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" Occasionally, Donald Trump says something that is politically incorrect but which also happens to be true. "

Peter L. Bergen

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" Keeping a relatively small, predominantly U.S. Special Forces presence in Afghanistan to continue to train the Afghan army past December 2016 is a wise policy that would benefit both Afghans and Americans. "

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

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" Hersh's account of the bin Laden raid is a farrago of nonsense that is contravened by a multitude of eyewitness accounts, inconvenient facts, and simple common sense. "

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" A key flaw of the Obama administration's approach to Afghanistan has been constantly announcing proposed withdrawal dates for U.S. forces, which has enabled the Taliban to believe they can simply wait out the clock. "

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" For many terrorists, carrying out an attack allowed them to become the heroes of their own story. "

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" 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. "

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" The war on terror, sometimes known as the 'Global War on Terror' or by the clunky acronym GWOT, became the lens through which the Bush administration judged almost all of its foreign policy decisions. That proved to be dangerously counterproductive on several levels. "

Peter L. Bergen

" During the campaign, Trump in many ways repudiated President Obama's national security and foreign policy approach on issues like the Iran nuclear deal and immigration. So there's a real question of continuity or disruption with Trump, which wouldn't have existed if Clinton was president-elect. "

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" The Bush administration's approach to the war on terror collided badly with another of its doctrines, spreading democracy in the Middle East as a panacea to reduce radicalism. "

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" Without U.S. forces in the country, there is a strong possibility Afghanistan could host a reinvigorated Taliban allied to a reinvigorated al Qaeda. "

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" There is no hint that Trump wishes to engage in or to foment violence against the enemies, such as immigrants, he has identified as undermining the American way of life. "

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" What made al-Awlaki so influential is that, unlike a number of leaders of al Qaeda such as Osama bin Laden, he was a cleric, so he could present himself as a leading religious figure. Second, because al-Awlaki had spent much of his adult life in the States, he communicated with his followers in colloquial, accessible American English. "

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" Seymour Hersh is one of the giants of investigative journalism. "

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" 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. "

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" The reason that Islamist militants can assert that jihad is necessary against the perceived enemies of Islam is that there is sufficient ammunition in the Quran to buttress their beliefs. The same could also, of course, be said for the Old Testament, which is full of scenes of violent death visited on the enemies of God. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Since Snowden went public, companies such as Apple and Google - two of the world's most valuable companies - have incorporated much greater encryption into their products and have also been at pains to show that they will not go along with U.S. government demands to access their encrypted products. "

Peter L. Bergen

" Osama bin Laden fervently hoped that attacking the United States would create pressure on American leaders to reduce their support for Middle Eastern regimes. Bin Laden believed that without that American support, the Arab regimes would collapse and would be replaced by Taliban-style rulers. "

Peter L. Bergen

" It is very much in America's national security interests to ensure that the Taliban do not dominate Afghanistan and that neither ISIS nor al Qaeda continues their growth in the country. "

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" If the party of Lincoln wishes to become the party of intolerance, selecting Trump to be its presidential candidate is a good way forward. "

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" Every lethal terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11 has been carried out by an American citizen or a legal permanent resident, not by recent immigrants or by refugees. So tamping down immigration won't fix the real issue, which is 'homegrown' terrorism. "

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" 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. "

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" American jihadists are generally motivated by a mix of factors, including dislike of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world. "

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" How can you prevent an attack by returning foreign fighters if you are not cognizant of their names and links to ISIS? "

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" In quiet ways far too complex to hold Trump's interest, Muslims in the United States and around the world are helping every day to prevent massacres such as Orlando from happening. "

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

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" Think of ISIS as a pathogen that preys on weak hosts in the Muslim world. In fact, there is something of a political law: The weaker a Muslim state, the stronger will be the presence of ISIS or like-minded groups. "

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" The fact is, working stiffs with few opportunities and scant education are generally too busy getting by to engage in revolutionary projects to remake society. And history, in fact, shows us that terrorism is generally a bourgeois endeavor. "

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" ISIS is even at war with its most natural ally, al Qaeda in Syria. "

Peter L. Bergen