Thomas Sowell Quotes

One significant indication of the effectiveness of deterrence is that the Soviet Union and the United States share the belief that a nuclear war would begin only out of desperation or inadvertence. A weakening of deterrence could increase the possibility of a calculated “voluntary” war or worse.

This is a formidable enemy. To dismiss it as a bunch of 'cowards' perpetuating 'senseless acts of violence' is complacent nonsense. People willing to kill thousands of innocents while they kill themselves are not cowards. They are deadly vicious warriors and need to be treated as such.

We're seeing the development of tactics in Iraq, such as suicide bombing. Insurgents have been driving cars with explosives into hotels and office buildings. The recruitment may be even more prolific outside Iraq.

The suicide-bombing community is not absolutely 100 percent religious, but it is pretty nearly 100 percent religious.

The way the terrorist is trained to operate, especially the suicide terrorists, makes punishment and the threat of punishment far less valuable to those who would prevent the crime.

There is no escape plan because the perpetrators will become martyrs. They will go to the target and not return.

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.

The moral high ground in taking the first hit before attacking has been made obsolete by weapons of mass destruction….You cannot wait for a catastrophic event.

Unrivaled hegemonic power has not kept the United States safe from terrorist attack; nor has often brutal retaliation deterred suicide attacks in Russia or Israel.

The new age of terrorism isn't on the battlefield: it's in your own backyard. Whether it's at a concert in France or a restaurant in the United States, terrorism doesn't have to happen in a military installation by any stretch of the imagination.

Not all of the Islamic State killers are going to die on the battlefield.

Here's the reality: There is always a credible threat, and terror can strike at any time, anywhere, especially as lone wolf attacks backed up by Islamic ideology become more prevalent.

The first suicide bombing that entered my consciousness was the Beirut embassy bombing. It was very personal. I'd been in the embassy and I knew most of the people in the station who were killed in the bombing. So you take the personal aspect of it and the mystery of who the bomber was and the fact that a small group of people could drive us out of a country that was absolutely key to the United States, and what was behind this... The fact that they've been able to hide the embassy bombers' identities for all these years tells me we're up against a very capable movement.

You are allowed to lie for jihad. You are allowed to use any technique in order to defeat your enemy.

I can in one week assemble five hundred faithful ready to throw themselves into suicide operations. No frontier will stop them.

The terrorist determines the time, manor, place and mode of attack.

A suicide bomber is a two-legged missile. Once it’s launched, it’s very difficult to intercept.

If society does not have the courage to speak out on this issue, we could soon see ten-year-olds and pregnant women blowing themselves up…. We should not wage a war with women and children.... [W]e have to raise our voice against that.

We look to them [Islamic leaders] to condemn suicide bombers and terrorists who use Islam as a weapon to destabilize and destroy innocent lives. Sadly, apart from a few courageous examples, very few Muslim leaders condemn, clearly and unconditionally, the evil of suicide bombers who kill innocent people. We need to hear outright condemnation of theologies that state that suicide bombers are martyrs and enter a martyr's reward. We need to hear Muslims expressing their outrage and condemning such evil.

Al Qaeda maintains the ability and the intent to inflict significant casualties in the U.S. with little warning …. The greatest threat is from al Qaeda cells in the U.S. that we have not yet identified.

Those who committed yesterday's crime, which will have a painful impact on the peaceful nature of our nation, are not only the suicide bombers, but also everyone who instigated or justified the attacks, everyone who called them mujahedeen, even everyone who ignored this irregular direction in our religion and nature, or tried to find excuses for it

Iran’s rulers are so fanatical and apocalyptic that even nuclear deterrence would have no meaning.

We need to stop the flow of suicide bombers, we need to stop the fatwas (religious edicts) coming from Saudis to justify the killings of innocent Iraqis.

To launch weapons against a nuclear power would be suicide. To do so against a non-nuclear enemy would be militarily unnecessary, morally repugnant, and politically indefensible.

Instead of planning to deter would-be [nuclear] proliferators, U. S. policy makers have developed a preference for preventative war, They now seem to feel that deterrence is too weak to deal with radical regimes, forgetting that the precise purpose of deterrence is to counter dangerous enemies, not cautious ones.