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Vanity is a confounded donkey, very apt to put his head between his legs, and chuck us over; but pride is a fine horse, that will carry us over the ground, and enable us to distance our fellow-travelers.
We have this unfortunate habit in the United States of dividing terrorism into different categories. External, foreign terrorism, which manifests itself overseas or in the United States, or domestic terrorism.
In the following pages I have endeavoured to describe all that appeared to me most important and interesting among the events and the scenes that came under my notice during my sojourn in the interior of Africa.
There's only two classes of people: terrorists and non-terrorists. Terrorists come in every flavour: there are Buddhist terrorists right now killing Rohingya in Burma! Buddhists! They're not allowed to kill bugs.
I've expressed concern about the assaults on our institutions, both from external sources - meaning the Russians - and internal sources. And I think this will be a real test of the resilience of our system and its pillars.
It is clear that the Trump administration doesn't have the same reticence that the Obama administration did in terms of putting more boots on the ground, especially conventional troops, as opposed to special operations troops.
Loyalty to the family must be merged into loyalty to the community, loyalty to the community into loyalty to the nation, and loyalty to the nation into loyalty to mankind. The citizen of the future must be a citizen of the world.
The expedition had now performed its functions. I saw that old father Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria Nyanza, and as I had foretold, that lake is the great source of the holy river which cradled the first expounder of our religious belief.
Most ISIS members are irreconcilable. Once they've bitten that bug, that cultish bug, they would prefer to die. They're going to be given the opportunity, no one's going to get out alive from Iraq and Syria now. They make sure everyone's a suicide bomber now.
I am a citizen of the Soviet Union and I think sharp measures need to be taken against anti-Soviet forces that are trying to make their way into the leadership. In addition, it is vitally important to maintain the lines of communication with Germany through Poland.
Never complain. When I did, my mother said that if I didn’t like my life, I could just give up and die. She reminded me that when I was inside her, I told her that I wanted to be born, so she delivered me, breastfed me and changed my diapers. She said that I had to be brave.
Law enforcement does counter political extremism here in the United States in the exact same way that they do political extremists who are infiltrated into the United States, who may come from a religious motivation, as we saw overseas in Europe. But the same methodologies have to be used.
Trump doesn't understand the counterintelligence process. Take, for example, Carter Page. He's been appearing on television and acting as though the U.S. intelligence community monitoring his activities in Russia and suspicions that he may have been in league with Russian intelligence is an affront.
The ghost caliphate will be a virtual organization; it'll be decentralised, with no leadership, and it will just encourage people to keep acting now that the caliphate's gone, that individuals should go do self-starting jihad. Get a gun, get an improvised weapon, take your car, and carry out the jihad.
We have lots of challenges around the world, and I have no doubt the intelligence community will continue to watch them, monitor them, and report on them. The issue is, with all of our other distractions here in Washington, particularly, will the appropriate attention be paid to each one of these issues?
We had a general awareness, for example, of Russian use of social media - Facebook ads, use of Twitter, fake news implants - we had a general understanding of that. But now, as time has elapsed and time has gone on, I've certainly learned a lot more about the depth and breadth of what the Russians were about.
Obviously, what's happening in China right now is crucial, in the party congress, which as someone said has anointed a new emperor of China in President Xi. So there's the rise of China, and their active involvement in the United States internally in our business and financial realms. That certainly bears watching.
Trump will not resign. But the allegations that are arrayed right now! The corruption is in our face. He changed his trust, supposed to have been a blind trust, which it was not, he changed it so that he could withdraw profits personally at any time from facilities that are being paid by the United States. It's corrupt.
ISIS rules Muslim apostates every day and then beheads them. Poorly educated guys get Islam for Dummies, petty criminals who think they're suddenly changing their lives because they see the light. The best way to fight them is to show them they don't know Islam at all, and that they are in fact working for the other side.
I think Trump's presidency represents a completely different model than what we're used to. And I think to your point, yes, he is a great communicator, you know? He uses Twitter to great effect. I just wish he could stick more to the truth, because it's a very effective way of communicating directly with the American people.
I don't think the intelligence community itself institutionally is losing its focus; it will continue to do its job; continue to be vigilant on all issues that are besetting us. I think the greater danger is just the preoccupation of the policy community, and how much attention they pay to what the intelligence community is telling them.
The problem is that I don't think the American people realize how much of our intelligence is actually derived from our partners. If our partners cannot feel or do not trust that our president will not divulge that information to, I mean, goodness gracious, the Russians in this case, then that could create real problems for us going forward.
When I visited North Korea in November 2014, is that Kim Jong-un is not merely the head of state of the DPRK - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea - he's also their deity. So, when you insult him as the head of state, you're also insulting the deity, which of course the regime plays to a fare-thee-well to the domestic audience there.
If we - particularly, if we peremptorily attack North Korea - that without deliberation, that North Korea will reflexively unleash all the rocketry and artillery - which they're pretty good at, by the way - on Seoul, and do as they vowed many times, to convert Seoul into a sea of fire. So, if we do something like this, this will have cataclysmic results.
The Russians have to be celebrating with a minimal expenditure of resources and what they have accomplished. Of course, what's unfolded now, here, the leader of the lead of the investigation about potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been removed. So the Russians have to consider this as another victory on the scoreboard for them.
Trump wants to be an autocrat, he does want to be a Vladimir Putin-style ruler. His chief strategic advisor, Steve Bannon, is a follower of Alexander Dugin. Dugin believes liberal democracy should be destroyed and it should be destroyed from the right, and an alliance of autocracy should form between the United States, Europe and Russia, in order to confront Islam.
There`s actually some fluidity here in the United States. Using local intelligence against [terrorism].But you still have to infiltrate these groups. You still have to collect intelligence as you see fit. And they are organized. They are very well organized in the anti-abortion movement. Ideologically, they`re almost the same. And that`s where we see these spurts of violence.
But what was most remarkable, Broadway being three miles long, and the booths lining each side of it, in every booth there was a roast pig, large or small, as the centre attraction. Six miles of roast pig! And that in New York City alone; and roast pig in every other city, town, hamlet, and village in the Union. What association can there be between roast pig and independence?
President Trump has the advantage of being surrounded by an excellent cadre of advisors. Kim Jong-un doesn't have any advisors that are going to give him objective counsel. He's surrounded by medal-bedecked sycophants, who dutifully follow him around like puppy dogs with their notebooks open, ascribing his every utterance, and pushing back against the great leader is not a way to get ahead.
There is no difference between an ISIS gunman and an American gunman that goes into a mosque, or the gunman Baruch Goldstein who went into the mosque in Bethlehem and killed 29 guys about fifteen years ago. Goldstein took his service weapon and tried to kill everybody in the mosque. He shot over a hundred people. There's no monopoly on terrorism. Terrorism experts know this and we live according to that.
ISIS is going to devolve from physical political emirate, into what Al Qaeda was, which is a covert organization which will go completely underground. But to communicate and to keep propagating their propaganda, after everyone is dead, all their fanboys and whatever surviving leadership that has been operating outside the war or operates in Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan, they will form what we call a "ghost caliphate."
Impeachment is our system's last resort for someone who treats himself or herself as above the law, the most relevant thing is whether this president, by his recent course of action, on top of his violations of the foreign corruption or emoluments clause, this president has shone that he cannot be trusted to remain within the law and our constitution's last resort for situations of that kind is to get the person out of office.
The president sets the tone. He creates the atmosphere, and that can be enlightened, progressive, or it can be intimidating, depending on what the president's agenda is. I think the other dimension of this that I worry about is impacts overseas with friends and allies, many of whom are very, very concerned about America's position in the world and whether or not it's going to continue its leadership, which has been the prevalent condition since World War II.
First Russians objective was - as I said earlier - to sow discord, discontent, disruption. And their next objective was - because of the very strong personal animus that Putin himself had for both Clintons, both President Clinton and Secretary Clinton - and he particularly held her responsible for what he felt was an attempted color revolution in 2011 to attempt to overturn him. So, he had very strong hatred - personal hatred - towards her, and that kind of led him to - if I'm opposed to her, who am I going to favor?
The two most capable nation state adversaries in the cyber domain are clearly Russia and, of course, China. And I do think Russia poses a huge threat in the way they have used the cyber domain. That, to me, by the way, is the big issue here, is Russian interference in our political process, in our election process. And that is an egregious act by them. And they will continue to do that and I think more aggressively than they have in the past. And I think it's something Americans, all American citizens need to be aware of.
If I cannot narrate a life of adventurous and daring exploits, fortunately I have no heavy crimes to confess: and, if I do not rise in the estimation of the reader for acts of gallantry and devotion in my country's cause, at least I may claim the merit of zealous and persevering continuance in my vocation. We are all of us variously gifted from Above, and he who is content to walk, instead of to run, on his allotted path through life, although he may not so rapidly attain the goal, has the advantage of not being out of breath upon his arrival.
The Russians succeeded, I believe, beyond their wildest expectations. Their first objective in the election was to sow discontent, discord, and disruption in our political life, and they have succeeded to a fare-thee-well. They have accelerated, amplified the polarization and the divisiveness in this country and they've undermined our democratic system. They wanted to create doubt in the minds of the public about our government and about our system; and they succeeded to a fare-thee-well. They've been emboldened and they will continue to do this.
In the vast archipelago of the east, where Borneo and Java and Sumatra lie, and the Molucca Islands, and the Philippines, the sea is often fanned only by the land and sea breezes, and is like a smooth bed, on which these islands seem to sleep in bliss,--islands in which the spice and perfume gardens of the world are embowered, and where the bird of paradise has its home, and the golden pheasant, and a hundred others of brilliant plumage, whose flight is among thickets so luxuriant, and scenery so picturesque, that European strangers find there the fairy land of their youthful dreams.