Al-Qaeda Quotes (1988-)

“First of all, Al-Qaeda is a phenomenon...If it is an organization only, I have no link to the organization whatsoever, nor to Sheikh Osama bin Laden, nor to anybody in Al-Qaeda. It is the phenomenon of Al-Qaeda – what they believe, and what their own path is, what their own methods are. I believe Al-Qaeda... Every Muslim around the world shares many things with them. They pray toward the Ka'ba – we pray toward the Ka'ba. They pray five times a day – we pray five times a day. They are Muslims – we are Muslims. They fight against occupiers – we fight against occupiers. So we share with them all these Islamic values. But we don't share with them the structures, activities, and actions. Therefore, if you speak about Al-Qaeda as an organization with a particular dogma, a particular thought and method – definitely, I do not have a relationship with Al-Qaeda. Otherwise I do not think I would be at this table.”

“William Braniff, the executive director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, said the outsize fear of jihadist violence reflected memories of Sept. 11, the daunting scale of sectarian conflict overseas and wariness of a strain of Islam that seems alien to many Americans. “We understand white supremacists,” he said. “We don’t really feel like we understand Al Qaeda, which seems too complex and foreign to grasp.””

“Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al-Qaeda. They are some of the same murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and responsible for bombing the USS Cole. Al-Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world—and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere. The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics—a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. The terrorists’ directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children.”

“The famous nuclear strategist Herman Kahn likened deterrence to a game of chicken played by reckless teenagers who drive their cars at each other and wait for the "loser" to swerve. Kahn wrote that perhaps the best way to win is to "get into the car quite drunk" and, when your opponent is watching, to "[take] the steering wheel and [throw] it out the window" -- a pretty solid, if irresponsible, way of convincing your enemy that you are willing to act against your own best interest... ...Despite these problems, Israel has regularly tried to deter Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups. The record has been mixed. Fearing the Israeli response, these groups have at times limited attacks or refrained from them altogether, but they (and Israel) have resumed violence when their internal politics changed or because they believed the other side was behaving too provocatively. In addition to their use of terrorism, these groups also have mini-armies, run political parties, and operate schools and hospitals, making them more like quasi-states than a group like al Qaeda -- which isn't deterrable because it has no territory, is ideologically extreme, and has fewer constituents to lose. (Al Qaeda is always the drunk guy pushing the gas pedal down all the way after having thrown the wheel out the window.)”

“It's wrong to claim, as some do, that the motivation of al-Qaeda and its allies is some desire to seek justice in the middle east [...] al-Qaeda and its allies have no clear demands for the middle east. The only common thread in their approach is a violent and destructive opposition to democracy in any form. They find democracy in Palestine abhorrent and seek to destroy it.”