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" Jihad is holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community. "

John O. Brennan

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" To me, terrorists should not be able to hide behind their passports and their citizenship, and that includes U.S. citizens, whether they are overseas or whether they are here in the United States. What we need to do is to apply the appropriate tool and the appropriate response. "

John O. Brennan

" Unfortunately, in war, there are casualties, including among the civilian population. "

John O. Brennan

" We will never abdicate the security of the United States to a foreign country or refrain from taking action when appropriate. But we cannot ignore the reality that cooperative counterterrorism activities are a key to our national defense. "

John O. Brennan

" I think the rule should be that if we're going to take actions overseas that result in the deaths of people, the United States should take responsibility for that. "

John O. Brennan

" We need to make sure that leaks of classified information, of national security secrets, needs to be rigorously pursued and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. "

John O. Brennan

" I'm neither Republican nor Democrat. I've worked for the past five administrations. "

John O. Brennan

" Terrorists are not 100 feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. "

John O. Brennan

" We're trying to be very careful and precise in our use of language, because I think the language we use and the images we project really do have resonance. It's the reason why I don't use the term jihadist to refer to terrorists. It gives them the religious legitimacy they so desperately seek, but I ain't gonna give it to them. "

John O. Brennan

" A lot of things look good on an academic's blackboard in terms of the actions that need to be taken. It's almost like a football coach, when you draw the X's and O's: Every play that is chalked on that board goes for a touchdown. Well, there are a lot of yards to be made between the line of scrimmage and the touchdown. "

John O. Brennan

" Our counterterrorism tools do not exist in a vacuum. They are stronger and more sustainable when the American people understand and support them. They are weaker and less sustainable when the American people do not. "

John O. Brennan

" Yes, war is hell. It is awful. It involves human beings killing other human beings, sometimes innocent civilians. That is why we despise war. "

John O. Brennan

" By the time President Obama took office, Guantanamo was viewed internationally as a symbol of a counterterrorism approach that flouted our laws and strayed from our values, undercutting the perceived legitimacy - and therefore the effectiveness - of our efforts. "

John O. Brennan

" I will not, nor will I ever, publicly divulge sensitive intelligence sources and methods. For when that happens, our national security is endangered and lives can be lost. "

John O. Brennan

" Throughout my career, I had the great fortune to experience firsthand as well as to witness what it means to be a CIA officer. "

John O. Brennan

" In full accordance with the law - and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save American lives - the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qa'ida terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones. "

John O. Brennan

" I go to bed at night worrying that I didn't do enough that day to make sure I protect the American people. "

John O. Brennan

" I do not - I never believed it's better to kill a terrorist than to detain him. We want to detain as many terrorists as possible so we can elicit the intelligence from them in the appropriate manner so that we can disrupt follow-on terrorist attacks. "

John O. Brennan

" How you define a problem shapes how you address it. "

John O. Brennan

" The men and women of the CIA are a national treasure. "

John O. Brennan

" The CIA has acknowledged that it has detained about 100 terrorists since 9/11, and about a third of them have been subjected to what the CIA refers to as 'enhanced interrogation tactics,' and only a small proportion of those have in fact been subjected to the most serious types of enhanced procedures. "

John O. Brennan

" If a person is a U.S. citizen, and he is on the battlefield in Afghanistan or Iraq trying to attack our troops, he will face the full brunt of the U.S. military response. "

John O. Brennan

" Where terrorists offer injustice, disorder and destruction, the United States and its allies stand for freedom, fairness, equality, hope, and opportunity. "

John O. Brennan

" President Obama has made it clear that the United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. "

John O. Brennan

Nuclear Weapons

" The preservation of our national security and the laws that define us as the United States of America demand that we understand the intersection of the two - indeed, how they reinforce one another. "

John O. Brennan

" We are a nation of laws, and we will always act within the bounds of the law. "

John O. Brennan

" The actions that we take on the counterterrorism front, again, are to take actions against individuals where we believe that the intelligence base is so strong and the nature of the threat is so grave and serious, as well as imminent, that we have no recourse except to take this action that may involve a lethal strike. "

John O. Brennan

" Any American who joins al Qaeda will know full well that they have joined an organization that is at war with the United States. Any American who did that should know well that they in fact are part of an enemy... and that the U.S. will do anything that is possible to destroy that enemy to save American lives. "

John O. Brennan

" It's not that the system is broken, but clearly there are ways to improve the system, strengthen it, to make sure that we can put together the various bits and pieces of information in a way that allows us to stop every single terrorist out there. "

John O. Brennan

" Sometimes there are actions that we are forced to take, but there need to be boundaries beyond which we are going to recognize that we're not going to go because we still are Americans, and we are supposed to be representing something to people in this country and overseas. "

John O. Brennan

" When we uphold the rule of law, our counterterrorism tools are more likely to withstand the scrutiny of our courts, our allies, and the American people. "

John O. Brennan