"Terrorists driven by a desire to 'create a caliphate' of sharia law in the middle east continued to plot attacks. 'Terrorists live among us,' he said"
GP conflates these statements to imply that those among us want to create Sharia or whatever among us, but Alexander did say the words.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-keith-alexa...
I'd like to add,
The Gulf States are already under Sharia, and have been since their founding almost a century ago. The Taliban copied Saudi Arabia, even using the exact same names for bureaucracies. [2] Relations with them were excellent before 9/11.
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Promotion_of_....
But, as Iraq showed, there's no need to understand elementary facts about their culture before you invade and engage in a massive social engineering project, or engage in an global, eternal, "war on terror".
I can guarantee you that the people who directed the Iraq Wars knew full well the elementary facts about their culture before invading and engaging in a (partially) global war on terror. They know that you can't win a war against a technique, and they know that going to war in these areas attracts terrorists who want to fight against you. The only question was where the game board was going to be placed, and that question was answered over 20 years ago.
It was only in the portrayal to the taxpayer and the invaded that these were left as unknowns.