Foreign Policy
Page 10
- The relationship has truly been fine. Our defense cooperation and intelligence sharing, which has been substantial in both directions, and our work on anti-missile and anti-rocket defense have been very good. And this work continues under Chuck Hagel and President Obama - and I’m pleased with that. That doesn’t mean we can’t have differences of opinion on Iran.
- If you look at what the factors were going into the decision, of course there are competing interests and values. And one of our values is we bring everybody home off the battlefield the best we can. It doesn't matter how they ended up in a prisoner of war situation…It doesn’t matter. We bring our people home.
- Patriots don't go to Russia. They don't seek asylum in Cuba. They don't seek asylum in Venezuela. They fight their cause here. Edward Snowden is a coward. He is a traitor. And he has betrayed his country. And if he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music, he can do so.
- The interesting thing to me about me the release of the POW, Sergeant Bergdahl, is the Republicans immediately criticizing that. We saved an American and foreign policy gets criticized. We lose American lives on foreign soil, the president gets criticized. Are you seeing a theme here? It's politics.
- Israel is now an instrument in the hands of Hamas, not the opposite. Hamas doesn't care if its population suffers under the attacks or not, because the population is suffering anyway. Hamas doesn't really care about their own casualties either. They want to achieve something that will change the situation in Gaza.
- A Palestinian has built this home with his money. Are Israelis expecting him to leave just like that?
- There are an awful lot of things going on that need understanding and explanation, but - to put it mildly - the world is a mess.
- These are children we are talking about - not just numbers, not just data, not political pawns. And, although most may not meet the refugee threshold needed to stay in the United States, many may. How are we supposed to hold our heads high on humanitarian issues if, in our haste for a fix and our fixation on deterrence, we return even a few children to a place where their lives are in danger?
- We do have to treat people the way Americans always treat people, with the highest level of compassion and care. But they will have to be returned, because that is the law. If you ignore that, if you don't apply that - as heartbreaking as it may be - you are basically telling another 80,000 people to try to come.
- The presumption in that question is that…he was going to McDonald's for milkshakes every Friday night and we could have just picked him up in a taxicab. These people deliberately try to evade capture, and putting yourself in a position where you can properly ID and move against them takes a lot of planning. I don't think anybody's going to apologize for the effort over such a long period of time that eventually led to his capture.
- If you can't afford to take care of your veterans, then don't go to war.
- Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country. It's kleptocracy, it's corruption, it's a nation that's really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy.