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There is no way to avoid the reality that the American government in the past years has been the most spectacularly hypocrisy-driven government in the world. We rival the Soviet Union in some stages, in some ways, in hypocrisy.
Michael Scheuer
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Michael Scheuer
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: January 1
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More quotes by 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.
Michael Scheuer
If the Americans attack Iran for the first time in 1,400 years, we may unite Sunnis and Shias against us. So I guess there is room for accomplishment everywhere.
Michael Scheuer
The whole importance of Iraq is that we have now created two things. One, Iraq is in the Arab heartland in terms of an attraction for people who want to fight the Americans and their allies. It's far greater than anything Afghanistan was aftertheSoviets invaded. It's easy to get to, there's no trouble with languages.
Michael Scheuer
I think the world is more perilous and America is basically undefended. For me the two touchstones after 9/11 for domestic security were our borders. Not for discriminatory reasons or to stop immigration, but simply to allow law enforcement to find out who is in our country without facing an undocumented pool of aliens that increases by the hour.
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.
Michael Scheuer
Iraq broke our back in terms of counterterrorism. There's no doubt about it. The first thing, though, that hurt us was the fact that the U.S. military was absolutely unprepared to do anything on 9/11 - or 9/12 or 9/13. And by the time we actually attacked Afghanistan, al Qaeda and the Taliban had dispersed.
Michael Scheuer
If you look at groups in the Palestine region, Hamas and the Palestine Islamic jihad, more often than not in their first operations they would accidentally blow themselves up on the way to the target or the bomb wouldn't go off.
Michael Scheuer
We've gone thorough religious wars and civil wars. America has gone through slavery, we've all gone through two world wars, segregation. Ultimately it's been a bloody, trying, wasteful, but eventually positive struggle.
Michael Scheuer
You can forgive your leaders for not knowing the intricacies of Islamic history. You cannot forgive them for not knowing their own. And when you look at American democracy, where did it start? It started, if you need to pick a point, at Runnymede in 1215. We have now been at this process, we and our English-speaking allies, for 800 years.
Michael Scheuer
One of the problems of not allowing the American people to read what bin Laden has said is that in October 2001 just after the war began in Afghanistan, he gave a speech that had two parts to it.
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.
Michael Scheuer
I think one of the most destructive things in terms of American security has been for all of our leaders, without exception in both parties, to identify Osama bin Laden as a gangster or as a madman, as an apocalyptic character who's out to destroy our civilization.
Michael Scheuer
I don't believe in inevitability. But I think it's pretty close to being inevitable...Yes, I think it's probably a near thing.
Michael Scheuer
Well, the next attack in the United States will be larger than 9/11. And there's no doubt that if they have a weapon of mass destruction, they'll use it.
Michael Scheuer
And so to dismiss these homegrown terrorists as boobs, which is one of the terms that was used in one of the New York newspapers after the Miami raid, is true now, but to bet on that is I think a sure way to lose your bank account.
Michael Scheuer
You couldn't have done this without killing an Arab prince.
Michael Scheuer
I know these days it sounds a little odd, but American governments are very fearful of European reaction. They were afraid we would be considered gunslingers.
Michael Scheuer
So what we have is an American foreign policy that is inextricably linked to domestic matters. It is very dangerous for a politician who desires nothing more than to stay in office to address the mindset that any change in policy is appeasement. And Americans will accept that for a certain amount of time.
Michael Scheuer
You just have to come to grips with the fact that people don't like to be invaded or bombed by anybody. And America has been engaged in that.
Michael Scheuer
I think clearly Europe has a lot to worry about. When I was working at the CIA - and I always worked with a lot of European services - they always were very condescending toward the United States, saying that we are so racist vis-à-vis blacks and other people.
Michael Scheuer
