Peter Bergen
Peter Bergen
Peter Bergenis an American journalist, author, documentary producer, professor, think tank executive and CNN's national security analyst. Bergen has written or edited seven books: Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden, The Osama bin Laden I Know, The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and al-Qaeda, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden From 9/11 to Abbottabad, Talibanistan: Negotiating the Borders Between Terror, Politics, and Religion, Drone Wars: Transforming Conflict, Law, and Policy, and United...
This is not rhetoric. This is for real.
attacks behind believe bin chooses evidence families family september
There's overwhelming evidence bin Laden was behind the attacks of September 11. If the family chooses not to believe that, that's just how families operate.
hussein notice saddam type
Saddam Hussein was put on notice that he can't do those type of things.
bin chain custody feels number obviously release secure tapes
After all, the chain of custody of these tapes is the one way to find bin Laden. He obviously feels secure enough that he can release a number of these tapes.
bin meaning obvious tape
The most obvious meaning of the tape is that bin Laden is still alive.
attention cave living recent somewhere statements
He's not living in a cave - he's living somewhere with more amenities. His most recent statements show a Talmudic attention to the news.
children war wife
And in the end, bin Laden died in a squalid suburban compound surrounded by his wives and children and far from the front lines of his holy war.
offering style want
Most Muslims don't want to live in some Taliban-style utopia, which is what bin Laden and allied groups are offering.
keys indulge-in leader
Bin Laden was 200 miles away from the area where all of these drone strikes were taking out his key leaders, he was able to indulge in his hobbies... and he was making occasional video tapes and audio tapes to the wider world.
thinking long groups
Bin Laden's death is just a punctuation point on a set of problems they've had for a long time. I think the prognosis for al-Qaida and groups like it is really bad, and that's a good thing.
thoughtful people kind
I've interviewed multiple people who know bin Laden... who tend to have a universal picture of what he's like, which is: modest, retiring, unassuming, kind of thoughtful - lots of things that don't fit with a mass murderer, which he is as well.
organization trying als
If you don't understand what al Qaeda was trying to do on 9/11, if you don't have a sense of who Osama bin Laden is as a person, if you don't have a sense of what al Qaeda, the organization, was on 9/11, 9/11 appears to be more or less inexplicable.
cities half lasts
In February I secured permission to enter Osama bin Laden's compound in the northern Pakistani city of Abbottabad, where he was killed and where he had lived for the last half-decade of his life; the first, and only, journalist to do so.
dad men years
The image we have of bin Laden in his final years in Abbottabad is of an aging man with a graying beard watching old footage of himself; just another suburban dad flipping though the channels with his remote.