Images
ISIS is at war with America, but America is not at war with ISIS - not the president, nor the Congress, and certainly not the American people.
Jack Keane
United States and our allied partners need to wake up. ISIS is at war with us and civilization.
The homegrown terrorists are the most significant because any fighter returning from Syria to the United States would likely be identified and detected by our intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
Despite the obvious intelligence and security failures that contributed to the attack against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, the reality is that in one night, an al Qaeda-affiliated group destroyed a diplomatic post, killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, and forced an end to clandestine U.S. activity in the area.
'Duty' is a refreshingly honest memoir and a moving one. Mr. Gates scrupulously identifies his flaws and mistakes: He waited too long, for example, for the military bureaucracy to fix critical supply issues like the drones needed in Iraq and took three years to replace a dysfunctional command structure in Afghanistan.
Only four secretaries of defense served longer than Robert M. Gates. Many others were as dedicated; many sacrificed a great deal. Alone among them all, however, Mr. Gates had the task of turning around two wars that the U.S. was losing.
The Pentagon is actually a 10-story building, five up and five down.
In 2005 in Iraq, the constitution was written. A new government was elected. That government was trying to take office in 2006.
We should be robustly assisting the Free Syrian Army with equipment and also with training.
Qatar has funded and helped arm ISIS. They also, as we all know, fund Hamas. That's got to stop. And we've got to use our pressure against that country to knock that stuff off.
The military executes policy decisions.
The Pentagon is a series of wedges. So you have - the outer wedge has windows on the outside, and then inside of that, it has windows with an alleyway; then there's another wedge with windows outside, windows inside. And we call them the E Ring, the D Ring, the C Ring.
This radical Islam is a religious-based ideology. And you actually have to, when you deal with the ideology, you have to attack it on that basis.
I have a close association with Gen. Petraeus... What you get in Dave Petraeus is a very unique officer, a combination of intelligence, extraordinary depth of knowledge and understanding.
One of the banners I would put up in front of any American president and new administration is 'Do not overreact to your predecessors' policies.'
Radical Islam, it has grown into a global jihad.
Everybody wants to talk about sectarian conflicts of the war in Iraq, but the fact of the matter is, Sunnis have lived with Shias in harmony more in the confines of Iraq, in that land, than they have been in conflict. That's an historical fact.
Rebuilding the military is something Putin will pay attention to.
If Assad continues to conduct strikes against the Free Syrian Army at will, it would be very difficult for them to have any success against ISIS.
Very unusual in an insurgency to have absolutely no political agenda other than to return to power. Most insurgents have a political side to them.
When you had thugs and bullies and killers imposing their will on their own people or other people - if you don't respond to it, it just keeps coming because they're encouraged by their own success.
ISIS itself, it draws its central belief system from the Koran and from the writings of the Prophet Muhammad. That is undeniable. And it's a medieval interpretation of it. It is a literal interpretation of it.
We have a sufficient political class, and the military doesn't have to get involved in high national office. The days of doing that, post-Civil War and post-World War II, are gone.
In the early 2009, a campaign plan developed by Petraeus and General McChrystal to defeat the Taliban, they required a minimum force of 40,000. President Obama rejected that recommendation and provided 25 percent less. He also decided he would pull the force out in 12 to 15 months.
By the end of 2008, clearly, the al Qaeda and Sunni insurgency had been relatively stabilized. And in the al Qaeda's mind, they were defeated. They actually said that in many of their transmissions that we were able to pick up. And the Shia militia, largely those trained by the Iranians in Basra and also in Sadr City, had been defeated.
In 2011, General Alston, four-star commander in Iraq, recommended to the President, a force level of over 20,000. The President rejected it and pulled out all the forces with what is now known as a disastrous consequence in Syria.
While conducting a conventional war in Iraq and Syria, ISIS has staged terrorist attacks on a global scale against the people from the countries who are fighting ISIS.
I totally disagree with the premise that al Qaeda is on the path to defeat. Quite the contrary, al Qaeda has deliberately decentralized its operations - not because of the relentless attacks we have had on its national leadership in Pakistan, but because its strategic objective is to dominate and control Muslim countries in the region.
Afghanistan is where much of the al Qaeda journey began. It is the main site where Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and their cohort rose to prominence fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. Afghan territory holds special significance to the group, which is committed to retaking it and re-establishing it as the base of a global movement.
I watched the Bush administration overreact to the Clinton administration, who believed they did too much nation building, sustaining other countries, and that's why we never put the commitment on Afghanistan and Iraq that should have been in there under their policy leadership.
Fighting forces, particularly ground forces, have to operate on the basis of unit cohesion.
I remember speaking to a sheik who came back into the political system in late 2008, laid down his arms. His troops became part of the Sons of Iraq, the so-called Sunni Awakening.
It's not that I can't be fooled, but I'm not fooled often.
Historically, aggression unanswered has led to more aggression.
In 2012, General Dempsey, General Petraeus directed the CIA, Secretary Panetta and Secretary Clinton recommended to the president to robustly arm and train the Syrian moderates. He says no. In 2013, conduct a military strike, same national security team, against the Assad regime because he violated the chemical red line. He says no.
In Washington, D.C., in 2006, Democrats had long since given up on the war in Iraq in terms of any tangible political support for it. The new factor was the Republicans were beginning to give up as well, and they were truly challenging the strategy and the lack of success.
President-elect Trump wants to win them if you're going to be involved in a war. I don't think he wants to be involved in war, but when we are, he wants to win.
Senator Clinton is very knowledgeable about national security and is probably going to be strong on defense. I have no doubts whatsoever that if she were president in January '09, she would not act irresponsibly and issue orders to conduct an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, regardless of the consequences, and squander the gains that have been made.
Frankly, our adversaries are emboldened by the lack of American leadership in the world, and our friends and our allies, they have lost trust in us.
Cyberespionage and cyberattack is exploding from our adversaries inside our country. We don't seem capable of stopping it.
I'm a New York kid, so when I saw that plane that hit the first building, I suspected it was terrorism - blue sky day.
In my own mind, it is profoundly disappointing to see what has occurred in Iraq given the sacrifice of our troops, given our commitment to removing Saddam Hussein and putting in place a fledgling government that would have a chance for a stable, secure Iraq.
Radical Islamists spread from Western Africa through the Middle East, all the way to South Asia to sub-Indian continent.
Afghanistan remains an opportunity to deal al Qaeda a vital strategic blow, especially since we have abandoned all operations - including counterterrorism operations - in Iraq.
The fact to the matter is, we never developed a comprehensive strategy to deal with radical Islam. And the 9/11 commission said one of the things we must do is develop a global alliance to combat it.
To get an Army that's already fighting a war to change in stride to a total different military strategy on the ground - and to get everybody on the same page - was accomplished by the sheer force of Dave Petraeus' will.
Here's the problem the Free Syrian Army has. They really want to topple the regime in Damascus, and this is where most of the fight takes place, between Aleppo and Damascus for the Free Syrian Army.
I believe, for a long time, protracted wars test the will of any democracy, to be sure, and people will underwrite a protracted war if they see some progress. But if they don't see progress, and it appears to be futile and useless, then that political support begins to evaporate rather quickly.
The issue with Syria, I think for many of us, has always been about Iran. This is an anchor point for them in terms of regional domination. It means a lot to them. They are all in here.
The thing I have in common with Donald Trump is, about a dozen years ago, we got a 'Man of the Year' award in New York City, the Hotel Plaza, from the USO.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10