A conversation with Aukai Collins

There's been a lot in the news this summer about the memos that came out of the FBI in Phoenix and Minneapolis before Sept. 11. Were you surprised to learn of those memos?

Well, no. I was surprised to learn that they were only claiming they had limited information as far back as August or sometime in 2000. They had more than just vague information, dating back from probably 1997, 1998. Not just myself, but there's this guy who said he also did what I did as an asset for the FBI. He's claimed the same thing that I have -- that he gave them information regarding Arabs flight training, all this stuff, as far back as 1998.

Were you surprised by Sept. 11?

Surprised just as everybody was -- you're watching this thing on TV and it's shocking. I'm not surprised that something like that finally happened. It was just a matter of time I figured before somebody, I don't know who, struck out at America like that. But it's not surprising that somebody did.

Why not?

Everybody now who publicly tries to tell America, 'Hey, maybe you guys got to sit back and look at yourselves for a minute, look at your foreign policy,' everybody immediately jumps on that person. 'How can you make excuses for Sept. 11, and how can you suggest ...' Well, it's not making excuses for Sept. 11. Wrong is wrong. A tragedy is a tragedy. What happened on Sept. 11, nobody can justify it. It's just impossible. And if somebody sat down and tried to tell me, Islamically it was permissible, I would never accept it. And I don't think they could try to say that.

But, you know, it doesn't change the fact that, say, since World War II, America has seriously been stepping on people's toes. They prop up the most oppressive dictators of any given country. They back people with the worst human rights records. Finally, eventually, somebody's going to push back. Again, that's not saying it's right, but you can only push people so far before they push back.

To the extent there was any appeal to Americans who were born here or naturalized Americans to go and fight jihad, and possibly to end up alongside al-Qaida or Taliban, do you think Sept. 11 is going to diminish that appeal? Or is there a chance that it would increase the appeal?

There were non-Muslims that were very sympathetic to the jihad. Not the Taliban and not al-Qaida, nothing like that, but the true jihad in Chechnya. There were American Christians in Chechnya, volunteering with the Chechen rebels. So, yeah, of course Sept. 11 has changed a lot of that. It's taken people who might've been sympathetic before and willing to help and squashed that in them. And it's taken other people that were probably neutral before, and they're probably anti-Islam, or whatever. That's why myself I don't understand the whole Sept. 11 thing. Who in their right mind would've done such a thing? First of all, just because it's such a horrific act, and second of all, if it was an Islamic group that did it, why would they do it? They set us back 20 years.

Do you think Sept. 11 could have been prevented?

Oh, definitely. I cannot accept that the CIA, FBI, that they didn't know. The only thing I'll give them is that they might not have known the day it was going to go down. But did they know the target? Did they know the mode of attack? It's 100 percent [certain] that they did, for sure. Just think about it -- how could a group of people plan such a big operation full of so many logistics and probably countless e-mails, encrypted or not, and phone calls and messengers? And you're telling me that, through all of that, that the CIA never caught wind of it? And for that matter the Mossad, they have every Islamic group, every jihad group, every everything in the world penetrated, and they're an American ally. So they didn't give America a heads-up either? Of course they did.

What's been the reaction to your book from the FBI and the CIA?

Other than minor harassment, so far, not a whole lot. But that doesn't mean that things are over yet.

What kind of minor harassment?

Just letting their presence be known, outside where I live and things like this.

How do they do that?

[Chuckles] Just by letting their presence be known.

You mean that you're being tailed?

Not so much being tailed as letting me know that they're out there and that they're watching.

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