A panel discussion entitled The Global War on Terror: Is America Fighting the Right War? led by Bill Thoet and featuring panelists Fran Townsend, Rep. Jane Harman, Daniel Benjamin, and Jeffrey Goldberg.
This panel was part of the 2008 Aspen Ideas Festival.
Bio
Daniel Benjamin
Daniel Benjamin is a journalist and scholar on international security. From 1994 to 1997 he served on the National Security Council in the Clinton administration; before that he worked as a journalist for Time Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.
He was formerly a Senior Fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and he writes a column for Slate Magazine.
He currently serves as the Director for the Center on the United States and Europe, and Senior Fellow of Foreign Policy Studies at The Brookings Institution.
Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent of The Atlantic. Before joining The Atlantic in 2007, he was Middle East correspondent and Washington correspondent for The New Yorker. Previously, Goldberg served as a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. His book Prisoners has been hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by several publications including the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.
Goldberg is the recipient of numerous awards including the Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize, the National Magazine Award for Reporting for his coverage of Islamic terrorism, and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for best international investigative journalist, to name a few. Goldberg was a public policy scholar in 2002 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and in 2001 he was the Syrkin fellow in letters of the Jerusalem Foundation.
Jane Harman
Jane Lakes Harman was born June 28, 1945 and is a seven-term Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 36th District of California.
She attended Los Angeles public schools, Smith College, and Harvard Law School. On November 7, 2006, she was reelected to the 110th Congress, defeating Republican challenger Brian Gibson.
Harman is both a Blue Dog Democrat and a member of the New Democrat Coalition. She previously represented the district from 1993 to 1999 before leaving Congress to enter the 1998 California gubernatorial race.
After losing to future Governor Gray Davis, she briefly taught public policy and international relations at UCLA before reclaiming her congressional seat in the 2000 election.
Bill Thoet
Bill Thoet is a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton with over 20 years of experience in the areas of modeling, simulation, war-gaming, and analysis.
He leads over 600 staff members focused on applying those disciplines to problems that include avian flu pandemics planning, HIV/AIDS country planning for India and China, developing corporate strategies, testing the resilience of financial institutions, and military planning.
His background is in electrical engineering and computer science.
Frances Townsend
Frances Fragos Townsend served as assistant to President George W. Bush for homeland security and counterterrorism and chaired the Homeland Security Council.
Previously, she was deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism. She is currently providing consulting services and advice to corporate entities on global strategic engagement and risk as well as crisis and contingency planning.
She also serves on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. She came to the White House from the U.S. Coast Guard, where she had served as the first assistant commandant for intelligence. Prior to that, she spent 13 years at the U.S. Department of Justice in a variety of senior positions, including counsel to the attorney general for intelligence policy.
Systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective. It has been used throughout history by political organizations of both the left and the right, by nationalist and ethnic groups, and by revolutionaries. Although usually thought of as a means of destabilizing or overthrowing existing political institutions, terror also has been employed by governments against their own people to suppress dissent; examples include the reigns of certain Roman emperors, the French Revolution (seeReign of Terror), Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union under Stalin, and Argentina during the “dirty war” of the 1970s. Terrorism's impact has been magnified by the deadliness and technological sophistication of modern-day weapons and the capability of the media to disseminate news of such attacks instantaneously throughout the world. The deadliest terrorist attack ever occurred in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 (seeSeptember 11 attacks), when members of al-Qaeda terrorist network hijacked four commercial airplanes and crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City and one into the Pentagon building near Washington, D.C.; the fourth plane crashed near Pittsburgh, Pa. The crashes resulted in the collapse of much of the World Trade Center complex, the destruction of part of the southwest side of the Pentagon, and the deaths of some 3,000 people.
Here We Go, "all that arises, arises from our thoughts we make the world with our thoughts" the Buddha 300 BC,
You have to read others Bible- Koran, To understand their beliefs, to know their immediate and long term goals, NOT TO READ THE KORAN IS A HUGE MISTAKE, got to get in your face on this one. The Australians realize that they had to contain ISLAM unlike Europe where its too late. Canada is close to too late READ!
Wow! what a waste of time,
here the Senator consultant on middle east and never read the KORAN, how unqualified, for anything to do with Muslims, like being an expert on Christianity never read the bible, very sad, no wonder we have cultural misunderstandings. My library has 3 Korans well used and read at least 8 times in 35 years , Also, on the panel,
the young Jewish boys seem to feel sorry for Muslim failure in the last 500 years wow,
I missed out, when did the Muslims and Christians have a 400 year inquisition? and a holocaust?
Where was I. Sad that The Rabbi on the Cross and the revelations of Mohammed, all are for world domination, get the Jew out of the way, so they, Arabs-Muslims can take over the population of the world, both religions, Catholics and Islam, preach domination. Long term solution is TRUTH tell the undistorted truth start with Yashua, Rabbi of Nazareth, used to kill Jews,
hammered on the Roman Cross and work your way to the lies of the Koran about Jews being monkeys and pigs.
SO THIS PANEL is way off the mark,soft shoe that never gets thrown, never hits mark of being true history.
National security from these folks, were in trouble folks, as long as Muslims, Arabs and Islam in general do not have a bill of rights for women to have equal rights, were barking to the moon, no equal rights for women ,over 50% of population have no rights, COME ON NOW LETS GET REAL NO RIGHTS FOR WOMEN NO RIGHTS FOR ANYONE, stop the torture of WOMEN, in 54 muslim-islam countries-WAKE UP! Mahalo-thanks
This is the whole problem with this country!! We allow ourselves to be sold this lie over and over and over again!!
Alqeda = The data base that was the code name the CIA used to refer to the rebels this country used back in 1979 under Jimmy Carter, to fight the Russians!!
Not one of these "experts" on the panel has the balls to go against the 'machine' that is the Military Industrial complex that is being controlled by the big banks who profit from WARS!
There is no outreaching group of people who want to destroy us for our ideals.
But through the wars America and it's coalition forces have waged on these countries will undoubtedly spawn and create people from birth to hate us and want to seek revenge because of the crimes and atrocities our military has done in their HOMELANDS!
But we will call them 'Terrorists' yet we are creating these people by killing their families and friends and destroying their homelands.
Stop listening to these mouth pieces for the people causing all the destruction and learn about the group of NEOCON'S who wrote The Project for a new American Century aka P.N.A.C.
Another option is to buy a few books and learn the hidden agenda of the power elite class of this country and Britan.
Find a book titled "Tragedy & Hope" written by Caroll Quigley.
This will give you the back story and blueprint for the the real ruling powers in this country.
Another would be from Zbignew Nrezinskim called the Grand Chest board written in 1998. Where he says for America to continue being a world supper power it must control the regions that we are in 'wars with' right now but the reason is to control their natural resources of OIL AND HEROIN!!
The people in power are brazen and have no problem writing about their ideals and the things that they have done in their books and memoirs!
Why would they do such things and write about such things??
Because far too many people will not read them most people no longer read books and get their information through the main stream media propaganda machine that the Council on Foreign Relations has been in control of since the late 1920's!!
The information is out there for everyone to learn about and inform all of the family and friends but the nonsense experts like this 'spin' for us doesn't get to the roots of the actual problems they are still playing us like everything that is happening can be fixed or changed by the people who are making it happen.
Even the people in the audience are spinning out the lies and false information around 1:05 about the 19 hijackers being wealthy people etc.
Well, 9 of the supposed hijackers are in fact STILL ALIVE and were never a part of 9/11!! It's been how many years since this psy-Ops Military Mission and reported in the news yet still people continue to parrot the official story!!
"We The People" need to wake up and get informed and tell these people who are ruining our country that we will not be lied to any further and we will not stand for your wars for the big banks and corporations like The Carlyle Group and Haliburton to profit from!!
member. 
