Campaign Statements — Barack Obama
Saturday May 26, 2012
“In Afghanistan, President Obama laid out a clear strategy. Our commanders refocused and redoubled their efforts on disrupting, dismantling and ultimately destroying—defeating al Qaeda, reversing the Taliban’s momentum and training the Afghan Security Forces to prevent extremists from gaining ground. Since then, you have taken out more than half of al Qaeda’s senior leadership.
And in a mission that will go down in the annals of intelligence and special operations, some of America’s most gifted security professionals tracked down Osama bin Laden—after the trail had gone cold. And in one of the most incredibly daring raids, they delivered justice to the architect of a harmful ideology—a hateful ideology with no place in the modern world and the man responsible for the deaths of almost 3,000 innocents on our soil. They got him.
And in the process, those warriors sent a message to the world that if you harm America, we will follow you to the end of the Earth.”
- Joseph Biden, Vice President
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Barack Obama | War on Terror |
Friday May 25, 2012
“We have a choice of Mitt Romney who literally has the most extreme policy on immigration of any presidential candidate in history and Barack Obama who is strongly supportive and has pushed for comprehensive immigration reform against the candidate who totally opposes it. Mitt Romney’s solution is to make sure that we just deport them all.
…What he has said is that his policy would be that we should just create an environment in which the 12 million undocumented immigrants that are here would just self-deport. It’s an unrealistic expectation. It’s an inhumane expectation. Mitt Romney’s policy is to embrace fully the Arizona-style immigration law that would actually let police round up people who are doing nothing more than driving down the street and asking them for their papers and then deporting — putting them into immigration, reporting them to immigration based on simply existing.
Mitt Romney wants to fight to kick undocumented immigrants out of this country.”
- Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)
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CATEGORIES: Barack Obama | Civil Liberties | Immigration |
Wednesday May 23, 2012
“We need to move forward so that we can stop denying citizenship to responsible young people just because they’re the children of undocumented immigrants. This is a country that is at its best when we harness the God-given talents of every individual; when we hear every voice; when we come together as one American family, and we’re striving for the same dream.”
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CATEGORIES: Barack Obama | Immigration |
Wednesday May 23, 2012
“My opponent has different ideas. He said it was “tragic” to end the war in Iraq, and won’t set a timeline for ending the war in Afghanistan. I have set a timeline. Our coalition partners and the Afghans agree with me. I intend to keep it. After a decade of war that’s cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars, the nation we need to build is our own. We’re going to use half of what we’re no longer spending on the war to pay down our deficit, use the other half to invest in education and research and wireless networks and smart grids and broadband lines and new runways. And that’s the choice in this election.”
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Barack Obama | Iraq |
Monday May 21, 2012
“[The weaponization of nuclear power is of] grave concern to all of us [in the G8]. All of us are firmly committed to continuing with the approach of sanctions and pressure in combination with diplomatic discussions. We are unified on our approach to Iran. Our hope is that we can resolve this issue in a peaceful fashion that respects Iran’s sovereignty and its rights in the international community, but also recognizes its responsibilities.”
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CATEGORIES: Barack Obama | Iran |
Sunday May 20, 2012
“I just want to stress my appreciation for the hard work that President Karzai has done. I think he recognizes the enormous sacrifices that have been made by the American people and, most profoundly, by American troops, as well as the troops of our other coalition partners. We recognize the hardship that the Afghan people have been through during these many, many years of war. Both of us recognize that we still have a lot of work to do, and there will be great challenges ahead. The loss of life continues in Afghanistan; there will be hard days ahead. But we’re confident that we are on the right track, and what this NATO summit reflects is that the world is behind the strategy that we’ve laid out.”
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Barack Obama |
Tuesday May 01, 2012
“There will be difficult days ahead. But as we move forward with our transition, I’m confident that Afghan forces will grow stronger, the Afghan people will take control of their future. With [the Strategic Partner Agreement], I am confident that the Afghan people will understand that the United States will stand by them, and they will know that the United States can achieve our goal of destroying al Qaeda and denying it a safe haven, but at the same time, we have the capacity to wind down this war and usher in a new era of peace here in Afghanistan.”
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Barack Obama | War on Terror |
Tuesday May 01, 2012
“The United States has not come here to claim resources or to claim territory. We came with a very clear mission: We came to destroy al Qaeda. And we have enormous respect for Afghan sovereignty and the dignity of the Afghan people. Together, we’re now committed to replacing war with peace and pursuing a more hopeful future as equal partners.
To borrow words from this agreement, we are committed to seeking a future of justice, peace, security, and opportunity. And I’m confident that although our challenges are not yet behind us, that the future before us is bright.”
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Barack Obama | War on Terror |
Tuesday May 01, 2012
“Neither Americans nor the Afghan people asked for this war. Yet, for a decade, we’ve stood together to drive al Qaeda from its camps, to battle an insurgency, and to give the people of Afghanistan the possibility to live in peace and in dignity. The wages of war have been great for both our nations. But today, with the signing of the Strategic Partnership Agreement, we look forward to a future of peace.
Together, we’ve made much progress. We’ve reached an agreement to transition detention facilities to Afghan control, and to put Afghans in the lead on special operations. And today, we’re agreeing to be long-term partners in combating terrorism, and training Afghan security forces, strengthening democratic institutions and supporting development, and protecting human rights of all Afghans. With this agreement, the Afghan people in the world should know that Afghanistan has a friend and a partner in the United States.”
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Barack Obama | War on Terror |
Tuesday May 01, 2012
“I will not keep Americans in harm’s way a single day longer than is absolutely required for our national security. But we must finish the job we started in Aghanistan, and end this war responsibly.”
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Barack Obama |
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Kahlil Gibran Awards Gala - April 16, 2013
