Some people might get scared when they hear their name spoken and their work quoted by Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri on a propaganda tape.

Dr. Jarret Brachman was actually a bit flattered.

“It’s surreal these guys are quoting our work …” he told me. “To see my name on these videos … it’s strange … but at the same time it speaks to the fact we’re hitting them where it hurts. These guys wouldn’t be wasting their time responding to our articles unless we were saying something right.”

Brachman is research director of the Combating Terrorism Center at the West Point Military Academy on the Hudson River, about an hour north of New York City. He’s a PhD, a CIA fellow, and one of the leading experts in terrorism in the country. He and others who’ve devoted their careers to learning more about the people trying to kill us are now sharing their knowledge with cadets who will soon be headed overseas to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The CTC is a privately-funded think tank, focusing on terrorism and counter terrorism, homeland security and weapons of mass destruction. They collect reams of material from the terrorists themselves, some of it seized by the military during raids, but much of it pulled right off the internet. they have an extensive collection of videos and documents, even Al Qaeda expense forms. “Know your enemy” is the overwhelming theme at the school.

The center’s director, Lt. Col. Joe Felter quoted the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu: “Know your enemy. know your enemy. We have to understand who we’re fighting.”

Brachman echoes that. “There’s no way we will defeat AQ in the long run unless we understand them better than they understand themselves.”

Being privately funded allows the center unusual freedom in a military environment. It allows them to choose subject matter and instructors without undue influence or overwhelming red tape but sharing is easier too.

“We occupy a really unique space in this fight …” Brachman told me. “Specialists and academics in a military institution. this allows us to have big thoughts on how to defeat the enemy with real time implications. we have a better strategic sense of who the enemy is and we’re finding ways to defeat AQ (Al Qaeda) by using their own words against them.”

Brachman says while the enemy is strategically sophisticated, research suggests, “the movement is rife with internal fractures and intellectual inconsistency.”

Still, “They read everything we write, they’re watching our political events, they’re looking for any opening in our political discourse to fracture us.”

“I don’t think the American public has a full appreciation for the depths to which this enemy will sink in order to destroy this country.” he told me.

The center publishes papers and books but perhaps more importantly teaches hundreds of cadets each semester in the history of terrorism, how they think and operate, what they’re trying to accomplish and the methods they’ll use to reach their goals.

Colonel Felter added something I thought very interesting.

“Our goal should not be to get our enemy to like us. I think our goal should be to get our enemy to stop trying to kill us and other innocents in their own countries.”

The CTC is focused on helping make that happen.