Campaign Statements — War on Terror

Monday January 16, 2012

“Don’t give up on our American judicial system so easily, I beg of you.”

“I think we are going in the wrong direction for the protection of our liberties here at home. They are under deep threat. The PATRIOT Act has eliminated the fourth amendment. We now have a policy of preemptive war, you don’t have to declare war and you don’t even have to have an enemy. We can start the wars, that’s what preemptive war is all about.

Now with the military appropriations defense act, this is major. This says that the military can arrest an American citizen for under suspicion, and he can be held indefinitely, without habeas corpus, and be denied a lawyer indefinitely even in a prison here.

Let me give you one statistic. You’re worrying about all these—all these—where we’re going to try people, where are they going to do it, we have to do it secretly, because our rule of law is so flawed. We have arrested 362 people related to Al Qaeda-type operation; 260 of them are in prison. They’ve been tried and convicted. So don’t give up on our American judicial system so easily, I beg of you.”

CATEGORIES: Civil Liberties | Ron Paul | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“If you are a citizen and…being held indefinitely…you have the right to go to a federal court.”

“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.”

CATEGORIES: Civil Liberties | Rick Santorum | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“People who join al Qaeda are not entitled to rights of due process.”

“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.”

CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Mitt Romney | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“The Taliban used to be our allies.”

“The Taliban used to be our allies when we were fighting the Russians. So Taliban are people who want—their main goal is to keep foreigners off their land. It’s the al Qaeda, you can’t mix the two. The al Qaeda want to come here to kill us. The Taliban just says we don’t want foreigners. We need to understand that, or we can’t resolve this problem in the Middle East. We are going to spend a lot of lives and a lot of money for a long time to come.”

CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Ron Paul | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“Go to zero with foreign aid for all of those countries.”

“Well, obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by, what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then yes. Not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to be in NATO, but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it.

And you go to zero with foreign aid for all of those countries. And it doesn’t make any difference who they are. You go to zero with that foreign aid and then you have the conversation about, do they have America’s best interest in mind? And when you have countries like Turkey that are moving far away from the country that I lived in back in the 1970′s as a pilot in the United States Air Force that was our ally, that worked with us, but today we don’t see that.

Our president, has a foreign policy that makes our allies very nervous and emboldens our enemies. And we have to have a president of the United States that clearly sends the message, whether it’s to Israel, our friend and there should be no space between the United States and Israel, period.”

CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Iran | Iraq | Israel/Palestine | Rick Perry | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

‘We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban.”

“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.”

CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Mitt Romney | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“We’re under attack by people.”

“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.”

CATEGORIES: American Exceptionalism | Iraq | Islamophobia | Mitt Romney | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“They’ve killed Americans. We go anywhere they are, and we kill them.”

“Of course you take out our enemies, wherever they are. These people declared war on us. They’ve killed Americans. We go anywhere they are, and we kill them. The right thing for Osama bin Laden was the bullet in the—in the head that he received. That’s the right thing for people who kill American citizens. Now, the Taliban is killing Americans. This president has done an extraordinary thing. He announced the date of our withdrawal. He announced the date of the withdrawal of our surge forces based upon a political calendar, not the calendar that the commanders on the ground said it was based for our mission. That was wrong.”

CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Iraq | Mitt Romney | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“We need to save the money and bring our troops home.”

“This idea that we can’t debate foreign policy, then all we have to do is start another war? I mean, it’s—it’s warmongering. They’re building up for another war against Iran, and people can’t wait to get in another war. This country doesn’t need another war. We need to quit the ones we’re in. We need to save the money and bring our troops home.”

CATEGORIES: Iran | Ron Paul | War on Terror |