I WISH YOU'D BEEN THERE – AT 10:19 P.M. ET:  I went to a superb talk tonight given by the distinguished journalist, Richard Miniter, late of The Wall Street Journal and other good sheets.  Miniter has studied international terrorism with a clear eye and a sharp mind, and has written some awfully good books on the subject, including his latest, "Mastermind," about the man who planned the 9-11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), now a resident of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with former offices in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

What struck me about Miniter's presentation was its starkness.  No political correctness.  No university feel-good propaganda.  I will only hit a few highlights, but I urge you to read "Mastermind."

1.  It is a myth that if those wonderful folks in the Muslim world get to know us better, they'll all love us.  Miniter meticulously destroys this fantasy, pointing out that KSM lived in the United States and studied here, and it was here that he learned to hate us.  As an extreme Islamist, he could not, for example, understand how a man he saw could change the oil in his car while listening to music.  It's a sin to listen to music.  And this man was making other people listen as well.  And he could not understand how a house could be built with a window in the kitchen, since people walking by might see a woman washing dishes.  It is immodest for a woman to be seen at a window.  It is degeneracy.  And that's the way they think,.

2.  It is a myth that only the ignorant join Al Qaeda.  Miniter pointed out that the percentage of college graduates in Al Qaeda is vastly higher than the percentage of college graduates in the Muslim world generally.

3.  KSM personally beheaded the American journalist, Daniel Pearl, primarily to live down a reputation within Al Qaeda that he had no backbone.

4.  Half of all the information that we have about Al Qaeda came from KSM...but only after he was subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.  That information stopped a number of plots, but we haven't gotten much since we ended those techniques during the latter years of the Bush administration.

5. Our new emphasis on killing Al Qaeda members through drone attacks in Pakistan is a terrible mistake, as dead men can't talk.  Al Qaeda is a family, and capturing a leader could result in an information windfall.  Killing him produces nothing.

6.  Eric Holder, our ideological attorney general, is determined to put on trial CIA agents who used enhanced interrogation techniques against Al Qaeda operatives, as a means of purifying the United States.  Some of these agents have already gone into deep debt to defend themselves.  Miniter believes there won't be any prosecutions until after the next election because of public opposition.  But if Obama is reelected, watch out. 

7.  Miniter told several stories about KSM that say something about the character if the man.  KSM received one trial by a military tribunal in Guantanamo.  Some relatives of 9-11 victims were permitted to watch the proceedings from a gallery.  At one point KSM took a sheet of paper, printed the flight numbers of the planes that were crashed on 9-11 on that paper, folded it into a paper airplane, and sailed it toward the 9-11 survivors.

8. KSM studied the techniques used by interrogators, and knew they were only permitted to pour water on his face during waterboarding for 30 seconds.  As the technique was underway, observers saw KSM count out the 30 seconds on his fingers, knowing how soon the ordeal would be over, trying to hold out.

9. KSM is obsessed with showmanship, and would love to have a civilian trial in the U.S., which he'd turn into a platform. 

This was a remarkable lecture, and brought home what we are up against.  It contrasted with the adolescent, childish attitudes floating around American elites, who assure us that the threat is exaggerated, and that Barack can take care of everything.  It isn't exaggerated, and Barack doesn't understand a thing.

May 31, 2011