Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.
Multiple political parties are a fact of life throughout Europe and most of the West. Today the only countries without strong multiparty political systems are the United States and a number of third world military dictatorships.
In the army we are drilled into execution and then supervision, to make sure everything goes the way you planned it. But there is another thing that we do in the military, that I think perhaps isn't done enough in corporate life: As soon as you have made that decision, you start on the contingency planning. Because there is, as we like to say, a thinking, breathing enemy out there, who is not going to let you do just what you want.
After 911 we were prepared to use military force. We were prepared to go after not only the terrorists, but those who sponsor terror and provide sanctuary and safe harbor for them. We were prepared to use our intelligence assets the way we would against an enemy that threatened the United States itself, to put in place, for example, things like the Terror Surveillance Program and to have a robust interrogation program on detainees. Those are the acts you take when you feel you're at war and that the very existence of the nation is threatened.
The truth is that the fall of Napoleon is the hardest blow that our taxing system ever felt. It is now impossible to make people believe that immense fleets and armies are necessary.
A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them and make them things. And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together. What I'm saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, "America, you must be born again!"
Closing Guantanamo Bay is not a military solution. The closing of that prison, which I support, I supported it when I was in the Senate, requires more than just a military dimension.
And I have to tell you as a grandmother, I worry about the fact that my grandchildren are going to be paying for all the spending, including military spending, that has gone on and the tax cuts that have come through.
Live for something rather than die for nothing.
Washington's defeat in 1754 was followed by active military preparations on both sides.
If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?
I'm post-cynical on this stuff. I look at the El Salvador model as the glory days: Why don't we just fund the death squads secretly and keep our boys at home? That where I almost am at this point. Clearly the American military has been a force for good for the United States. There's a reason we have a standing military. But there's something to be said for having a much smaller military because then we wouldn't be tempted to get involved in things we shouldn't be getting involved in.
Only destruction of the enemy can be called victory.
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
Goddamn it, you'll never get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole! Follow me!
we ought to realize by now (see Korea, see Vietnam, see Afghanistan, see Iraq, see Iran) that deploying the US military, or dealing billions of dollars a year of arms to our ally of the moment that can serve as a regional rival to our enemy of the moment, is not always the best way to make threats go away. Our military and weapons prowess is a fantastic and perfectly weighted hammer, but that doesn't make every international problem a nail.
The fact that our largest presence in the world is our massive military is going to dictate how we engage with the world.
Those young ones who want to try military jihad are facing a triple issue. First of all, they are missing the point when it comes to understanding what there is at stake from a political viewpoint. How come so many of them are going to Syria and so few to Palestine, even though, when it comes to symbolism, Palestine definitively wins. Then, it is essential to understand that it is not a religious matter. Finally, let's not forget about the recruiters behind their screens. Those ones are quite skillful and well-supported financially.
Incendiary capitalism is carrying its out evil works more dangerously than ever, and is doing so in the increasingly dangerous neighborhood of the powder kegs that are the great European military powers.
The United States and China have both beefed up their naval presence in Southeast Asia, leading to fears of a military confrontation. This is just one example of China flexing its military muscle in recent months, and it coincides with a slowdown in the nation's economy.
