Elliott Abrams Quotes


We need to understand that an open society and free speech and press... really are the best weapons against al Qaeda and extremism.


Citations

Abrams, Elliott. Pressure Points, Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/blog/pressure-points.

Related Quotes

From the latter part of the 20th century onward, religious nationalism was no longer a force for most religions and nations except Muslim countries. It was the only religion left where a large proportion of the adherents saw no distinction between the religion and the government. Nations that had separation of church and state were not conducive to the extreme fundamentalist form of Islam where the Secular Leader and the Religious leader was to be embodied as a single person. As a result Islamic religious nationalists argued for a Theocracy and at times fought for it with violent means. The secular government typically, to curtail the violence and prevent a religious takeover, often outlawed the extreme religious Islamic parties. While Aslan cites the Muslim Brotherhood failure in Egypt as a desirable outcome, the only way the other forces of Egyptian society could prevent the Islamists from taking over turning the country into a theocracy was to forcefully repress the extremists. The Turkish outcome was much better, but there was the threat of repression of the Justice and Development Party when it won a majority control of the government. There were explicit threats that if it tried to weaken the secular nature of the government as Ataturk had formulated it, the military would come “out of the barracks” and oust the government as they had done before. There were nations like China which persecuted religions such as certain forms of Christianity, but those religions were not fighting for religious nationalism. They only wished the freedom to practice their religion and had no program or theology that argued for Christianizing the government. The Tamil Hindus of Sri Lanka did not want a Hindu government and were perfectly free to practice their religion. The problem was that they felt that there was systemic social and economic discrimination against the Tamils and they fought for independence—not of a Hindu state, but of a secular, nondiscriminatory state of equal opportunity.


In September of 2005 a Rose’s newspaper published some political cartoons showing the hypocrisy of some Muslims who use Islam to justify murder of innocents and terrorism. Months later, in January of 2006 many in the Middle East protested vehemently and Muslim riots broke out because the Prophet Muhammad's visage was depicted against Islamic tradition. Many Muslim nations started a boycott against Denmark. Many Muslim leaders claimed that insulting religion was an “abuse” of freedom of speech including those from nations which regularly publish material that is virulent against Christians and Jews. Apologies were demanded from Rose.


In September of 2005 a Danish Newspaper published some political cartoons showing the hypocrisy of some Muslims who use Islam to justify murder of innocents and terrorism. Months later, many in the Middle East protested vehemently and Muslim riots broke out and Danish boycotts ensued because the Prophet Muhammad's visage was depicted against Islamic tradition. Many Muslim leaders claimed that insulting religion was an “abuse” of freedom of speech including those from nations which regularly publish material that is virulent against Christians and Jews.


Danish fundamentalist Muslim Groups were demonstrating, protesting, and threatening Danes who wrote or published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Other Europeans who had committed what Muslims thought to be blasphemy had been attacked and even murdered by Muslim fundamentalists. Led by Nasim Rahnama, some Danish Muslims, braved attack and possible death, and produced a petition of Muslims defending the right of freedom of publication. See {59932} & {59919}.


He was the first American that who was assassinated by the Central Intelligence Agency by means of a drone attack. He was a major recruiter for Al Qaeda and he preached to 3 of the 9-11 terrorists.


Elliott Abrams
Elliott Abrams
  • Born: January 24, 1948
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Lawyer

Elliott Abrams is an American politician and lawyer, who has served in foreign policy positions for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Abrams is considered to be a neoconservative. He is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. On January 25, 2019, he was appointed as Special Representative for Venezuela. On September 1, 2020, he was further appointed to concurrently serve as the U.S. Special Representative for Iran.