Bernard-Henri Levy Quotes

Terrorism needs to be fought against and certainly delegitimized or attacked, but some of the underlying grievances that might in fact lead individuals astray to terrorism cannot be ignored.

Terrorism is carried out purposefully, in a cold-blooded, calculated fashion. The declared goals of the terrorist may change from place to place. He supposedly fights to remedy wrongs -- social, religious, national, racial. But for all these problems his only solution is the demolition of the whole structure of society. No partial solution, not even the total redressing of the grievance he complains of, will satisfy him -- until our social system is destroyed or delivered into his hands.

We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists. We invite terrorism by ignoring them.

Terrorism is resorted to for practical reasons because there is no other tool available. And those who use terrorism, and then subsequently become the targets of terrorism, understand its power and how difficult it is to counter it. Not just militarily. But especially in terms of international perception.

Afghanistan must never again be a safe haven for terrorism.

The war against terrorism is a war against those who engage in torture.

If we ever hope to rid the world of the political AIDS of our time, terrorism, the rule must be clear: One does not deal with terrorists; one does not bargain with terrorists; one kills terrorists.

We should not look at terrorism from the nameplates - which group they belong to, what is their geographical location, who are the victims. These individual groups or names will keep changing. Today you are looking at the Taliban or ISIS; tomorrow you might be looking at another name.

Suicidal violence is not the exclusive property of the Muslim world. Suicide bombings were a tactic of nationalist struggles in 19th-century Europe and Russia, the far east during the second world war and the Vietnam war, and in modern Sri Lanka.

Fighting the Taliban and the various radical organizations on the front lines is like adding a Band-Aid to a cut, it may stop the bleeding but unless you clean it with antiseptic, the germs stay and multiply.

And we need to maintain our foothold in the fight against terrorism and terrorist groups and respond to any degradation of Iraqi security or stability.

It does surprise me that intelligent people in the 21st century could claim that if you respond to the terrorists with force, you spawn terrorism, but if you appease them, you somehow tame them. This argument, as I said, is very interesting, and very surprising.

Terrorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic used by an enemy in pursuit of a political objective. There will be no final victory against terrorism, but there may be victories that are close enough to final against particular political groups that use terror tactics.

I don’t think one can speak of defeating the IRA, of eliminating them completely, but it is the design of the security forces to reduce their level of violence to something like an acceptable level.

You can’t negotiate with them. You can’t buy them off. They want a change of the world. The only way to defeat the Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists is to persuade them to abandon their effort…. It must be an intellectual victory.

You cannot fight one terrorist organization by making use of another terrorist organization.

If you think you can finish ISIS off with the PYD and YPG, you cannot, because they are terrorist groups as well.

The West only talks about how you can militarily defeat the terrorists, but terrorists are very difficult to defeat because they can appear anywhere.

We have to fight all terrorist groups, and not arm one to fight another.

We need to eradicate these terrorist groups, wherever they are. If we failed to do it, we are just waiting for the next.

Today, few terrorist organizations still employ the 'al-Qaeda model' in which individuals travel to terrorist training camps overseas and then are deployed to the West to inflict atrocities.

We will continue to work around the world to beat ISIS about where they may exist, these are horrible ideologies or murderous ideologies.

A big challenge in combating terrorism is learning how to think about things that we can't imagine.

In 2001, terrorism was fought in a completely different way.

It's not in our interest, nor in the interest of other countries in the region, for terrorists to regroup again.