Campaign Statements — War on Terror

Monday January 16, 2012

“Why didn’t we try to get some information from him?”

“...think about Saddam Hussein. We did that. We captured him. We tried him. I mean the government tried him and he got hung. What’s so terrible about this?
This whole idea that you can’t capture—just a minute. This whole idea you can’t capture people…Adolf Eichmann was captured. He was given a trial. What is wrong with capturing people? Why didn’t we try to get some information from [Osama bin Laden]? You know, we are accustomed to asking people questions, but all of a sudden gone, you know, that’s it. So I would say that there are different ways without trying to turn around and say, oh, for some reason this doesn’t mean he’s supporting America.”

CATEGORIES: Ron Paul | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“We’re not leaving Afghanistan and the American people are sick and tired of it.”

“That’s what we have been doing in the Middle East, digging bigger and bigger holes for ourselves and it’s so hard for us to get out of that mess. And we have a long ways to go. We are still in Iraq and that’s getting worse and we are not leaving Afghanistan and the American people are sick and tired of it. 80 percent of the American people want us out of there. I am just suggesting that we work within the rule of law. Like only going to war when you declare the law, then we wouldn’t be…”

CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Iraq | Ron Paul | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“I’m trying to suggest…respect for another nation’s sovereignty.”

“Here we have a nation that we are becoming constantly trying to kill people who we consider our enemies. At the same time we are giving the government of Pakistan billions of dollars. Now there’s a civil war going on, the people are mad at us but yet the government is getting money from us and I think it’s a deeply flawed policy. But to not go after [Osama bin Laden]—and if I voted for the authority, obviously I think it was proper. But once they waited ten years, I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t have done it like they did after Khalid Sheikh Aman (ph). And that would have been a more proper way.

If somebody in this country, say a Chinese dissident come over here, we wouldn’t endorse the idea, well, they can come over here and bomb us and do whatever. I’m just trying to suggest that respect for other nation’s sovereignty—and look at the chaos in Pakistan now. We are at war in Pakistan, but to say that I didn’t want him killed…”

CATEGORIES: American Exceptionalism | Ron Paul | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“There’s a difference between military spending and defense spending.”

“You don’t understand there’s a difference between military spending and defense spending. Just because you spend a billion dollars on an embassy in Baghdad, bigger than the Vatican, you consider that defense spending. I consider that waste.”

CATEGORIES: Iraq | Ron Paul | War on Terror |

Monday January 16, 2012

“A golden rule in foreign policy.”

“Maybe we ought to consider a golden rule in foreign policy. Don’t do to other nations what we don’t want have them do to us. We endlessly bomb these countries and then we wonder why they get upset with us.”

CATEGORIES: Ron Paul | War on Terror |

Sunday January 15, 2012

“What’s been really disturbing to me is…this administration and their disdain for the military.”

[In reference to a video showing US Marines urinating on the dead bodies of alleged members of the Taliban.]

PERRY: Well, obviously, 18, 19-year-old kids make stupid mistakes all too often, and that’s what’s occurred here. But, you know, when you’re—when you’re in war—and history, kind of, backs up there’s a picture of General Patton doing basically the same thing in the Rhine river. And although there’s not a picture, Churchill did the same thing on the Siegfried line.

So I’ll tell you what’s been really disturbing to me is just, kind of, the over-the-top rhetoric from this administration and their disdain for the military, it appears, whether it’s the secretary of state or whether it’s the secretary of defense. I mean, these kids made a mistake. There’s not any doubt about it. They shouldn’t have done it. It’s bad. But the—the—to call it a criminal act, I think, is over the top.

CROWLEY: Well, here’s the problem, I think. All the things that you mentioned as part of history was before YouTube; it was before the Taliban; it was before this feeling that the U.S. somehow does not respect, you know, religions.This is—this is something that’s not just a picture. It’s not just a message to Americans. It’s a message that could hurt us in the larger world. So I’m not sure the exact age of them, but no matter what age they are, is this the kind of behavior that you think you can tolerate in the day and age when that picture is everywhere?

PERRY: Well, here’s the issue. I will suggest to you that these are 18, 19, 20-year-old kids. They make mistakes. There is video out there of all types of things, I will suggest to you. But the idea that this administration would go after these young people for a criminal act is—again, I think it is over the top and—and did they make a mistake? Absolutely. Should they be reprimanded and appropriately punished? Yes. But going after them as a criminal act, I think—really bad message.

CATEGORIES: Afghanistan | Rick Perry | War on Terror |

Saturday January 07, 2012

“The biggest problem that America faces is a president that doesn’t understand the military.”

“You cannot cut $1 trillion from the Department of Defense budget and expect that America’s freedoms are not going to be jeopardized. That, to me, is the biggest problem that America faces, is a president that doesn’t understand the military and a president who is allowing the reduction of the DOD budget so that he can spend money in other places, and it will put America’s freedom in jeopardy.”

CATEGORIES: American Exceptionalism | Rick Perry | War on Terror |

Saturday January 07, 2012

“We’re going to no longer have the capacity to fight two wars at a time.”

“We’re facing a very dangerous world. And we have a president now who unbelievably has decided to shrink the size of the military. Who unbelievably has said, for the first time since FDR, we’re going to no longer have the capacity to fight two wars at a time.”

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

Saturday January 07, 2012

“We’re…not being honest with the American public as to who the enemy is…and why they hate us.”

“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.”

CATEGORIES: Islamophobia | Rick Santorum | War on Terror |