Michael Scheuer quotes

Until we respect bin Laden, we are going to die in numbers that are probably unnecessary. (Michael Scheuer)
Bin Laden does reprehensible activities, and we should surely take care of that by killing him as soon as we can. But he's not an irrational man. He's a very worthy enemy. He's an enemy to worry about. View quote
Michael Scheuer
One of the great intellectual failures of the American intelligence community, and especially the counterterrorism community, is to assume if someone hasn't attacked us, it's because he can't or because we've defeated him. View quote
Michael Scheuer
We are tangled in a very significant Islamic insurgency in Iraq. View quote
Michael Scheuer
Without the connotation good or bad, bin Laden's a great man in the sense that he's influenced the course of history. View quote
Michael Scheuer
It's not a choice between war and peace. It's a choice between war and endless war. It's not appeasement. I think it's better even to call it American self-interest. View quote
Michael Scheuer
I think Mr. Clarke had a tendency to interfere too much with the activities of the CIA, and our leadership at the senior level let him interfere too much. So criticism from him I kind of wear as a badge of honor. View quote
Michael Scheuer
'The war in Iraq - if Osama was a Christian - it's the Christmas present he never would have expected. View quote
Michael Scheuer
Most dramatically, and perhaps least noticed, is the violence inside Saudi Arabia itself. View quote
Michael Scheuer
Sister Virginia used to say, 'You'll be known by the company you keep.' View quote
Michael Scheuer
No one wants to abandon the Israelis. But I think the perception is, and I think it's probably an accurate perception, that the tail is leading the dog - that we are giving the Israelis carte blanche ability to exercise whatever they want to do in their area. (Michael Scheuer)
A nuclear weapon of some dimension, whether it's actually a nuclear weapon, or a dirty bomb, or some kind of radiological device. Yes, I think it's probably a near thing. View quote
Michael Scheuer
No one should be surprised when Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda detonate a weapon of mass destruction in the United States. I don't believe in inevitability. But I think it's pretty close to being inevitable. View quote
Michael Scheuer
Our leaders continue to say that we're making strong headway against this problem. And I think we are not. View quote
Michael Scheuer
You couldn't have done this without killing an Arab prince. View quote
Michael Scheuer
I happened to do the research on the links between al Qaeda and Iraq. (MATTHEWS: And what did you come up with?) SCHEUER: Nothing. View quote
Michael Scheuer
His motive-his motive is to change our policies, sir. Notwithstanding what the president or Mr. Kerry said during the campaign, he really doesn't give a darn about our democracy or our society. He is after a change in policies which he views as lethal to Muslims. View quote
Michael Scheuer
You know, I was born at night but not last night, sir. There is no operation at the CIA that is conducted without approval of lawyers. It is the bane of our existence, and it is a detriment to the defense of America, but, nonetheless, that is the fact. View quote
Michael Scheuer
[Bin Laden has] already said publicly that you can have all the oil you want. I can‘t drink it. We‘re going to sell it to you at a marketplace. View quote
Michael Scheuer
But one problem remains. How can the conspiracy-minded Modern Democratic Party Women be assured that the switch was made? It is true that not many people would see the new bills and so some doubt might arise among the Democratic sisterhood about whether Wilson was really removed and then replaced on the bill by the three ladies named above. There is only one sure-fire means of relieving the Modern Democratic Party Women of their doubts before the whining starts. That means is to have the Democratic National Committee direct its current icon, Hilary Clinton, to publicly report on who appears on the $100,000 note each time she and her husband receive a packet of those bills from one or another of the foreign governments for which they are apparently selling out American interests. After all, if you cannot trust America's graft-taker-in-chief, who can you trust? View quote
Michael Scheuer
There is information showing that in the 1993-1994 period bin Laden began to work with Sudan and Iraq to acquire a CBRN capability for al Qaeda. (Michael Scheuer)
He (Osama bin Laden) doesn't want to fight this war forever. A lot of people mistake him as someone who can't get along without fighting. But that's not clearly the case. View quote
Michael Scheuer
The Army of Northern Virginia. Under the superb command of Marse Robert that army's battle flag came close to being a national flag of an independent Confederate States of America. Thank God it did not. But neither were those who fought under that banner executed, imprisoned, permanently disenfranchised, or exiled, as the losers in most other civil wars have been. As Lincoln advised, U. S. Grant, and William T. Sherman 'let 'em up easy'. Thereafter, the battle flag was flown for some bad purposes, as the emblem of the Klan and the Democratic Party's southern wing. View quote
Michael Scheuer
If there is a hereafter, the Democrats will burn because they were the Doers that killed the republic, the Republicans because they were the Talkers who abetted its murder. And such will be a well deserved fate for both. It is enough to make an agnostic hope there is a God. View quote
Michael Scheuer
Well, the clandestine aspect is that, clearly, the ability to influence the Congress--that's a clandestine activity, a covert activity. You know to some extent, the idea that the Holocaust Museum here in our country is another great ability to somehow make people feel guilty about being the people who did the most to try to end the Holocaust. I find--I just find the whole debate in the United States unbearably restricted with the inability to factually discuss what goes on between our two countries. View quote
Michael Scheuer