QUOTES by Peter Bergen
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Candidate Trump had previously opined that 'Islam hates us' and had called for 'the total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,' an argument he has since modified and moderated.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
The inattention of the Bush administration to the threat from al Qaeda had results. Shortly before 9/11, Bush's attorney general, John Ashcroft, turned down FBI requests for some 400 additional counterterrorism personnel.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Officials in the George W. Bush administration later criticized the cruise missile strikes that were ordered by President Bill Clinton in Afghanistan in 1998 as only 'pounding sand.'
Quote by -Peter Bergen
The rise of ISIS starts with a Jordanian thug named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who founded ISIS' parent organization, al Qaeda, in Iraq. What gave Zarqawi the opportunity to create al Qaeda in Iraq? It was, of course, George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
If the Arab Spring was a large nail in the coffin of al-Qaeda's ideology, the death of bin Laden was an equally large nail in the coffin of al-Qaeda the organization.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
In mid-November 2001, as they moved toward the city of Kandahar, the Taliban's de facto capital in southern Afghanistan, Amerine's team called in airstrikes against advancing Taliban units and more or less obliterated a Taliban column of a thousand men that had been dispatched from Kandahar. It was the Taliban's final play to remain in power.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Trump has long said he favors a 'safe zone' in Syria to prevent Basher al Assad's regime from carrying out indiscriminate airstrikes against Syrian civilians and to halt the refugee flow out of Syria.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
How can you prevent an attack by returning foreign fighters if you are not cognizant of their names and links to ISIS?
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Some might say that that while al Qaeda the organization may be basically dead, its ideology continues to thrive and to inspire 'lone wolves' to attack the United States.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
America has not traditionally been the cramped, frightened country of Trump's executive order that bans Syrian refugees.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
In 2016, Washington and its coalition partners conducted more than 7,000 strikes in Iraq and Syria. And in Libya, the United States has conducted more than 350 air strikes since August as part of its military campaign against ISIS there.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Hydrogen peroxide-based bombs were used in the London bombings in 2005; in al Qaeda's foiled plot to attack subways in New York City in 2009 and also in the ISIS-directed Paris attacks in 2015 and the ISIS-directed attacks in Brussels a year later.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Trump displays many of the traits of a proto-fascist, and he is also part of a wave of right-wing nationalist movements that is sweeping the West. He can also be positioned in the long, American right-wing tradition of fearing 'the Other,' whether they are Catholics or Jews or, now, Muslims.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
As early as 1993, members of bin Laden's group had been planning an attack on the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Rather than making loose and unsubstantiated claims that Obama and Clinton created ISIS, it would behoove Trump if he advanced some real policy ideas about how to solve the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars. Of course, to do that he would have to get beyond the inflammatory slogans and sound bites that have characterized his campaign.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers who carried out the marathon bombing, was a non-practicing Muslim who only became an Islamist militant once his dreams of becoming an Olympic boxer faded. At the time of the attack, he was unemployed.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
In Syria, a no-fly zone targeted at Assad's air force and safe zones for refugees fleeing the fighting would help tamp down the death toll that plays into the hands of ISIS and other Sunni militants who can position themselves as the only groups that are really defending the Sunni population.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Six years after al-Awlaki was born, his family moved back to Yemen, but he returned to the States for college and remained there for much of his adult life.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Assad owes his continuation in power to the intervention of Russia in 2015 to prop up his regime.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
It is hard to imagine two more final endings to the 'war on terror' than the popular revolts against the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and the death of bin Laden.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
The Second Amendment is, of course, very much part of the American fabric. But the intent of the founders was that the amendment protected the rights of citizens to bear arms in a militia for their collective self-defense.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
For Islamist terrorist groups such as ISIS, the holy month of Ramadan - a time of fasting and prayer for the vast majority of Muslims - is seen as a particularly auspicious time to launch terrorist attacks.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Mattis has been sharply critical of President Barack Obama's policies on Iran and Obama's capping of troop numbers and campaign end-dates in theaters of war such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Mattis also appears to be a skeptic of the Obama-era policy of putting women into combat roles.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Common sense would tell you that the idea that Saudi Arabia was paying for bin Laden's expenses while he was living in Abbottabad is simply risible. Bin Laden's principal goal was the overthrow of the Saudi royal family as a result of which his Saudi citizenship was revoked as far back as 1994.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
For many terrorists, carrying out an attack allowed them to become the heroes of their own story.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Certain Gulf Arabs support proxy jihadist Sunni groups such as al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, while Iran supports Shia militant forces such as Hezbollah.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Osama bin Laden fervently hoped that attacking the United States would create pressure on American leaders to reduce their support for Middle Eastern regimes. Bin Laden believed that without that American support, the Arab regimes would collapse and would be replaced by Taliban-style rulers.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
Information-sharing between Western governments about the identities of those who have traveled to Syria and have received militant training is the key to preventing more incidents such as the one at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
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.
Quote by -Peter Bergen
When news of the first plane's hitting the World Trade Center reached them, bin Laden's followers exploded with joy. But shrewder members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan realized that the attacks might not be the stunning victory that bin Laden, and many in the West, took them to be.
Quote by -Peter Bergen