Campaign Statements — Rick Santorum
Monday January 23, 2012
“And when you asked the question, Brian, are we at — is this is an act of war? Well, let’s look at the acts of war that Iran — they are — they are holding hostages, they are attacking our troops. Their IEDs - the improvised explosive devices - that are killing our troops in Afghanistan and killed them in Iraq and maimed so many, were produced, and people were trained and funded in Iran specifically to kill American troops.
You look at the ships that have been attacked by Iran, embassies were attacked by Iran. A — Iran has plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador here in this country. It is a long list of attacks of — of warlike behavior on the part of this regime. And to believe that if they have a nuclear weapon they’re somehow going to become into the community of nations is a reckless act on the part of a president. It would be reckless not to do something to stop them from getting this nuclear weapon.”
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CATEGORIES: Iran | Rick Santorum |
Monday January 23, 2012
“What happens if Iran gets a nuclear weapon and the entire world changes? Iran is not just another country, or a little, small country, as President Obama said classically during the campaign. Obama’s Iran policy has been a colossal failure.
It’s been a failure because he’s not been true to the American public about the threat that Iran poses to the world. Not just to Israel, but to the world and to the United States.
The bottom line is the theocracy that runs Iran is the equivalent of having al Qaeda in charge of a country with huge oil reserves, gas reserves, and a nuclear weapon. That is something that no president could possibly allow to have happen under any circumstances.”
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CATEGORIES: Iran | Rick Santorum | War on Terror |
Monday January 23, 2012
“It’s not 1962. They’re now with the Cubans and the Venezuelans, the Nicaraguans. There is a growing network of folks now working with the jihadists, the Iranians, who are very, very excited about the opportunity to having platforms 90 miles off our coast, just like the Soviets were, very anxious to have platforms 90 miles off our coast, or in Venezuela, or in Nicaragua, and other places they could come across the southern border.
This is a serious threat. It’s a threat that I’ve been talking about for about six or seven years. And it’s one that’s not going to go away until we — we confront the threat and hopefully are able to convince the Cuban people that, through what Newt and others have suggested, to — to change their government at the appropriate time.”
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CATEGORIES: Iran | Rick Santorum | War on Terror |
Thursday January 19, 2012
“And if you want to be an American, the first thing you should do is respect our laws and obey our laws. And the idea that someone, whether it’s either of these two gentlemen, whether the idea that someone who came here and lived here 25 years has only broken one law, if they’ve worked for 25 years they’ve been breaking the law for 25 years. If they’ve been working they have probably stolen someone’s Social Security number and they’ve committed Social Security fraud. This is not just a single occurrence. It’s an ongoing issue. And if we treat people like that differently than we do with a mother who out of a desperate situation goes out and shoplifts or does something and gets thrown in jail, what are we saying—that we’re going to treat people in this country who do things for their family differently than those who are here illegally? I don’t think so.”
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CATEGORIES: Immigration | Rick Santorum |
Monday January 16, 2012
“First off, I would say this, what the law should be and what the law has been is that if you are a United States citizen and you are detained as an enemy combatant, then you have the right to go to federal court and file a habeas corpus position and be provided a lawyer. That was the state of the law before the National Defense Authorization Act and that should be the state of the law today.
If you are not an American citizen, that’s one thing. But if you are a citizen and you are being held indefinitely, then you have the right to go to a federal court—and again, the law prior to the National Defense Authorization Act was that you had the right to go to a court, and for that court to determine by a preponderance of the evidence whether you could continue to be held. That is a standard that should be maintained and I would maintain that standard as president.”
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CATEGORIES: Civil Liberties | Rick Santorum | War on Terror |
Monday January 16, 2012
“President Obama has dealt with it about as badly as possible. First he emboldened Assad by coming into office and establishing an embassy there, reestablishing diplomatic relationships, going through the process of trying to rehabilitate this tyrant. All, I’m sure, to the consternation of our friend, Israel who has consistently done the opposite, tried to step away and isolate Israel while at the time they’re trying to negotiate in a very difficult situation in their country.
With respect to Syria, look, Syria and Assad are a threat to Israel. I was the author of a bill when I was in the United States Senate to put sanctions on Syria. And in fact, they worked to get Syria out of Lebanon, which was—which was step number one. That’s no longer a viable option. We need to rally the international community, work and cooperate with removing Assad and work in—in concert with the Arab League, work with others.”
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CATEGORIES: The Arab Spring | Israel/Palestine | Rick Santorum |
Saturday January 07, 2012
“This president has sanitized every defense document, everything. The word radical Islam doesn’t appear anywhere. Why? Because we’re trying to fight this politically correct war and not being honest with the American public as to who the enemy is, how virulent they are and why they hate us and what we must do to stop them.”
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CATEGORIES: Islamophobia | Rick Santorum | War on Terror |
Saturday January 07, 2012
“He has been making mistakes at every turn in Iran, in Egypt, I would argue, Libya, Syria, Israel. All of these places, he has made mistakes on the ground that have shown the people in that region that we are the weak horse…That’s what this administration has done. They did it by withdrawing from Iraq…”
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CATEGORIES: The Arab Spring | Iran | Iraq | Israel/Palestine | Rick Santorum | War on Terror |
Saturday January 07, 2012
“Well, Congressman Paul is talking about privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment, which I agree with him in, I don’t necessarily agree that the Patriot Act violates that.”
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CATEGORIES: Civil Liberties | Rick Santorum |
Tuesday January 03, 2012
“All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis, they’re not Palestinians… There is no ‘Palestinian.’”
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CATEGORIES: Israel/Palestine | Rick Santorum |
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Looking at Iran by James Zogby
Kahlil Gibran Awards Gala - April 16, 2013
