Pete Hoekstra Quotes

When the new wave of terrorism came on the modern world, which is the late 1960s, early 1970s, I think we spent about a decade, the United States and our allies, trying to figure out how to deal with it.

Al Qaeda still remains a threat.

I would like to see us find Osama Bin Laden, but let's say we did capture him. Let's say we did kill him. How much good would that do? There's still thousands of people behind him. It's this huge thing.

Al Qaeda is on the run, partly because the United States is in Afghanistan, pushing on al Qaeda, and working internationally to cut off the flow of funds to al Qaeda. They are having a difficult time. They failed in this endeavor.

Bin Laden's death is just a punctuation point on a set of problems they've had for a long time. I think the prognosis for al-Qaida and groups like it is really bad, and that's a good thing.

To ISIS and others: We will defeat you.

I totally disagree with the premise that al Qaeda is on the path to defeat. Quite the contrary, al Qaeda has deliberately decentralized its operations - not because of the relentless attacks we have had on its national leadership in Pakistan, but because its strategic objective is to dominate and control Muslim countries in the region.

Success means eliminating Al Qaeda's ability to launch terrorist attacks against the United States and our allies.

This is a global effort we're going to have to lead to overcome this jihadist effort. It's more than Osama bin Laden. But he is going to pay, and he will die.

In my judgment, the greatest risks are international terrorist groups like al Qaeda and Hezbollah. The war in Iraq has taken our attention off those priorities.

From our perspective, trying to deal with this continuing campaign of terror, if you will, the war on terror that we're engaged in, this is a continuing enterprise. The people that were involved in some of those activities before 9/11 are still out there.

There is no question that al-Qaida operatives are currently active in Iraq. A premature exit before the threat they represent has been dealt with would endanger America and the prospects of eventual peace in the Middle East.

On a day when Osama bin Laden again threatened the United States and our allies, it is disturbing to realize that John Kerry neither recognizes nor understands the murderous ideology of our enemies and the threat they pose to our nation.

They do believe that if we do not wage this war against terror in places like Baghdad and Kabul, we are more likely to have it waged in Baltimore and Kansas.

The fight, this war, this fight against the remnants of terrorism will go on for some time.

The relevance for 9/11 is that what 9/11 marked was the beginning of a struggle in which the terrorists come at us and strike us here on our home territory. And it's a global operation. It doesn't know national boundaries or national borders.

The mission - the overall mission is to dismantle and defeat and disrupt al-Qaeda. But we have to make sure there's not a safe haven that returns in Afghanistan.

To win the war on terror, we must know who our friends are and where our enemies are hiding. We can't continue fighting terrorism using the same foreign policy blueprints that were in place before September 11th.

To a degree, the West is reaping what it sowed from a major strategic blunder in the aftermath of 9/11 - the entire concept of a war on technique, that is, terrorism. Defining the enemy when fighting a concept was impossible.

We have to defeat ISIS. We have to make certain that we destroy them and that we push them back.

Now we are showing to the world that this fighting against two terrorist groups was feasible and now we have an isolated case which doesn't mean that terrorism is alive, as it was before.

We need to defeat al Queda and other terrorist organizations.

We are at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

We have an obligation to go after Al Qaeda wherever they are.

The fight against terrorism is an international struggle of the free world against the forces of darkness.