DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Deprogram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: "Jake Tapper on the Global Hunt for an Al Qaeda Killer”

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

In this pulse-pounding episode of Deprogrammed, hosted by political cartoonist Ted Rall and whistleblower John Kiriakou, CNN anchor Jake Tapper joins for a riveting interview unpacking his new book, Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War, released on October 7, 2025. The conversation thrusts listeners into the heart of a real-life thriller: the unprecedented international pursuit and federal trial of Spin Ghul (real name: Ibrahim Harun), a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative who boasted of killing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan before bizarrely surrendering to Italian authorities amid the 2011 Arab Spring chaos. Tapper, drawing from exhaustive reporting—including interviews with prosecutors, intelligence operatives, and even Ghul’s defense team—details the book’s explosive core: a high-stakes “police procedural” spanning refugee boats in the Mediterranean, Afghan battlefields, Brooklyn courtrooms, and Oval Office briefings. Ghul, a dark-skinned Pashtun fighter derisively nicknamed “White Rose” by his Arab Al Qaeda comrades amid the group’s internal racism, emerges as a bumbling yet deadly jihadist. Radicalized in the post-9/11 “Forever War” era, he ambushed U.S. convoys, racking up American casualties, only to flee Libya’s uprising and demand extradition while flashing bullet-scarred proof of his exploits. The narrative races through the frantic efforts of two relentless Assistant U.S. Attorneys in Brooklyn—racing against deportation deadlines and legal precedents—to secure the first-ever conviction of a foreign terrorist for battlefield murders in a civilian court, blurring lines between warfare, criminal justice, and counterterrorism. Kiriakou, with his CIA whistleblower lens, intensely questions Tapper on the blurred ethics of renditions, interrogations, and intel-sharing that snared Ghul, drawing eerie parallels to his own post-9/11 exposure of waterboarding horrors and warning of how such hunts eroded civil liberties. A masterclass in true-crime geopolitics laced with unfiltered edge, this Deprogram episode is unmissable for fans of high-stakes history. Stream on major platforms, and dive into Race Against Terror for the full, meticulously sourced saga of pursuit, prejudice, and precarious justice.

Hi, and thanks for joining us for D-Program with Ted Raul and John Kiriakou. We're pre-recording this in order to accommodate our guest schedule. Our guest is Jake Tapper of CNN. He's the author of Race Against Terror. Let me put this up. There it is. There it is. Chasing an al-Qaeda killer at the dawn of the Forever War.

So, Jake, thanks again for joining us once again here on D-Program. It's great to see you a little bit of housekeeping. We're here Monday through Friday, 5 p.m. Eastern time. Please like, follow and share the show. Please comment. This particular show will not be able to answer your questions in the live feed because obviously it's pre-recorded. So that's not a problem for us.

So anyway, Jake, let's get into it. We should disclose. First of all, we should disclose. John's in the book. I interviewed him for the book. I cited his one. one of his books in the resource materials because the book is not just about this true crime story about this killer. It's also the subtext is about the legal and ethical ways to go after terrorists.

And that's where John comes in in his CIA role. Sorry to interrupt. No, no. You're why we're here. So Jake, tell us a little bit about Spin Gull and how you got interested in this story. and, you know, tell us, you know, what the deal is at. Why is he important? So the story, the way I got interested in the story was just, I was at my son's

paintball birthday party. And because it's so far out in the middle of rural Virginia, you know, I just host parents, you know, so they'd only have to make the drive there and back. They don't have to do go there and back and there and back. So I was having pizza and drinks and whatever. And one of the dads came over to me. said that he knew Dave Roller, who's one of the protagonists of my book about Afghanistan, the outpost. And I said, oh, yeah, that book was really difficult to write because the Pentagon

keeps such bad records, and they also are just so reluctant to share them. And he said, tell me about it. And then he tells me this story that starts with him as an assistant U.S. attorney in 2011 gets a phone call from the FBI. And this guy who identified himself as an al-Qaeda terrorist had just been picked up on an Italian cruise ship. Berlusconi had commandeered cruise ships. There was this refugee crisis during the Arab Spring because the southern Italian islands are closer to Africa than they are to Rome.

So all these Tunisians and Libyans were swamping these islands, you know, doubling and tripling the population in weeks. And so Berlusconi was taking all these refugees to the mainland and somehow this Al-Qaeda operative ended up there. And the Italians had him in custody. And they could hold him for a little bit because they had this sedate him on board once they interrogated him, but they couldn't hold him forever.

He hadn't done anything to them. But he was confessing to having killed Americans in Afghanistan, having tried to blow up the U.S. embassy in Nigeria. And they said, do you want them? Have you heard of them? And they had, the Americans had. So the Americans went over to Italy and listened to his confession in a courtroom. He was proud of his work as a terrorist.

And then the clock was ticking because the Italians didn't want him, didn't want to hold them. They were just going to put him in a refugee camp where he could easily walk out and then do what he wanted to do, which was kill as many Americans as possible. weren't the Italians worried that he might decide to kill Italians? Not particularly. At this point, he was just a madman who claimed to be an Al-Qaeda. They didn't know that he was legit.

They didn't know that he actually posed a serious threat. They didn't have any plans to go after him. And at this point in the global war on terror, the GWAT, the Italians were like a lot, of Europe, completely fed up with the United States, didn't trust us, didn't like what we were doing. This is eight years into the abolition of Iraq. Yeah, and also, you know, one, there was an Egyptian cleric who had been basically kidnapped. I mean, it's called an extraordinary rendition, but basically kidnapped off the streets of Italy and

by the Americans working with some people in the Italian government. And a bunch of these CIA operatives and military operatives had been tried in absentia in Italy. So there was a lot, they didn't, you know, particularly care that Obama was in charge, not Bush. It was just still the United States. And they were just like, you know, if you want them, take him. If not, we're just, you know, this is so long we can hold him. So the Americans had to prove a case. They had to take his story because any second year law student would be able to get this thrown out.

They'd say, you have no proof this happened. This is just a crazy man claiming he did this. We don't even, you know, know who he killed. This is not a case. So the Americans had to build a case with this ticking clock. to bring him to justice. And so it's the sleuthing that really the book is about. And that's what I was so interesting when Dave Bickauer,

my son's friend's dad, who's also one of the protagonists in this book, told me the story because it was just so interesting, the sleuthing, how they proved the case. And in terms of, I wrote it like a thriller. I tried to make it just as compelling a read as possible. But for your very smart and very informed listeners and viewers, I think it's also important because it shows how Obama tried to prosecute the war on terror,

at least in this chapter of it, not drones or whatever, but in this, when it comes to prosecuting terrorists, in a way that he felt worked with our ideals, lived up to what the promise of America is. And at the time, as you may remember, 2011, 2012, Obama was trying to try terrorists in the United States. And politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, were acting like, if you bring a terrorist to the United States, that he's like Thanos, he has like superhuman power, he's going to break out of prison, he's going to kill everybody. There was this, you know, people were, and that's why they call it terror, terrorism, because people were terrified of these guys coming to the United States. And there was also the real fear that if he was found not guilty, that who knows what would happen to him? Does that mean he just like gets to walk the streets of Brooklyn? and we know he intends to commit mass murder.

So that part of it might be of interest for you two, since I know of your, obviously, I respect your work and your criticism of how the war on terror has been conducted by every administration. But that is also an interesting subtext of it. And John's story is interesting because there is evidence that the Americans are able to use against Spingool that came from,

an FBI slash CIA slash Pakistani raid when they picked up Abu Zubeda. And Abu Zubeda was kind of like a go between. He wasn't really officially al-Qaeda, but he did stuff for terrorists in that area. And when the FBI was in charge of the case before John swept in, they got all this evidence. But then everything that happened, I'm not blaming this on John, but everything. that happened to Abu Zabeda once that plane went off to the CIA black site, none of that was admissible ever again because of enhanced interrogation slash torture. But that part before the CIA got involved, when the FBI was still like doing things by the book,

quote unquote, there was evidence in the Abu Zabeta raid that later came in handy when they were prosecuting Sping Ghul. So it's just kind of like a demarcation of what, what, you can use in a court of law and lock these guys away forever in a legal way and what you can't and then you're faced with the how do you solve a problem like Maria at get at get mo take two questions um is it fair to say that if he this these events had transpired in say 2000 what's going on sorry uh jake do you hear me can you can one of you talk to me yeah yeah yeah do you hear me now i just lost you guys oh that's uh uh hold on strange yeah test test test one two three now you're muted jake you are muted

jake look at the bottom of your look um maybe unmute yourself at the bottom left there you can hear me now yes yeah you do you hear us hear you oh um so i am going to turn on test test test test test if you have to use the regular it turned off getting nano i think we're pre-taping can you talk to me now test test test test one two three one two three one two three um i don't know what's wrong let me um let me get out and call back in i'm sorry okay stuff like that always but he's right it's good that we're pre-taping yeah we can I can we can edit this out this is um fact I should write down the time stamp on this okay there's Jake let me uh it works I can hear you again I don't know okay great no idea what happened but

I'm sorry okay don't worry Jake I'll just edit that out you don't worry okay so I was going to ask you a couple of questions. Is it fair to say that if these events had transpired at the peak of the Bush administration, like say 2005, that probably they would have just sent the guy to Guantanamo Bay? I think 100%. Yes. And let me also say, probably what would have happened is they would have sent him to Guantanamo Bay and then ultimately whether Obama or Bush or Biden or Trump. At some point, somebody would have said, we don't have any evidence on this guy. We can't hold him. It doesn't make any sense. And they would have sent him to Saudi Arabia or Niger or whatever. And then perhaps he would have gotten, you know, gone and killed a bunch of people.

I mean, that's the thing because they didn't have any evidence when the Americans first got him or were first told about him. Probably, I mean, it's just also like the investigation actually also served the purposes of the, of the safety of the American people and, and Westerners all over the world more than just the throw him and Gitmo thing, because ultimately he was, he was never, there was never any evidence that the Americans had until they started this investigation. And my other question is he's Afghan, right? I mean, so did, no, no, he was, he was from, oh, he's not. He was, no, he was from Saudi Arabia. He was Nigerian by blood. And then he was recruited by a jihadist recruiter in Saudi Arabia and then went to Pakistan and then killed Americans in Afghanistan.

But it's the first time in American history that a foreign terrorist was tried in a U.S. criminal court for killing service members in a battle zone, in a war zone that had never happened. before. And whether or not Trump knows it, he is about to follow in those footsteps because they are doing the same thing in the criminal prosecution of this guy, Jafar, who was one of the conspiracists or conspiracy, one of the guys who conspired to kill Americans and Afghans at the Abbey Gate killing in 2021. He is now in a Virginia jail awaiting trial. And I mean, it's just amazing to me because, you know, when you read this book and you follow the history of it, like it was considered weak, it was considered lame to bring these terrorists to the United States to try them criminally. Why do you want to give them rights? Why do you want to put them

on trial, et cetera, et cetera, just, you know. And Trump, who I think probably thinks of himself as having a very different approach to the war on terror as Obama is literally doing something that Obama paved the path to do. And, you know, and I think we're going to be better off for it. This guy will be tried in a court of law and I'm sure locked up forever um if if I mean so this is a tough question right but I mean if Spengal is killing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan would you I mean would it be fair or to for could you have a defense and saying like look I'm a I'm a resistance fighter a hundred percent yeah the American soldiers are occupation forces yeah and that The Afghans don't want them there.

There was that, and that was the big fear of the prosecutors that the defense would be allowed to bring that defense. That this is a, this is, you know, a foreign, this is a terrorist or I'm sorry, this is, this is resistance. This is. It's not terrorism. It's not, and it's on, and all is fair and love and war. And in fact, the family of one of the two Americans killed in the ambush, the family of Jared Dennis asked prosecutors that, too. Like, how is this illegal?

Is it illegal for Al Qaeda to kill Americans in Afghanistan? Is that against the law? Right. There's a guy named, I think his name is, well, his name is Dave Fract. I think he's a lieutenant colonel. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. He's a really interesting guy. Dave Fract, who has represented people at Gitmo.

He was brought in by the defense to offer that. that theory like this guy should not be prosecuted for killing Americans on a battlefield he's the enemy and this is you know um and ultimately uh ultimately the judge does not let that argument into the court but we have a whole chapter on that subject because that's what i wondered too how is that how is it illegal i mean they're and and dave fracked it's like the johnny it's like the johnny walker lynn's case is so strange right i mean the guy goes to prison for nearly 20 years for carrying an AK-47 in Afghanistan, right? Like, not in the United States.

I mean, Afghanistan has as many AK-47s as it has cups of coffee. I mean, they're all over the place. How is that illegal in the United States anyway? And he had joined the Taliban before 9-11, also the thing. He wasn't a traitor to his country. And one of the dirty little secrets about that case is that he was never read his rights. That's why, that's why DOJ. was so anxious to come to some sort of a plea agreement. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's

fascinating. Yeah, John Walker Lind is mentioned in the book, too. Yeah, I mean, there are all sorts of interesting. It's one of the other things that was, for me, fun to write this book was exploring all these questions. And look, everybody in this book... Yeah, what's American jurisdiction, right? Right. 100%. And everybody in this book, in my view, all the Americans in this book, are Patriots. They all play very different roles. There's FBI, there's Assistant U.S. attorneys, U.S. attorneys, et cetera. But there's also the defense attorneys, Dave Fract, who wanted to be a witness, Jess Gannum, who's this psychiatrist, who also works with a lot of Gitmo people and wanted to testify that Spinn Gould was not sane, was not competent to stand trial.

And they're all doing what they need to do to uphold the ideals of this country. and provide a fair trial. Now, you can disagree with the judge's decisions in terms of what he allowed and what he didn't allow. And there's certainly an argument that the defense believes that they didn't really get to provide

the best defense because the judge would not let them do that, would not let them, you know, present the Dave Fract. Like he's just a, he was operating as an enemy soldier. But, you know, these juries, do actually pay very close attention. One of the things that's really interesting, I didn't pay a lot of attention to at the time. I'm sure John did. Maybe you did too, Ted. There was a case in

2010. This also made all the politicians terrified, where this guy named Galani was tried for, I think it was participating in the 1998 embassy bombing. Embassy bombing. Yeah. And during that trial, the best witness, the judge threw him out because they learned about the witness. through somebody being tortured. And so the judge threw it out entirely. And so the prosecution was left with not much. And the jury acquitted Galani of 284 out of 285 charges. Juries are paying a lot of attention.

I think we don't give juries enough credit sometimes. But they were paying a lot of attention. And I think that they also, my guess is that they sent him to that, they found him guilty on that one charge because they knew he was guilty. and they didn't want to let them walk free. But that case and that jury verdict sent a chill throughout the national security apparatus of this country about like the possibility of prosecuting these people and what could go wrong.

So anyway, it's all just to me and I would think for you guys also just like this is just all so interesting. Whatever you think about it, wherever you come down on it policy wise. And I tried to write it honestly as with as little other than. I'm not a big fan of torture. Other than that, I'm kind of like I try to be as agnostic as possible about the choices being made and who was right and who was wrong. And I, you know, I handed the, you know, I hand the microphone over the defense attorneys. I hand the microphone over to Dave Fract.

And I just, you know, I just find it all so interesting as I, well, you guys, I don't tell you, you guys have devoted your lives to it in many ways. I wanted to ask you, Jake, in the course of your recent, In the course of your interviewing of people involved, especially from the DOJ side, did you detect any lingering animosity toward the CIA for demanding the right, the ability to torture these people? We knew back in 2002 that once we started torturing these people, nothing that they said, would have been admissible in a court of law and still the decision was made to go forward now of course the final decision was made at the white house right it was the cia's idea as early as as october november of 2001 have have d oj people white house people even cia people finally come around to the to the conclusion that this was a mistake and that over the long

term it actually did more damage to the country? I think that that's kind of just an assumption because we're so, you know, we're more than 20 years past that those decisions being made. I think people, yeah, I mean, I think people have come to that point of view. I don't think there's resentment, though. I think it's an understanding that these are the decisions that were made at the time. Fog of war. Fog of, yeah. And like, you know, whatever you think of Bush and Cheney, I think it's hard to argue that they were doing this other than for the reason that they thought this was the best way to protect the American people at that time and maybe it didn't age so well and all that. But it was really just more matter of fact because most of the people that I'm

interviewing here were not elected officials. You know, they were lying prosecutors, FBI agents and the like. And it's basically like whoever is the president, they have to do their job. However, the rules change, they have to change according to those rules. I think Bittkauer and tree for the two main assistant U.S. attorneys that are the main characters in the book, I think their basic philosophy is that, you know, that the Bush administration, there were excesses, maybe Obama was a little naive, but it didn't matter because they were just trying to do their job. And I think the FBI agents were the same way. It was really interesting to me, though, also in this story, just the American mosaic of who is in the American security

apparatus because it isn't, no offense to three, to white guys, because I'm one and you are two, but it isn't just a bunch of white guys, right? I mean, it is, it really is truly the American mosaic. Two of the FBI agents, the main two FBI agents in the book, or two, I should say, two of the three main FBI agents in the book are women and Muslims. Both of them are Muslims. And proudly so, they don't think, you know, they think of Al-Qaeda is, twisted terrorist group. It has nothing to do with their religion other than they're twisting their religion. But that was really interesting. There's another guy, Bert Laquois, who is a Caribbean and he's an immigrant, he's American by choice. I mean, so it's just a lot. You really can't

help but feel patriotic about this country when you meet this cast of characters, just because it's the gamut from the, you know, the Hail Fellow well-met, you know, Virginian, Sri Varyal, to the wiery Jewish guy from New York. He's a Jeopardy champion, Dave Bickauer, to these line prosecutors and line. And it's just really, it's really interesting. And all of them, I think, at this point, remember, like a lot of them also are young enough

that the soldiers that were in the ambush in 2003, they had all joined before 9-11. Right? So that's a whole other thing. And they're amazing, too. Like those guys telling me this story. of the worst day of their lives when two of them were killed and four of them were seriously, seriously wounded, just an incredible array of folk. But most of the people are young enough

that, like, they became, they joined law enforcement after 9-11. As a conscious decision, I want to do this to help protect Americans. And that was pretty cool, too. Jake, what about, I'm wondering about the political timing. I mean, obviously the DOJ wasn't as directly controlled by the White House as it is today. I think that's fair to say. That said. You know, so it's 2011, right? And I mean, in 2010, I went to Afghanistan to write a book because Obama had just announced

that we were going to withdraw from Afghanistan. Now, that didn't really happen for another 10 years. But we thought, we were told, Americans were told at that point, this is the beginning of the end of America's presence in Afghanistan. we're not going to, you know, we're not going to be there anymore. This is over. And that's why I wanted to go back and see, like, you know, how things have changed during the U.S. occupation.

Basically, you know, psychologically, the administration has kind of decided to move on to a new chapter and think about other priorities domestically and internationally. Did this kind of like throw a, was this viewed as like, well, this is something, this is like leftover? from this experience that we're now trying to move past, was it politically inconvenient for them? Or was it like actually, like, did it serve as like a bookend? I think it was, I don't think it was politically inconvenient.

I think it was a challenge for the people tasked with having Obama's ideals become actual policy. Remember, Obama came in and he said he was going to close Gitmo. Getmo is still open today. right now. You immediately forgave the torturers, right? He immediately went to Langley like day one or day two and said, don't worry, you guys are good. And there was a degree to which this was part of a new chapter, I think,

of we're going to be prosecuting the war and terror differently than Bush did. He said. But also, keep in mind, when Obama took office, the terrorist threat had changed. to a largely homegrown terrorist threat. I don't just mean right-wing terrorism. I mean al-Qaeda inspired and ISIS ultimately inspired Americans. And so the idea of doing these cases in a criminal court of law became necessary. I think that that is part of it.

But look, I mean, I think that Obama's ideals often. came were very strictly strongly confronted by reality that it wasn't as easy to do the things he said he wanted to do like for instance when he set up his Gitmo task force that the two heroes of the book Bitcar and Stream served on that Gitmo task force before they joined the Eastern District of New York US Attorney's Office and you know the conclusion there was you know Obama wanted to he wanted to close Gitmo and the conclusion there was okay these guys we can prosecute either in a military commission or in a court of law. These guys, we can either free or send to other countries.

And these guys, we can't do anything with them. We have to keep open. You know, they're too dangerous to let go. And they've been tortured too much for us to prosecute them. And that was an ugly, you know, Obama could, he could have overruled it. He could have said, no, we're going to send them abroad or whatever. But, like, that was he wasn't going to do that. And the irony now is that they're all old men anyway.

I was just telling a friend of mine last night that in my mind that raid to capture up as a beta was, you know, two weeks ago. Right. In fact, I was, what, 38 years old at the time, he was like 27 and now he's in his 50s. Yeah. I'm in my 60s. Yeah. So they're all like old and withered and, you know, a lot of them have real physical problems,

either from the torture or from living in a prison for 30 years or just being old or just being old right we've seen that we've seen that happen to other people of note as well uh yeah no it's it's it's why i mean you could theoretically i'm not going to call for it but you could theoretically like say okay we can close gitmo now and you know i don't know why i honestly don't know why they haven't i guess i do but like i mean you could just give them to pakistan and just give pakistan ability million dollars a year. Whatever the price of Gitmo is, just like take that money and subtract $10 from it and give it to Pakistan and just put them in a prison, whatever. And, but, you know, there's always the fear that some roving band of terrorists will come in and free them. And, you know,

but this isn't con air. Like, they're all old men who probably just want to sit down and like have a lemonade, you know? Yeah. I mean, I'm not, they're horrible people. Don't, nobody, not to mention And al-Qaeda is really no more. Is it? Is it no more? Not core al-Qaeda. I wanted to ask you about, I've heard rumors that the Biden administration actually had come to an agreement to release Abu Zabedah. Oh, is that right?

Well, the reason that they didn't was they were in the process of trying to find a country willing to take him. And they couldn't find a country willing to take him. You know, we've, we've hoisted, foisted, I should say. We've foisted terrorists on countries from Switzerland to Haiti, to Albania, to, yeah, the Philippines, Bermuda, and they just hadn't found a country to take him. And so at least four more years now we're going to pass before those conversations can take place again. Did you pick anything like that? No, I see news to me.

The only thing I know about Biden and terrorists, I think we talked about last time, with my Biden book, which was there were 11 Yemenis that they wanted to free. And they ultimately did free them, like right before Biden left office. But they wanted to free him in October 2023 right after Hamas attacked Israel. And all the senators on the Intelligence Committee got wind of this, Democrats and Republicans, and said, you can't do that. Like, these guys will go and join Hamas or Hasbola or the Houthi. or whatever. You cannot do this. And when

Senator Mark Warner expressed this concern to Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, and then Biden called Warner, and Warner was very disturbed by the conversation because he didn't think Biden had any idea of what was going on. So that's that's the only thing I know about

about that. And then ultimately they did, just like, send them to Oman or whatever. And, you know, it's so interesting because these guys, these terrorists, like they're it's a calling for them and we get into this in the book i get into this in the book about like their belief system and the zealotry and all that and where does zealotry end and insanity begin for any zealotry by the way not not just not just this zealotry but for any zealotry

and like i don't doubt that a lot of these guys have rejoined i mean i know it's been proven for some of them but like i don't doubt that a lot of these freed guys have rejoined the battle against the West. That's their life's calling. Again, I'm against it, just to make sure. I don't want anyone out there. I'm like, I'm against it. But let me tell you something.

It's interesting. You'll appreciate this because I think you guys are both sports fans. So Bitcower, when he was at Yale, I didn't get to put this in the book because the editor thought it was too glib a story. But Bitcow, people say, why did Spengul confess in those early days? I mean, one of the answers is, I think, because he had been in a Libyan prison for five or six years,

and he had just gone mad and he was just like eager to tell his story or whatever. But the other one is about like his pride in being a terrorist. And when Bitcower was at Yale, he interviewed Ron Darling, who is a legendary pitcher with the New York Mets, who had gone to Yale and had pitched a no-hitter at Yale. And Bitcower interviewed him about that no-hitter. And he, you know, he didn't know what to expect when he interviewed Ron Darling because, you know, this guy has a, he's got a World Series ring with the Mets in 86, but Ron Darling remembered every single second of that day from when he was in college.

Every, and he said, and Bidcaror said, that was like Spinn Gould confessing. This was the greatest achievements of his life. He ambushed Americans and killed Americans. He went to Nigeria tried to blow up the embassy there. This is his life's work. He's, he's proud of it. And he remembered every detail and he wanted to share it the same way, you know, a 90-year old Mickey Mantle would want to share any story with anybody who would listen.

Wouldn't that kind of indicate that he was done, though? Because, I mean, if he wanted to return to the fight, wanted to return to the battle, wouldn't he have shut the fuck up once he fell into custody and try to just con his way into freedom so that he could rejoin? I mean, you know, blabbing seems like, okay, well, now, you know, they're never letting you go. Well, I think that was the, I think he knew that they were never letting him go. He was, you know, he was demanding that he'd be brought before the Hague, that he'd be brought before Kofi Annan. He was like, like, he, you know, he wasn't thinking particularly clearly, but you'll enjoy this. So the, uh, at some point he stops talking, stops cooperating, just clams up and starts acting crazy. And, uh, the, there is this a whole debate. Is he actually crazy or is he just acting crazy? And one of the things, one of the terms I learned, um, from writing this book was there's this thing, uh, where, uh, terrorists, Captured Terrorists, stop cooperating because it's the only thing they have left.

It is the only power they have left against the Americans or against the Westerners is to be as difficult as possible. And it's called the jihad of annoyance. And it's all, which by the way, I feel like I experienced it several times a day here in Washington, a lot of people performing that jihad on me. but it's the jihad of annoyance where they're just like i'm not going to cooperate i'm going to you know i'm going to take a crap in my pants like just whatever they can do the jihad of annoyance and ultimately the judge has to decide is this guy crazy or is this the jihad of annoyance

which i just thought was the i mean there's you can have it ted for your that's awesome oh i'm taking it yeah no i've i've suffered the jihad of annoyance and i've deployed the jihad of annoyance many times i think i just did it to my wife it's kind of my job That's right. That's right. As a cartoonist, absolutely. That's what he's a beta did too. He did it twice. Every time the CIA started to torture him, he would just go silent and he would stay silent until Ali Sufant from the FBI returned and reestablished that rapport and got him comfortable again and gave him an orange and gave him a piece of paper to write to his mother. And then he would start talking again.

Let me ask you a question, John, because I've always wondered about this when it comes to getting terrorists to cooperate. Because I'm sure it has, I'm sure I'm not the only one it's occurred to. But taking the Ali Sufhan approach even one step further, like beyond the, you know, the torture is wrong debate. I mean, what about like showing somebody a cell, like a prison cell? Here's a cod and whatever. And this is, you are caught forever. This is, you're never getting out of custody ever.

You have two choices. It is this or, and you show them like basically a hotel room. where they have cable and they have, you know, a luxury bathroom or whatever, even just a holiday in. I mean, it's kind of sweet. And say, this is your choice. If you cooperate with us, you get this and this will be your life for the rest of your life or whatever.

Like, would that have worked? Was that approach ever tried? I mean, I know these black sites didn't exactly have that luxury. Never even considered it. But that, see, that's what a normal human being would do. It was always my experience, Jake. And I mean like always my experience that playing the good cop worked. 90% of these guys were willing to sit and talk to you.

You didn't have to torture them. You didn't have to beat them. You didn't have to threaten their families or their children or whatever. They would talk to you eventually. The very first prisoner I ever caught was a Jordanian. He had just come across the border from Afghanistan. We caught him in an al-Qaeda safe house. And they brought him into the,

interrogation room. He was chained to an eyeball in the table. And I told him, I gave him a name. It wasn't my real name. I don't even remember what it was. And I started speaking to him like a normal person. And he began answering my questions. And one of the things we were interested in early on was what we called the rat lines, the paths that they took from Afghanistan to Pakistan. we wanted to be able to bottle them up. I put a map of Afghanistan, well, of the border in front of him. And sure enough, he pointed out I went here and I went there and there's a village here and this guy helped me in the village and his wife gave me some food.

And at the end of it all, I said to him, do you mind if I ask you one final question? I said, you didn't have to answer any of my questions today. Why did you? And he said, because you've treated me with respect. Yeah. And it was really as simple as that. So sure, if you, if you, you show these guys a concrete cell with a little steel toilet and a concrete bed with no mattress and no pillow.

And then you show them the motel six and say, you get the motel six if you talk to me and you tell me the truth, 90 times out of a hundred, they're going to tell you what you want to know and take the motel six. Because the motel six is a credible offer, though? I mean, is that something the U.S. government could provide that those those that style of accommodation it would take two weeks to order cots into guantanamo and a decent pillow and maybe you know a loop of arabic language movies or something on the communal tv sure they could have done it if they wanted to yeah it just because i don't know

i mean one of the things that i've learned while writing this book uh is i don't know what percentage of these people are actual zealots i think i think spin gul was an actual Zelle. Absolutely. And how many of them are, I mean, I hate to use a cliche, but lost, disaffected young men, you know, and just the same kind of psychos we see in the United States who resort to violence and killed Charlie Kirk or whatever. And like, you know, and they don't, they're just missionless. They feel whatever. And again, not sympathetic to them. But once you have them in custody, like if they're not actually, like some of these, some of the experts I talked to while writing this book said, like, most of these guys are not actually devout Muslims,

like even in the twisted version of Muslim. I only met two or three. Yeah. The rest were just, they were illiterate, unemployable kids, 18, 19 years old, who wanted to get married, but no father would let his daughter marry some kid who can't read and can't write and can't work because he doesn't have any job skills. And then the local im approached them and said, listen, you don't want to stay in this village. You should go to Afghanistan and make G.

had against the Americans. And if you do that, we'll give you $300 a month. And if you're martyred, we'll give your family a $500 martyred in bonus. These guys couldn't find the United States on a map and had never read the Quran. So Spinn Gould, one of the things that I really liked about writing this book was like, because Spinn Gull had that period where he was very chatty and told his story, we have his story in the book. I have a story in the book from childhood to the rat line. And one of the things that's interesting. So he is, his parents are from Niger.

They are basically indentured servants in Saudi Arabia. So he, you know, and you think there's racism in the United States, try going to Saudi Arabia and saying how they treat Africans there. And then, you know, there's basically no future for him. And, you know, he's raised in the 90s where jihadists are, You know, they just scored a huge victory in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. They are fighting against the oppression of Putin in Chechnya. They're the victims, Muslims, not jihadists, but Muslims are the victims in the Balkans.

And in China, right? Oh, yeah. And so these are his, you know, and the jihadists that it didn't know, that beat, They're war heroes. And like, by the way, not only in the Muslim world. I mean, the United States was arming the jihadists, as we all know. So he's raised in this in this world. And again, he joined the jihad before 9-11.

And so, and then he gets recruited. And then he gets recruited by a local hero, a local legend who works for the government. And next thing, you know, he's, you know, at a, at one of the, al-Farouk terrorist training camp in, I forget if that's in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Afghanistan. Afghanistan and like learning how to do this stuff. And by the way, Spinn Gould is a racist nickname

because he's a very, very black from Niger and it means white rose in Pashto. So that was like the nickname that the jihadists gave him was white rose because he's super black. I mean, like, again. That's funny. There's a sense of humor. Yeah, there's a great book.

I wonder, if you guys are familiar, called Inside the Jihad, written by a British guy who attended one of the training camps in Afghanistan. He spent a couple, I guess, three months. And he didn't end up becoming a jihadi at all. But he just talked about the experience of training. And it sounded kind of like, you know, outward. bound on steroids. It actually sounded, except for the religious aspect to me, like it would have been a great, incredibly meaningful experience. They had to survive off the, you know,

off the land for 30 days. They're dropped in the middle of the mountains in eastern Afghanistan, like live, you know, or don't or whatever. So you become incredibly tough, resilient. They learn about weapons. They get physically tough. It's taxing. You know, it's psychologically. testing. I'm just like, I could see the appeal for these guys who had nothing else going on in their lives. I think most 17, 18-year-old boys, if you put them in a camp like that, again, remove the religion from it and remove, like, we're going to go kill a bunch of innocent people from it, but just the experience of, oh, look at your cat there. What's his name or her name? Clovis. Oh, great.

Deemed after the first king of France. Very nice. Well, I have a cat, but she's not. not here right now anyway um yeah uh i don't know any 18 year old boy my son for his birthday party uh you know we did we did a paintball for when he turned uh whatever that was 13 and we're going to do airsoft this year i mean firing guns learning about explosives roughing it hanging out with your bros you know you're at an age especially if you're you know from an austere islamic community we're like girls aren't really part of your social world anyway uh you're bonding you're meeting your heroes. I mean, yeah. I mean, again, nobody twist what I'm saying. I'm against jihad. But still, yeah, I mean, I could I could absolutely see the appeal, especially if you're

meeting legendary people in, you know, the world of jihad. And again, in 2000, the jihad, you know, we, the United States had been funding some of this. We were rooting for the Muslims in the Balkans. We were, you know, we're arming the jihadists. in the 80s in Afghanistan. Well, I mean, we armed the jihadis in Syria against Assad. That's much more reasoned. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. So did you get the impression by the end of all this that things have really changed? Or are we flailing around on a case-by-case basis as to what to do with this accused jihadi, what to do with that accused jihadi? I feel like we've kind of like settled in an almost consensus way of prosecuting the war on the so-called global war on terror, the GWAT, that is neither Bush nor Obama that is kind of like that the U.S. government has kind of taken the part of Bush, like, we're going to kill them over there so they don't kill us over here, that they do believe that and that is part of the plan. And now Trump is expanding his use of that authority to go after Trend de Aragua and narco terrorists as well, which is, you know, but anytime a president gets a shiny new toy, the next president takes it and uses, like Obama increased drone strikes, I think, a hundredfold over what Bush did. Yeah.

So there is that. There is, you know, when I had, I had Gorka, Sebastian Gorka on to talk about terrorism, specifically because I wanted to ask him about Jafar, this guy. that they're prosecuting. And I asked him about it. And again, I don't think that they have any memory that this was controversial at one point to, like, bring these people to the United States to try them. But he basically just said, and I'm going to spare you my Sebastian Gorka impression, but he basically said, you know, we're going to use whatever we can use.

And in this case, it was different because it was Pakistani intelligence working with the U.S., not the Italians. The Italians were able to say, we're not going to give. been gull to you if you're going to send them to get mo not that they would have any way under Obama and we're not going to give them to you if death penalty is on the table the Italians were able to say that I don't think the Pakistanis give a shit but yeah but but but they Gorka basically said we're just used whatever tool tools we have but I thought it was a step in the right direction that the idea of prosecuting these folks in the United States

is now just accepted as a tool. I think that that's progress because, A, it's so much more effective than Gitmo. It's so much more effective than the military tribunals that are still struggling to even, you know, prosecute. Yeah, it's just crazy. And it does live up to American ideals. Now, the judge, at the end of the book, the judge confesses that he thought the whole kind, the whole exercise was kind of bizarre because it seemed like a show trial, let's show the world that we can do this, and which he seemed, to him, Judge Kogan, it seemed a little silly because, you know,

you're Obama, you can do whatever you want. You can put them in Gitmo. You can send them to Saudi Arabia, whatever you want. But I do think that we are in a place, just when it comes to the prosecution of this, that it's more accepted. I think that's a good thing. And I think that the people that worked so hard on this case. And again, the case, even that we didn't, we didn't spoil the book too much for anybody. But like the case is really, the book is really about the sleuthing and about how they build the case. And I thought that was, that was what was interesting to me when Bitcaro told me the story because I just love that comfort food of police procedurals on TV. I love CSI and Law and Order and Cold Case and criminal minds.

I just love it. Yeah. And just like, you know, how, you know, and they found, how did they get his fingerprint on the battlefield you're like 15 years after the battle like I mean how did they do that like and that's just really interesting and the cast of characters is so interesting the fingerprint expert is this woman with like it's like she's right out of TV she's got dyed red hair and a nose ring and tats up her neck and like she works at Quantico and it's just like how are you real how are you a real person not a TV character you're so interesting and it's so that part of it was just so fun to make. Let me ask you about some of the politics behind this here in the U.S. Like you, I remember, as if it were yesterday, how members of Congress in 2002, 2003, up to whenever, 2009,

just simply would not permit any of these people into the United States to face trial. Like, we didn't have dangerous prisoners in American prisons. We didn't have the blind shake. People escape all the time from our prisons. Yeah, the Unabomber never existed or the, you know, Gary Allen Ridgeway or whatever. You're intimating that that seems to have passed, but has it passed to the point where Congress is finally willing to pass a law then allowing Gitmo prisoners to be tried in the United States? Oh, no, no, I didn't think so. No, I don't think so.

I think you know, first of all, this Congress is the most compliant Congress I've ever seen. They just, it's not, it's not Speaker Johnson's fault. It's just how Congress has evolved now. Congress doesn't declare war. Congress doesn't, isn't, isn't upset when presidents, you know, just use executive authority to do things that they're not allowed to do, whether it's Biden or Trump. It doesn't matter. Like, they don't want skin in the game because then they get attack ads. So, no, I don't sense that at all. will say, I think a lot of the blowback in this era of 2011, 2012, and it wasn't just the, you know, the Liz Cheney's and Dick Cheney's of the world. It was the Chuck Schumers of the world and the Jim Webb's of the world and like nobody wanted these people in their state being

prosecuted. I think they probably were to a large degree reacting to the terrified American people. And 10 years after 9-11, people were still very terrified. And the terrorist threat was very real. You had that Zazi guy out of Colorado who wanted to blow up the subways and all the rest. Hey, I was on an ISIS death threat list. I had my own personal FBI agent. Remember the Garland, Texas cartoonist, ISIS attack? Oh, yes, of course.

Two jihadis, self-radicalized ISIS dudes show up with AR-15 long guns at this Garland, Texas, this event and they had private security. They were just off-duty cops who killed them before they could get in. I mean, but, you had you drawn the Prophet Muhammad or were you just at an event? No, no. So this event was a right-wing anti-Muslim event, right? And I had nothing to do with it. I wasn't invited. Oh, it was Pam Geller? Yeah, it was Pam Geller. And so it turns out that after this event, on some kind of ISIS discussion group, someone said, oh, that, you know, too bad we didn't get to kill those, like, those American cartoonists. Who else is an American cartoonist we could kill? So I came up on the short list of two.

The other one's also a big lefty critic cartoonist of the administration. And, like, I was kind of like, you chose the two cartoonists who were probably your least, you're not ally, but you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're. Certainly, we should have been at the bottom of your list, not at the top of your list. It was like, you guys were the other one. Who was the other person? You guys are stupid. I don't want to say because it could give people ideas. Oh, okay.

But, you know, but it's, but yes, so we were, you know, we had a. What a wild era that was. Remember when Matt Stone and Trey Parker did the Muhammad episode of South Park, which you still can't watch? Yeah. Which you still cannot watch. And don't forget also, when, you know, when the Danish Muhammad cartoons came out and they were the subject of all this discussion.

no American newspaper like the New York Times or Washington Post would even publish the cartoon so we could know what we were talking about. It's crazy. I remember I was at ABC News at the time and I was trying to do pieces about it and they wouldn't let us show the cartoons. And it's like it's a visual medium. It's hard to understand if you can't see it. It's not, I will assure you it is not cultural sensitivity that made those decisions.

It's terror of being attacked because they were killing cartoonists at the time. And they were in Europe. And I lost four of my friends at Charlie Hebdo. Is that right? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. You know what's so interesting about the Charlie Hebdo situation just because it does relate to this book.

So one of the, again, one of the fun things about it or interesting things about it was just like hearing these people's stories. And everybody has a different story. And everybody's story moves you in a different way. So Jared Dennis, I mentioned, was one of the soldiers. killed in the Spingool Ambush, a Native American kid from Oklahoma, from Antlers, Oklahoma, and his brother Renley is told that he can speak at the, during sentencing, they have a thing called victim's statements where victims impact statements were before the judge renders the verdict, renders the sentence, victims can come forward and say, this is how this criminal act

affected me. So Renley, two of the soldiers speak and talk about, and these are soldiers that were not seriously wounded, but the ambush in 2003, like, really affected their lives. One guy talks about his divorce and how he can't even see his family anymore because he's so traumatized by what happened because he just, you know, he, he let everybody down because these two guys were killed. It wasn't his fault at all, but whatever. Another guy talking about the time that his sisters confronted him because they were afraid of him. They thought he was so, angry. Anyway, Renley Dennis speaks. Renley Dennis in the previous months had picked up a book at the Antlers Barnes & Noble called You Cannot Have My Hate. You Cannot Have My Hate is written by a guy

who lost his wife in the ISIS attack on the Bada Klan the same year as the Charlie Hebdo Killings. And his wife and the mother of their kid is slaughtered for no rapid. reason. You know, the attack on, it was a, it was, I forget the name of the band. Oh, God, I'm sorry, but it was just like this American kind of like funky, bluegrass-ish band. Yeah, I remember that. Something of metal. Was it blues traveler or something? No, no, something of metal. And I apologize to them. I would check it. But anyway, it's in the book. It's correct in the book. But he writes a Facebook post that goes viral where it's like, you took my wife, but you can't have my hate. I'm not going to spend my life hating you. I'm not, you are not going to have me thinking about this. And he turns

it into a book and it's translated. And Renley Dennis is inspired by this book. And that's basically the message he gets to spin ghoul and sentencing, which is like, I'm not going to spend my life thinking about you and what you took from me. I'm just not going to do it. And like, I was so moved when I heard the story because I don't know that I'd be that glad. I'd probably just drink myself into oblivion. I mean, like, you know, I don't, I don't think I would react that way. But this, the, the, the humanity of just like regular folks, uh, really can touch you at times and the response to some of the worst acts that anybody can commit. And like, John's a good example also of that. Like, John has been through the ringer with the CIA and everything. And, you know,

dedicating his life to having rational, passionate advocacy and conversation about this topic. And it's just like it's a, it makes you feel good at a time when not a lot makes you feel good anymore. Yeah. Jake, that's a great place to wrap the interview, I think. Thank you so much for joining us. It's always great. I want to write books just so I can talk to you guys. Well, you don't have to write a book that comes on us anytime. Race Against Terror? And it's coming out October 7th, yes? Yes, October 7th, which happens to be the anniversary of the beginning

of the war in Afghanistan. Right, that's what the bomb started falling. 2001, yes, so the 24th anniversary of that, yeah. Thanks, guys. Always a pleasure. All the best, Jay. Keep up the great work. Thanks, you too. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Thank you.