Peter Bergen Quotes

Often it is important to listen to what people aren't saying.

I am very suspicious of the notion that somehow bin Laden was a media creation... Bin Laden's actions made him into a big deal. Not the media.

There's some pretty good academic research that suggest that what Americans don't like is losing.

At one point people in al Qaeda were actually drawing monthly paychecks when they were based in Sudan.

Bin Laden comes out of a business background - he studied public administration and economics at university, and he worked for his family company, which was obviously a rather successful enterprise.

So Pakistan is a country that I'm very fond of and have spent a lot of time, but it is a country where conspiracy theories have a life of their own.

Bin Laden's death is just a punctuation point on a set of problems they've had for a long time. I think the prognosis for al-Qaida and groups like it is really bad, and that's a good thing.

Most Muslims don't want to live in some Taliban-style utopia, which is what bin Laden and allied groups are offering.

And in the end, bin Laden died in a squalid suburban compound surrounded by his wives and children and far from the front lines of his holy war.