Campaign Statements — Mitt Romney
Monday January 23, 2012
“Look, English is the language of this nation. People need to learn English to be able to be successful, to get great jobs. We don’t want to have people limited in their capacity to achieve the American dream because they don’t speak English. And so encouraging people through every means possible to learn the language of America is a good idea.
Recognize at the same time we want people coming here from other cultures that speak other languages. That strengthens America. It’s a great thing. But having them learn English is also a great thing for them and for their kids.”
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CATEGORIES: American Exceptionalism | Immigration | Mitt Romney |
Monday January 23, 2012
“This president, however, has done — made — made it very difficult for our troops to be able to be successful in that mission by, number one, announcing a withdrawal date for our troops, number two drawing down our surge troops faster than the time the commanders on the ground was necessary. You don’t draw them down during the middle of the fighting season. And finally, by not overseeing elections in Afghanistan to assure that the — the selection of their president was seen by the people as being legitimate. And he has failed in — in executing a policy in Afghanistan that would optimize our prospects of success.”
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Mitt Romney | War on Terror |
Monday January 23, 2012
“[You end a war in Afghanistan without talking to the Taliban] by beating them. By standing behind our troops and making sure that — that we have transitioned to the Afghan military, a capacity for them to be successful in holding off the Taliban. Our — our mission there, is to be able to turn Afghanistan and it’s sovereignty over to a military of Afghan descent — Afghan people that can defend their sovereignty. And that is something which we can accomplish in the next couple of years.”
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Mitt Romney | War on Terror |
Monday January 23, 2012
MODERATOR: “Governor — Governor Romney, last night, the Abe Lincoln, U.S. aircraft carrier and a couple other attendant U.S. Navy vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. If Iran was able to fulfill, carry out that threat to shut down the strait, would you consider that an act of war? What would you do about it as president?”
MITT ROMNEY: “Of — of course it’s an act of war. It is appropriate and — and essential for our military, for our Navy to — to maintain open seas. We have control of the commons, of space, air, and the seas. Our Navy has the capacity to do that — or did in the past.
Under this president and under prior presidents, we keep on shrinking our Navy. Our Navy is now smaller than any time since 1917. And — and — and the president is building roughly nine ships a year. We ought to raise that to 15 ships a year, not because we want to go to war with anyone, but because we don’t want anyone to take the — the — the hazard of going against us. We want them to see that we’re so strong they couldn’t possibly defeat us.
So we ought to have an aircraft carrier in the gulf, an aircraft carrier, and, of course, the task force with it in the Mediterranean. We want to show Iran, any action of that nature will be considered an act of war, an act of terror and — and America is going to be keep those sea lanes open.”
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CATEGORIES: Iran | Mitt Romney | War on Terror |
Monday January 23, 2012
“The actions that I will take will be actions recommended and supported by Israeli leaders. I don’t seek to take actions independent of what our allies think is best, and if Israel’s leaders thought that a move of that nature would be helpful to their efforts, then that’s something I’ll be inclined to do. But again, that’s a decision which I would look to the Israeli leadership to help guide. I don’t think America should play the role of the leader of the peace process, instead we should stand by our ally. Again, my inclination is to follow the guidance of our ally Israel, as to where our facilities and embassies would exist.”
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CATEGORIES: Israel/Palestine | Mitt Romney |
Thursday January 19, 2012
“...we need to underscore the fact that we’re a party of legal immigration. We like legal immigration. We want legal immigration.
And to protect legal immigration, we want to stop illegal immigration. And we don’t want to do anything that would suggest to people, come on in here, just wait long enough, whether it’s five years or 10 years, wait long enough and we’ll take you all in on an amnesty basis. I want people to get in line legally.”
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CATEGORIES: Immigration | Mitt Romney |
Thursday January 19, 2012
“This one is not tough: You build a fence, you have enough Border Patrol agents to secure the fence, and you also have a system of giving to people who come here legally an identification card, and you expect employers and insist that employers check that card before they hire someone.
If they don’t check the card, if they don’t run it through the U.S. database and get an instant response from the government or from Mastercard, Visa, American Express or whomever, then those—those employers are going to get severely sanctioned. If you do that, we solve the problem of illegal immigration.”
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CATEGORIES: Immigration | Mitt Romney |
Monday January 16, 2012
“Look, you have every right in this country to protest and to express your views on a wide range of issues but you don’t have a right to join a group that is killed Americans, and has declared war against America. That’s treason. In this country we have a right to take those people and put them in jail.
And I recognize, I recognize that in a setting where they are enemy combatants and on our own soil, that could possibly be abused…But let me tell you, people who join al Qaeda are not entitled to rights of due process under our normal legal code. They are entitled instead to be treated as enemy combatants.”
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Mitt Romney | War on Terror |
Monday January 16, 2012
“We don’t negotiate from a position of weakness as we’re pulling our troops out. The right course for us is to strengthen the Afghan military force so they can reject the Taliban.
Think what it says to the people in Afghanistan and the military in Afghanistan, when we’re asking them to stand up and fight to protect the sovereignty of their people, if they see us, their ally, turning and negotiating with the very people they’re going to have to protect their nation from. It’s the wrong course. The vice president’s wrong. We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban.”
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CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Mitt Romney | War on Terror |
Monday January 16, 2012
“The right course for America is to recognize we’re under attack. We’re under attack by people, whether they’re Al Qaeda or other radical violent jihadists around the world, and we’re going to have to take action around the world to protect ourselves. And hopefully we can do it as we did with Osama bin Laden, as opposed to going to war as we had to do in—in the case of—of Iraq. The right way, Congressman Paul, in my view, is—to keep us from having to go to those wars is to have a military so strong that no one would ever think of testing it. That’s the kind of military we have to have, and we have to pursue our interests around the world.”
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CATEGORIES: American Exceptionalism | Iraq | Islamophobia | Mitt Romney | War on Terror |
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Looking at Iran by James Zogby
Kahlil Gibran Awards Gala - April 16, 2013
