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" It's hard to imagine any Muslim fessing up to their secret proclivity for Sharia law knowing they would be deported if they gave the wrong answer. "

Peter L. Bergen

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" Trump himself has not laid out a clear agenda on the national security issues that are the most pressing for the United States, from the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan to the deepening Syrian civil war to the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and the flexing of Russian muscles under President Vladimir Putin. "

Peter L. Bergen

National Security

" In picking Gen. Jim Mattis for Defense secretary, President-elect Donald Trump has said that he found his 'Gen. George Patton.' Yet that label may not really capture what makes Mattis a distinctive choice. "

Peter L. Bergen

" The E.U. is the latest of a series of multinational organizations set up after World War II to ensure that there would never again be a pan-European war and to create the conditions for a new European prosperity after the destruction wrought by the war against the Nazis. The E.U. has admirably succeeded at both. "

Peter L. Bergen

" While the story about the hunt for bin Laden has been exhaustively reported and the key sources and witnesses are in agreement about the main points of the narrative, of course, it's still possible that we could learn new details about the story that would add to the narrative. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Certain Gulf Arabs support proxy jihadist Sunni groups such as al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, while Iran supports Shia militant forces such as Hezbollah. "

Peter L. Bergen

" What did U.S. officials have to lose by saying that bin Laden was being protected by the Pakistanis, if it were true? "

Peter L. Bergen

" European countries simply do not have the ideological framework the United States has in the shape of the 'American dream' that has helped to absorb successfully wave after wave of immigration to the States, including Muslim Americans who are well integrated into American society. There is no analogous French dream or German dream. "

Peter L. Bergen

" The Obama administration has framed its defense of the controversial bulk collection of all American phone records as necessary to prevent a future 9/11. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Often it is important to listen to what people aren't saying. "

Peter L. Bergen

" The Japanese scored an important victory at Pearl Harbor, but the attack pulled the United States into World War II, and four years later, Japan was in ruins, utterly defeated. "

Peter L. Bergen

" The Second Amendment is, of course, very much part of the American fabric. But the intent of the founders was that the amendment protected the rights of citizens to bear arms in a militia for their collective self-defense. "

Peter L. Bergen

" ISIS' key social media-encrypted platform is Telegram, which is engineered by a Berlin-based tech company that can simply ignore the rulings of American federal judges as well as legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. "

Peter L. Bergen

" The rise of ISIS starts with a Jordanian thug named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who founded ISIS' parent organization, al Qaeda, in Iraq. What gave Zarqawi the opportunity to create al Qaeda in Iraq? It was, of course, George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. "

Peter L. Bergen

" President-elect Donald Trump has a host of national security challenges to deal with as he assumes office, from the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan to the grinding Syrian civil war to the flexing of Russian muscles under President Vladimir Putin to how to deal with ISIS as the terrorist army retreats in Iraq. "

Peter L. Bergen

" ISIS may be a perversion of Islam, but Islamic it is, just as Christian beliefs about the sanctity of the unborn child explain why some Christian fundamentalists attack abortion clinics and doctors. "

Peter L. Bergen

" I've interviewed multiple people who know bin Laden... who tend to have a universal picture of what he's like, which is: modest, retiring, unassuming, kind of thoughtful - lots of things that don't fit with a mass murderer, which he is as well. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Mattis has been sharply critical of President Barack Obama's policies on Iran and Obama's capping of troop numbers and campaign end-dates in theaters of war such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Mattis also appears to be a skeptic of the Obama-era policy of putting women into combat roles. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Common sense would tell you that the idea that Saudi Arabia was paying for bin Laden's expenses while he was living in Abbottabad is simply risible. Bin Laden's principal goal was the overthrow of the Saudi royal family as a result of which his Saudi citizenship was revoked as far back as 1994. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Imprisoned by its war on terror framework, the Bush administration supported Israel in a disastrous war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. "

Peter L. Bergen

" We climbed the stairs to the third floor, where Osama bin Laden died early in the morning of May 2, 2011. "

Peter L. Bergen

" I stepped into the bedroom where he was killed and looked up at the ceiling, where you could still see the patterns of blood that had spurted from bin Laden's head when the bullet fired by a U.S. Navy SEAL tore through the terrorist leader's face. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Some might say that that while al Qaeda the organization may be basically dead, its ideology continues to thrive and to inspire 'lone wolves' to attack the United States. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Trump has long said he favors a 'safe zone' in Syria to prevent Basher al Assad's regime from carrying out indiscriminate airstrikes against Syrian civilians and to halt the refugee flow out of Syria. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Trump, of course, has been very wrong in the past about important issues such as President Barack Obama's place of birth and Mexican immigrants, but the Republican frontrunner is correct in saying that former Republican President George W. Bush did not keep the country safe during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein brutally repressed all forms of opposition to his regime, and before the Iraq War, al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq. "

Peter L. Bergen

" In February I secured permission to enter Osama bin Laden's compound in the northern Pakistani city of Abbottabad, where he was killed and where he had lived for the last half-decade of his life; the first, and only, journalist to do so. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Investigations by special prosecutors can take on a life of their own. "

Peter L. Bergen

" If the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies were private companies and were chronically unable to accomplish one of their key missions, their shareholders would have long ago revolted, fired their management, and their stock would be trading at values near zero. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, another hinge event in American history, 9/11 was a great tactical victory for America's enemies. But in both these cases, the tactical success of the attacks was not matched by strategic victories. Quite the reverse. "

Peter L. Bergen

" I was the only outsider to visit the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived before the Pakistani military demolished it. "

Peter L. Bergen