Michael Morell Quotes

America is not at war with Islam. And it is a mistake and it plays into the hands of the terrorists to act as though we are.

We are being challenged by Islam these years. There are some things for which one should display no tolerance. And when we are tolerant, we must know whether it is because of convenience or conviction.

The United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam.

Fundamentalism as it is called is not confined to the Muslim world. It is something that we have seen in different parts of the world. Let us hope that a dialogue between the followers of the three great monotheistic religions could help in putting an end to this.

Destroying a religious symbol and building a religious center are really the same thing if you don't think about it.

If we're going to ban all Muslims, how are we going to get them to be part of a coalition to destroy ISIS?

Americans are going to see that as the more religious a Muslim is, the more likely they're going to end up somehow fighting for ISIS' cause.

At least, it is encouraging to me that President [Barack] Obama has put Afghanistan front and center in this broader so-called War on terror, and that he is taking a different approach to Afghanistan.

We also know that ISIS is recruiting who are not in those databases. So of course, we're going to miss them. And then we now learn that DHS says, "No, we can't check their social media."

It is time we admitted that we are not at war with “terrorism.” We are at war with Islam.

I would say we must win the information war against ISIS. Every war we have ever been involved in has had a propaganda informational aspect to it.

(The United States) is the same as al-Qaeda, under a different color flag, calling on the name a different God to sanction and approve our murder and our mayhem!

Lord, there's danger in this land, you get witch hunts and wars when church and state hold hands.

No, I don't think it's fair to label Islam 'violent.' But I will say that to my knowledge, no writer has ever gone into hiding for criticizing the Amish.

Christianity ... has produced the iniquities of the Inquisition, the egotism and celibacy of the monasteries, the fury of religious wars, the ferocity of the Hussite, of the Catholic, of the Puritan, of the Spaniard, of the Irish Orangeman and of the Irish Papist; it has divided families, alienated friends, lighted the torch of civil war, and borne the virgin and the greybeard to the burning pile, broken delicate limbs upon the wheel and wrung the souls and bodies of innocent creatures on the rack; all this it has done, and done in the name of God.

It is an evil time but it is a complex time because we do not have uniforms standing in front of us. Instead, we have people in disguise. It is brutal. This ISIS thing - it is something we are going to devote a lot of energy to it. I think we are going to be very successful.

You listen to the intelligence community, they say, listen, maybe it's ISIS today, it's somebody else tomorrow. We'll deal with the caliphate, but it's going to take years to be able to handle this.

This is my number one priority. I've got a lot of things on my plate. But my top priority is to defeat ISIL and to eliminate the scourge of this barbaric terrorism that's been taking place around the world. Groups like ISIL can't destroy us. They can't defeat us. They don't produce anything. They're not an existential threat to us. It is very important for us to not respond with fear.

We are going to be able to defeat ISIS on the ground there, as well as in this world, because of the Muslim Americans in our country and throughout the world who understand that this brutal and barbaric group is perverting the name of a great world religion.

I don’t think that [the war in Iraq] damaged our reputation around the world.

I agree that we have to have the toughest screening and vetting that we can have, but I don't think a halt is necessary. What we have to do is put all of our resources through the Department of Homeland Security, through the State Department, through our intelligence agencies, and we have to have an increased vetting and screening .

That’s what religion does. It points a finger. It causes wars. It breaks apart countries. It’s a petri dish for stereotypes to grow in. Religion’s not about being holy...Just holier-than-thous.

I don't like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. And Iran is killing ISIS. And those three have now lined up because of our weak foreign policy.

Muslim communities are the ones that going to see radicalization happening at a mosque or hear it in the community or even among their own family members. And the other part is that there is a narrative that ISIS and other jihadists pose that this is a war between Muslims and the rest of the world.

The religion that fosters intolerance needs another Christ to die for it.