Richard K. Betts Quotes

As many critics have pointed, out, terrorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic. Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics, the slogans of today's war on terrorism merely makes the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world.

Terrorism is resorted to for practical reasons because there is no other tool available. And those who use terrorism, and then subsequently become the targets of terrorism, understand its power and how difficult it is to counter it. Not just militarily. But especially in terms of international perception.

Al Qaeda has come back. Al Qaeda is a resilient organization. But they're not here in large numbers. But al Qaeda doesn't have to be anywhere in large numbers.

To a degree, the West is reaping what it sowed from a major strategic blunder in the aftermath of 9/11 - the entire concept of a war on technique, that is, terrorism. Defining the enemy when fighting a concept was impossible.

I never call it an insurgency. I call it terrorism.

Now we are showing to the world that this fighting against two terrorist groups was feasible and now we have an isolated case which doesn't mean that terrorism is alive, as it was before.

They may be rich, they may be powerful, they may have atom bombs, but Americans and British are no longer safe anywhere in the world…. They may perhaps be able to put Al-Qaeda out of commission, but that does not mean that there will not be other groups. They have been killing so-called terrorist all these years, but there'll simply be more and more terrorists

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.

Terrorism is a means/a tactic, not an ideological or defined physical enemy

You cannot fight one terrorist organization by making use of another terrorist organization.

ISIL does something al-Qaida would never imagine: they test people by tasking them.

The West only talks about how you can militarily defeat the terrorists, but terrorists are very difficult to defeat because they can appear anywhere.

ISIS takes a long-term approach to its apocalyptic war with West - we have to do the same.

We need to make sure these Islamic terrorist organizations don't become mainstream. We're fighting an ideology as much as a group of radical terrorists.

Whole nation is fighting against the terrorists, and this struggle will continue till the complete elimination of terrorists.

Terrorism and the fight against extremism is our fight.

Terrorists continue to be outliers with limited appeal at best.

Degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL

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 need to be focused on defeating radical Islamic terrorists.

True terrorism, you know, weaponized fear. In defense of ourselves, we're fighting - actively fighting something else. But if you're going to fight terrorism, to me, you fight the root causes of terrorism.

We need a commander in chief that speaks the truth. We will not defeat radical Islamic terrorism so long as we have a president unwilling to utter the words 'radical Islamic terrorism'.

Afghanistan must never again be a safe haven for terrorism.

We cannot allow Afghanistan to become again a haven for terrorists who inspire, plan and provide support for attacks like those of 11 September 2001, of 7 July 2005 in London, and more.

We must be certain that we all realize that our enemy is not an enemy that is located in one single place. There are terrorist cells all around the globe.