Michael Scheuer Quotes

With terrorist groups like al Qaeda, you can't learn what you want to learn about their capabilities and their future plans by taking a picture of it, and they've learned not to use the telephone.

Syria is hosting the most dangerous terrorist organizations.

By the end of 2008, clearly the Al Qaeda and Sunni insurgency had been relatively stabilized. And in the Al Qaeda's mind, they were defeated.

There's a problem of terrorism in the world. There's always been terrorism. There will be terrorism. You have to deal with it surgically. You have to deal with it in a serious way.

I've said repeatedly that where we see terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda or ISIL, they have perverted and distorted and tried to claim the mantle of Islam for an excuse, for basically barbarism and death. These are people who kill children, kill Muslims, take sex slaves - there's no religious rationale that would justify in any way any of the things that they do.

We didn't say that 80% [of terrorists], for example, or the majority or the vast majority, are foreigners. We said the vast majority are Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda offshoot organizations in this region.

I plead - that it's very difficult when you deal with - ISIS and organizations like that whose - whose behavior is so barbaric and so vicious - that it doesn't seem to have any purpose other than lust for killing and power. And that's very difficult to put ourselves in other shoes.

Every leader, and every regime, and every movement, and every organization that steps across the line to terrorism must be banished from the discourse of civilized human life.

Terrorist activity is continually recurring in various parts of the world, sowing death and destruction and plunging many of our brothers and sisters into grief and despair

When you look around now we have the war on terror. Yes, okay, the World Trade Center was sort of like a single act of war, but nothing else has been. We've turned it into war. We're talking about a bunch of semi-lunatic, fanatic criminals. That's the way they should be treated.

There is no taboo after this assassination and no one of the Palestinian leaders has immunity anymore, ... It shows once again the necessity to collect the illegal weapons and to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorist organizations.

I just sat there looking at television, sort of dumb and thought how horrible it was. I had -- the grand aspects of it did not occur to me -- I had no notion of this terrorist network that existed. I knew the were a lot of people in the world who didn't like us, but I had no idea that it was as well organized as it apparently is. That's one of the amazing facets of this terrible event: how well they did it. Incredible. The competence of these evil people.

There are no barriers to entries. Think of this as Linux in terms of software. Anyone can have part of the operating system so long as you pledge allegiance to the ideas. Previously, if you wanted to join al Qaeda, you had to travel to an al Qaeda safe haven, probably in northern Pakistan or Afghanistan. Now all you have to do is get a gun, choose a target, and carry out an attack.

The reason that the World Trade Center got hit is because there are a lot of people living in abject poverty out there who don't have any hope for a better life.

It [9/11] transcended the political and moved into the metaphysical. There was a kind of cosmic, demonic quality of mind at work here, which refused to have any interest in dialogue and political organization and persuasion. This was bloody-minded destruction for no other reason than to do it.

We all lived through September 11. I was here at the Capitol that day. I saw the evil of our enemies written in the smoke rising above the Pentagon.

The US is indeed a terrorist nation. ...It's also the greatest purveyor of violence on earth over the past half century, and the foremost threat to world peace today.

(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!

So in many ways, the bombing at the end of this year and the terrorist attack of last year in Peshawar have bookended both those years in a very unfortunate way. But at a bigger picture since, the impression in Pakistan is that things are actually improving on the terrorism front quite dramatically.

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.

People have been fed misinformation. The fact is that the fighting that is going on on the ground in Syria is with Al Qaeda, with Jabhat al Nusra, with Daesh. The pockets, small pockets, of other groups are usually surrounded by these various extremist groups. . . . Once they stop fighting, there is nothing for the Syrian government to hit other than the terrorist organizations.

Denying Al Qaeda safe haven was the right decision.

Please deal with the Radical Islamic Threat today.

Note that there was no claim for these attacks [on 9/11]. There were no demands. There were no statements. It was a silent piece of terror.

Together, leading the world, the U.S.A. will rid our planet of this barbarous organization called ISIS.