stopped at them because they were investigating the investigating them for Look, you know what, we don't decide or the Bureau does
not decide who the crook is. We just follow the croc And unfortunately, when you start seeing partisanship go to this level that we put party above country, We put party about our system, We put the party above our constitution. We put the party and the loyalty to the party against the men and women who are protecting this nation and putting their life on the line day after day
against all enemies, domestic and foreign. I think I think it's sad and it's frustrating for somebody, you know, who experienced all the things that I experienced in my life.
A few weeks back, I was really honored to have Ken Burns on the podcast and we were talking about a forthcoming documentary about the American Bison, talking about the Civil War, this moment in history, and Ken Bird said something interesting that that's accurate. He said, the American Revolution was a civil war, the Civil War in this country was in fact a sectional war. But you grew up in a country and where eyewitnessed to a civil war
before you became an American. At this moment of cold civil war in this country, the division, the political incitements to violence, I wanted to ask your perspective about it, but I also wanted to ask.
You in connection with it.
You, on at least two occasions, have taken a constitutional oath. You took the naturalization oath to become an American citizen, and then, of course you swore an oath of allegiance to the Constitution when you became.
An FBI agent. Can you talk about.
The experience of seeing a society unravel and then the meaning of those oaths, the swearing of an allegiance not to a land mass, not to a political party, but really to a concept or a bundle of ideas.
Yeah, I mean, that's that's a great question, Steve. You know,
I recall the Civil War in Lebanon vividly. I lived through part of it, and I recall my parents telling me that Lebanon used to be the Paris of the East or the Switzerland of the East, modern wealthy and then suddenly we had such a sectarian division, not political divisions, such a sectarian division that people start looking at nationalism only through the lens of their own sect and that led to a civil war, and unfortunately, I started to see some folks in the US mimicking that. Now in Lebanon,
we did not have a good political system. We did not have the ideas that you're talking about. You know, we did not have a country that went through a lot and evolved and have you know an amazing constitution that's a living document. And I have a Bill of Fright and it has all these institutions to support them protect that concept. And that is a difference I would like to believe that we have in the United States.
When I took the oath first for citizenship and then for the FBI and lay for many different things that I was, you know, doing, and you know you have to take the oath for it. It's it meant a lot to me. And it's not just words that you say because you have to get a pay check for me. It's a way of life. And that's why I left the government in two thousand and five. I continued to fight. I continued to fight to get the truth about ninety
eleven to the American public. I continued to fight against torture. I testified in two thousand and nine to Congress way after I left the FBI about torture, and I continue to do what I do today in my company to protect the national security of the United States and to fight terrorism. As you know, we were the first people who talked about forum fighters in Syria when nobody wanted to talk about it. We were the first people who talked about the rise of domestic terrorism and the United States.
We're focusing internationally, and we're not looking at the monaster that is growing inside our midst with the white supremacists and the neo Nazi groups and those people you know that's fighting a war. Hitler lost seventy five years, seventy eight years ago, whatever. And it's amazing for me that, you know, to look into this amazing nation that we have and the constitution that we have and the institutions that we have on the loyalty of people from all
walks of life. They come from, you know, Europe. You know, everybody came from somewhere here, except like if your name is running Bear or something. Everybody came from somewhere, and you see them all having this loyalty not to a bloodline, but to a concept. And few countries in the world that nationalism is based on a concept. Patriotism is based on a concept, not on a bloodline. And we have that in the US, and I don't think any country in the world has it better than us.
You said that so perfectly, and it's such a part of the strength of the country. And you talked about a Native American name Running Bear. You know, in the Second World War in the Pacific theater, if Running Bear was a Navajo, he may well have found himself in the Marine Corps where he was a code talker. And one of the things that happened in the Second World War is that the Allies very early on broke the codes of both the Germans and the Japanese, who were
not able to break the Ally codes. And one of the reasons the Japanese never were able to is they had no grasp of context around connection to the language that was being spoken, and it was a native American language. No one in Japan spoke Navajo. And you think about
that and you apply that to Ali Sufon. Here you have a young man who comes to America from a war tour in the country, receives an education, goes to college, winds up in the FBI, and you walk into a room somewhere around the world facing a terrorist, and you open your mouth and you speak fluent Arabic. You can
quote the Quran back and forth. And the power that flows from that diversity, that combination of national strength that comes from being the only country in the history of the world to be made up of all of the peoples of the world where every language just spoken every day has been a profound benefit to the United States.
And you represent that perfectly.
Thank you. And I had so many people who are native Arabic speakers, and we used to do missions together, and we used to arrest these people and go and talk to them. And literally many of these terrorists they look at us, they thought were Israeli Musae, the Jordanian intelligence, every single country in the Middle East. You can imagine they never thought for a second with Americans because in their mind there's a look for the American FBI or CIA, and we're not it. So it was great, and we
saw the same thing in Afghanistan. We had people in Afghanistan that speak Pashtus or you know, or Uzbeks, and they were amazing. And that's what's great about America, you know. I mean, with all the problems that we have, we're still great. I mean seriously, I mean economically, we dominate the international economic system in the world. We created the system that benefited so many countries and probably the most wealth the world it ever had in its history, even
countries like China that we're competing with today. If it wasn't for the system, the economic system created by the United States, no way they will have they have now. And we are still, you know, dominating on so many different levels. Unfortunately, nobody can defeat us outside the United States.
We can only defeat ourselves with our division. And I think that's why you see many adversaries of the United States using social media, using AI, using a lot of these crooked politicians in order to promote conspiracy theories, promote division, you know, taking unfortunate incidents or transgit incidents like you know nine eleven or the Iraq War, and put all these things in a different context in order to create and instead of having accountability and having learned from our
mistakes and not repeating it create division and distrust, because only when you create distrust in a system, in the republic and democracy like the United States, only when you create distrust between the people and the institution is when you win, when you weaken the United States. And unfortunately, that's exactly what's happened.
That is perfectly stated. Abraham Lincoln talked about this. He said, the greatest armies of Europe, if they evaded the United States, would.
Never take a drink of water from the Ohio River.
He was right then, he's right now, and he said that we are to be undone, it will be by our own hand. It will be a form of national suicide. And that's always been the case in its states.
That's unfortunate, and you know, and the world is getting more dangerous. For example, nine eleven happened twenty two years ago. Al Qaeda on that on the evening of ninet eleven, they had four hundred members, nineteen of them were on the planes. Today al Qaeda itself have more than forty thousand members. And they are not only in Afghanistan, they are not only in Kandahar or Inkabo, they are also
in Yemen with al Kaieda and the Arabian Peninsula. They are in Asahel, they are in West Africa, they are in back in Afghanistan. They are in so many different places. They are spread around the world. You know, we used to have embassies, even in Kabo. We had an embassy in Libya. We have an embassy in Syria. We had an embassy in them. We had an embassy in Summer Area. We have many different Somalia. Now we don't have embassies in any of these places. We don't have embassies in
all these places. You know, we're we're running blind. And so the world is very dangerous today. We have more areas in the world, important geopolitical areas in the world, that are controlled by non state actors, not by by states. And I'm not talking about the coups in Africa. I'm talking about Yemen, for example, with the healthies on Lebanon, with his Blah or sha in Iraq or al Qaeda, or the branches of control larger swamps and lands of lands.
Still not only in Syria and in Iraq this is a smaller but in Africa and northern Nigeria like Bokoharam. So we have an arc of instability that goes all the way from all western shores of Africa all the way to Southeast Asia. Taliban is back in control of Afghanistan. This is the world that we live in. Then we have this war in Ukraine with Russia that is in the you know, you know, they from a geopolitical perspective, is a second order global second order, because the first
order is still China in the competition against China. So if we need unity, it is now we have so many the world is literally on a crossroad. And then you have these people on the stage, on the Republican stage, saying the stuff that you were talking about, and they want to demolish the institutions that making us strong and making us you know, able to protect the American public of all the enemies domestic and foreign. It's you know,
I'm still optimistic. I still believe that the glass is how and I think we need to do a better job in you know, standing up for our values and America will stand up for itself. We want through a lot before and America always prevailed and I believe we will prevail. Our system will prevail, and these crooks will find themselves in the thrash of history.
I think that is a perfect place to leave it. On a note of optimism, Alisufon, it has been an honor to be with you, everybody. I encourage you to read the accounts of what Alisufon has done with his life, the chronicles of it along with the FBI Agent Supervisory FBI Agent John O'Neill in the Looming Tower. An extraordinary service, an extraordinary story of service and dedication to the country. It's been a real pleasure to spend this hour with you.
Thank you, Alli, the pleasure is mine. Thank you. Steve the fat change for a tangent s