Michael Scheuer Quotes

Guys like Bin Laden have been responsible for injuring and maiming and murdering more Muslims than any foreign imperial power has in the last hundred years.

To me, every fundamentalist Muslim, no matter how peaceable in his own behavior, is part of a murderous movement and is thus, in some fashion, a foot soldier in the war that bin Laden has launched against civilization.

We're facing an enemy today in the Islamic State that knows no national boundaries. It doesn't have a moral code of conduct.

[Roots of terrorism] come out of a long dialectic of U.S. involvement in the affairs of the Islamic world, the oil-producing world, the Arab world, the Middle East - those areas that are considered to be essential to U.S. interests and security.

I think that ISIS is a problem and it's really a symptom of a much greater problem.

Osama bin Laden is very shrewd. But he struck me, even in 1997, as being remarkably out of touch. I remember thinking this does not look like the type of guy who walks to the top of a mountain with a mobile phone and says, "Operation B, attack."Now he is America's number one enemy. He's always wanted to be that.

We often hear Islamists declare, 'We love death as much as you people in the west love life.' Well, if we're going to now celebrate and jubilate in the death of Bin Laden, I have to say, I think that comes eerily close to mimicking the likes of the Islamists. And that gives me the creeps.

I really wanted to talk about the War on Terror and say that both sides were completely incompetent [in addressing it]. You can't blame the other side when you're involved in it.

As the cleansing ocean closes over bin Laden's carcass, may the earth lie lightly on the countless graves of those he sentenced without compunction to be burned alive or dismembered in the street.

I don't think we're at war with Islam. I don't think we're at war with all Muslims. I think we're at war with jihadists.

We must continue to ensure law enforcement has the necessary tools to combat terrorism here at home. We must also work with our allies and provide our military with the weapons and protective gear they need to defeat terrorism abroad.

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.

Bin Laden is remarkably eager for Americans to know why he doesn't like us, what he intends to do about it and then following up and doing something about it in terms of military actions.

The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war.

The actions of the terrorist organizations, Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and Hamas, in Gaza, against Israel are unconscionable. Instead of working towards peace, these terrorist organizations have chosen to perpetuate the violence.

Terrorism has become the systematic weapon of a war that knows no borders or seldom has a face.

For many foreign fighters, the jihad in Iraq and Syria is a commuter war.

The war being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq is bringing about a fundamental change to the environment that has given rise and power to the extremists who export terrorism.

It's very important to go back and keep in mind the distinction between handling these events as criminal acts, which was the way we did before 9/11, and then looking at 9/11 and saying, 'This is not a criminal act,' not when you destroy 16 acres of Manhattan, kill 3,000 Americans, blow a big hole in the Pentagon. That's an act of war.

I think it is absolutely correct to solve the problem of terrorism in Iraq and Syria and Libya.

When it is over, if it is over, this war will have horrible consequences. Instead of having one Bin Laden, we will have 100 Bin Ladens.

A Taliban collapse could be rapid, with the enemy shrinking to a small number of hard-core Mullah Omar supporters in the early days or weeks of a military campaign.

Head for jihad and have your guns ready.

The War on Terror is the only war we have ever been involved with in which our enemy did not want the war to end…. Terrorists do not want to defeat us in the usual sense; they want us to become more like them.

There's a reason ISIS exists, which is because we've invaded countries, and they hate the Western world. I'm not forgiving them; I'm just saying there's a reason.