John Kerry Quotes

Our government has been unable to expel foreign clerics who preach violence and the destruction of the state.

When Muslims enter a mosque, for example, and blow it up, or go and behead people while reading the Koran --- these people believe their Islam permits this. You talk about the war on terror. The only way we can overcome these terrorists is with ideology. We Muslims must show the Muslim terrorists that their way is wrong. We must draw the line.

Are we fighting too many wars? And I would say no. We're fighting one war. And it's a war against radical Islamic Jihad.

It may be politically incorrect to say, but it is nevertheless true that a terrorist today is exponentially more likely to be a Muslim than a Christian.

Religion has failed us. Christ was not a Christian. Buddha was not a Buddhist. Mohammed was not a Mohammedan. And yet ever since the dawn of history, we have engaged in conflict and war and terrorism and murder and racism and ethnocentrism and bigotry and prejudice in the name of God.

We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.

If it is bin Laden, he's a very intelligent guy. He's been planning his war for a long time. I remember the last time I met him in 1997 in Afghanistan. And bin Laden said to me "From this mountain, Mr. Robert, upon which you are sitting, we beat the Russian army and helped break the Soviet Union. And I pray to God that he allows us to turn America into a shadow of itself." When I saw the pictures of New York without the World Trade Center, New York looked like a shadow of itself.

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.

I share the Presidents commitment to fighting and winning the war on terrorism.

As to those in the World Trade Center...Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. ...If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.

It's not religious war, but Al-Qaeda always use religions, Islam - actually, as a pretext and as a cover and as a mantle for their war and for their terrorism and for their killing and beheading and so on.

I've said before: If Osama bin Laden was a Christian, Iraq was the Christmas present he always wanted but never expected his parents to give. It validated for the Muslim world virtually all of bin Laden's rhetoric. He had always said the Americans will destroy any strong Muslim regime, and we did.

This is a victory against those who promote terrorism, against hypocrites who tout a supposed war on terror and in reality protect terrorists and jail young men who only acted to oppose terrorism in the United States.

We declared war on terror-it's not even a noun, so, good luck.

It does not matter to the killers if their victims are Christian or Muslim, Hindu or Humanist; what matters is that they show that they can kill where they please.

I don't know any religion that promotes violence. It is the adherents of whatever religion.

Now that they talk about Islam as being a violent faith, when you look at the history of Christendom, the Crusades and the many wars of religion that were fought, the cruelty of Christians in burning what they believed to be witches and burning heretics, and then very recently they were responsible for the Holocaust... it was Christians.

If they hear people running for - president... despite all the other problems that George W. Bush made after 9/11 when he basically said after going to a mosque in Washington, "We are not at war with Islam or Muslims. We are at war with violent extremism. We are at war with people who use their religion for purposes of power and oppression."

Since war itself is the most extreme form of terrorism, a war on terrorism is profoundly self-contradictory.

An Associated Press report by Chicago-based reporter Sharon Cohen in May 1993 examined Christian fundamentalists and concluded that they were prone to 'riots, terrorism - and death.'

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.

You have to be realistic about terrorism. Certain groups of people, certain groups, Muslim fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists, and just plain guys from Montana, are going to continue to make life in this country very interesting for a long, long time.

Now let's make two things clear: ISIL is not 'Islamic.' No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL's victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria's civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.

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.