Background Image

...

I Will Never Conduct A War Or Start A War Because We Want To; The United States Of America Should Only Go To War Because We Have To. And If You Live By That Guidance, You'll Never Have Veterans Throwing Away Their Medals Or Standing Up In Protest.

-John F. Kerry

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Will Never Conduct

John F. Kerry

...

I Will Never Conduct A War Or Start A War Because We Want To; The United States Of America Should Only Go To War Because We Have To. And If You Live By That Guidance, You'll Never Have Veterans Throwing Away Their Medals Or Standing Up In Protest.

Views: 7

Topic

More From John F. Kerry

I Have Confidence In My Campaign. I Have Assembled A Great Team That Is Going To Beat George W. Bush, And Any Rumors To The Contrary Are Completely Erroneous.

We Cannot Continue To See The Middle East In The Context Of 9/11. We Must See It In The Context Of 2011.

Too Many People In America Believe That If You Are Pro-choice That Means Pro-abortion. It Doesn't. I Don't Want Abortion. Abortion Should Be The Rarest Thing In The World. I Am Actually Personally Opposed To Abortion. But I Don't Believe That I Have A Right To Take What Is An Article Of Faith To Me And Legislate It To Other People. That's Not How It Works In America.

So We Can Do A Better Job Of Homeland Security. I Can Do A Better Job Of Waging A Smarter, More Effective War On Terror And Guarantee That We Will Go After The Terrorists. I Will Hunt Them Down, And We'll Kill Them, We'll Capture Them. We'll Do Whatever Is Necessary To Be Safe.

Guarantees That

If Saddam Hussein Is Unwilling To Bend To The International Community's Already Existing Order, Then He Will Have Invited Enforcement, Even If That Enforcement Is Mostly At The Hands Of The United States, A Right We Retain Even If The Security Council Fails To Act.

Values Are Not Just Words, Values Are What We Live By. They're About The Causes That We Champion And The People We Fight For.

I Know Something About Killing. I Don't Like Killing. And I Don't Think A State Honors Life By Turning Around And Sanctioning Killing.

We Need To Put Our Faith And Trust In The People On The Frontlines -- And Back It Up With Real Resources. We Need To Make Sure First Defenders Have The Gear And Support They Need, And The Benefits And Protections They've Earned. With New Technology And Ingenuity, By Doing More To Sustain Our First Defenders And Calling On Americans To Do More For Their Country, We Can Make Our Country Stronger, Safer, And More Secure.

You Know, Education, If You Make The Most Of It, You Study Hard, You Do Your Homework And You Make An Effort To Be Smart, You Can Do Well. If You Don’t, You Get Stuck In Iraq.

That's What I Am Standing Up For - Israel's Future As A Jewish And Democratic State Living Side-by-side In Peace And Security With Its Neighbors.

We Should Not Allow A Tiny Minority Of Shoddy Scientists And Science And Extreme Ideologues To Compete With Scientific Facts.

I Still Believe Americas Destiny Is To Become A Living Testament To What Free Human Beings Can Accomplish By Acting In Unity.

Remember The Hours After September 11th When We Came Together As One To Answer The Attack Against Our Homeland. We Drew Strength When Our Firefighters Ran Upstairs And Risked Their Lives So That Others Might Live; When Rescuers Rushed Into Smoke And Fire At The Pentagon; When The Men And Women Of Flight 93 Sacrificed Themselves To Save Our Nation's Capitol; When Flags Were Hanging From Front Porches All Across America, And Strangers Became Friends. It Was The Worst Day We Have Ever Seen, But It Brought Out The Best In All Of Us.

It's Very Hard To Get Other Countries To Give Up Their Weapons When You're Busy Developing A New One.

In The Middle Of The Cavernous Cargo Hold Was A Simple, Aluminum Coffin With A Small American Flag Draped Over It. We Were Bringing Another American Soldier, Just Killed, Home To His Family And Final Resting Place. The Starkness Of His Coffin In The Center Of The Hold, The Silence Except For The Din Of The Engines, Was A Real Time Cold Reminder Of The Consequences Of Decisions For Which We Senators Share Responsibility.

America That Has Done More To Support Israel Than Any Other Country Cannot Be True To Our Own Values If We Allow A Viable Two-state Solution To Be Destroyed Before Our Own Eyes.

You Just Don't Invade Another Country On Phony Pretext In Order To Assert Your Interests!

The Fact Is That In Too Many Parts Of Our Country, We Still Have Discrimination. And Affirmative Action Is Not Just Something That Applies To People Of Color. Some People Have A Mistaken View Of It In America. It Also Is With Respect To Women, It's With Respect To Other Efforts To Try To Reach Out And Be Inclusive In Our Country.

We Are Not Interested In A Proxy War. Our Objective Is To Change Russia's Behavior.

America Must Always Be The World's Paramount Military Power. But We Can Magnify Our Power Through Alliances.

I Commanded A Naval Gunboat Patrolling The Mekong Delta. Then When I Came Home After Two Tours Of Duty, I Decided That The Same Sense Of Service Demanded Something More Of Me.

Not To Wax Nostalgic About The 1970s, But Back Then People Got Upset When They Saw Injustice. They Got Tired Of Seeing Our Air, Land And Water Polluted. They Were Shocked When The Cuyahoga River In Ohio Was Polluted So Badly It Caught Fire. And On One Great Day 20 Million Americans Marched All Across This Land. Politicians Had No Choice But To Take Notice.

I Had A Chance To Talk With President [vladimir] Putin And He Clearly Said To Me Very Directly, "i Will Think About That. I Will Think About This Challenge Of How We Win." Look, This Is Not Easy For Putin. Everybody Says, "oh, Putin's Made A Big Move." Well, Putin Is [in Syria] Now; And If He Wants To Fight Isil Alone, That's A Challenge, Folks.

Remember The Hours After Sept. 11 When We Came Together As One...it Was The Worst Day We Have Ever Seen, But It Brought Out The Best In All Of Us.

It's One Thing To Be Certain, But You Can Be Certain And You Can Be Wrong.

We Can't Change Minds Without Knowing What's In Them.

Confronting Climate Change Is, In The Long Run, One Of The Greatest Challenges That We Face, And You Can See This Duty Or Responsibility Laid Down In Scriptures, Clearly.

The Measurement In This Race Is Not Where You Come From, It Is "what Do You Fight For."

You Cannot Bring Peace In Syria As Long As [bashar] Assad Is, In Fact, There.

As The Saying Goes, I Have Big Heels To Fill.

It's Pretty Standard Fare In Political Discourse. You Misconstrue What Somebody Said. You Isolate A Statement, You Lend Your Interpretation To It And Then Feign Moral Outrage. And Democrats Have Been Doing It For Years.

I'm Fascinated By Rap And By Hip-hop. I Think There's A Lot Of Poetry In It. There's A Lot Of Anger, A Lot Of Social Energy In It. And I Think You'd Better Listen To It Pretty Carefully, 'cause It's Important.

[bashar] Assad Has Made A Series Of Choices Ever Since Then That Is Literally Destroying His Country.

I Actually Did Vote For The $87 Billion, Before I Voted Against It.

We Deserve A President Of The United States Who Will Write Laws For All Americans, Not For Campaign Contributors. And I Intend To Be A President For All Americans Who Takes Back The Flag Of Our Country Because It Doesn't Belong To Any Party, Doesn't Belong To Any President.

I Think The Question Of Abortion Is One That Should Be Left For The States To Decide.

We Do Have To Take The Long-term View. And Long Term, The Question To Ask Ourselves Is Whether America Should Attack Others Pre-emptively, Whether She Should Embroil Herself In Wars Far Away From Our Soil, And Try To Bring Democracy By Force To The Rest Of The World.

And Here And Now We Must Insist Again That Fidelity, Honor, And Love Of Country Demand Untrammeled Debate And Open Dissent. At No Time Is That Truer Than In The Midst Of A War Rooted In Deceit And Justified By Continuing Deception.

We're In A Battle For Our Lives For Things That Really Matter To Us. There's A Shell Game Going On Like I've Never Seen Before.

Today, If You're An American Business, You Actually Get A Benefit For Going Overseas. You Get To Defer Your Taxes. So If You're Looking At A Competitive World, You Say To Yourself, "hey, I Do Better Overseas Than I Do Here In America".

I'm Going To Make Available To Every American The Same Health Care Plan That Senators And Congressmen Give Themselves.

The Threat Of Saddam Hussein With Weapons Of Mass Destruction Is Real, But As I Said, It Is Not New. It Has Been With Us Since The End Of That War, And Particularly In The Last 4 Years We Know After Operation Desert Fox Failed To Force Him To Reaccept Them, That He Has Continued To Build Those Weapons. He Has Had A Free Hand For 4 Years To Reconstitute These Weapons, Allowing The World, During The Interval, To Lose The Focus We Had On Weapons Of Mass Destruction And The Issue Of Proliferation.

Mass Destruction

Violence Has To End. And Israelis Have A Bright To Defend Themselves Against Any Violence That Is Attacking Innocent People With A Knife In The Old City In Jerusalem Or Elsewhere. No Country Should Be Under Siege Like That.

Medicare Is Paid For By The American Taxpayer. Medicare Belongs To You. Medicare Is For Seniors, Who Many Of Them Are On Fixed Income, To Lift Them Out Of Poverty.

The Consequences Of A Crime Should Not Be Out Of Proportion To The Crime Itself.

I'm John Kerry, And I'm Reporting For Duty.

Ask Osama Bin Laden Is He Is Better Off Now Than He Was Four Years Ago.

Osama Bin Laden

I Think As We Celebrate The 70th Anniversary Of The Un, It's A Good Moment To Rekindle Our Efforts To Make Multilateralism Work Yet Again. And I'm Proud To Say That In The Iran Agreement I Think We Did Show That It Can Work.

America Now Stands As The World's Foremost Power. We Should Be Proud: Not Since The Age Of The Romans Have One People Achieved Such Preeminence. But We Are Not Romans; We Do Not Seek An Empire. We Are Americans, Trustees Of A Vision And A Heritage That Commit Us To The Values Of Democracy And The Universal Cause Of Human Rights.

I Think That Too Far, Too Much, To A Greater Degree Than Is Anywhere Near Appropriate, America And Our Politics Are Being Governed By More And More Powerful Interests, By Fewer And Fewer People In The Sense Of The Amount Of Money That Has Controlled Access And Other Kinds Of Things.

The Hope Is There. The Sun Is Rising. Our Best Days Are Yet To Come.

I Don't Want To Claim That God Is On Our Side. As Abraham Lincoln Told Us, I Want To Pray Humbly That We Are On God's Side.

These Guys [republicans] Are The Most Crooked, You Know, Lying Group I've Ever Seen.

We Have Staring Us In The Face Here An Enormous Opportunity To Actually Find A Way Forward To Have Peace And Stability In Syria, To Reconstitute It. It'll Take Years To Do That. This Will Not Be An Easy Fight Even With Concerted Coordination With Respect To Isil. But It Is Far More Doable With That Kind Of Approach Than Otherwise.

Great Challenges Confront Our Great Nation. We Seek To Meet Them By Rising To The Task, Not By Defining Our Country Down.

I Came Into Public Life During The 1960s When A Whole Bunch Of Us Believed In Our Ability To Change The World. And We Did A Lot Of Things.

Ability To Change

If You Can Resolve This Transition Of [bashar] Assad, That Is Absolutely Possible, But You Have To Have A Clarity For Everybody About The Way Forward.

I Want To Start By Saying Something Nice About President Bush. Of All The Presidents We've Had With The Last Name Of Bush, His Economic Plan Ranks In The Top Two.

I Have A Plan To Protect The Environment So That We Leave This Place In Better Shape To Our Children Than We Were Handed It By Our Parents.

I Think, All In All, The Obama Administration And What President Obama Has Focused On Has Lived Up To Our Need To Protect American Interests, To Live Our Values And Assert Our Values, And To Stand Up For Future Generations.

We Are Being Americans When We Hold Our Government To Account. We Are Being False To Our Troops When We Send Them To A Needless War, Betraying Their Trust When We Shortchange Them On Protective Equipment, And Cheating Them When We Silently Cut Their Benefits.

When The Nations Of The World Look Upon The United States, They See A Country Which Has Achieved What They Would All Like To Become One Day. Whether It Is In The Field Of Science, Art, Music, Agriculture, Politics, Economics Or War, The United States Is The Leader.

This Is Deeply Disturbing. Congress Provided Loans To Help Businesses Hurt By The Sept. 11 Attacks, Not To Be Used As An Accounting Gimmick To Cover Up This Administration's Failure To Provide For Small Businesses.

It Appears That With The Deadline For Exile Come And Gone, Saddam Hussein Has Chosen To Make Military Force The Ultimate Weapons Inspections Enforcement Mechanism. If So, The Only Exit Strategy Is Victory, This Is Our Common Mission And The World's Cause.

When We Walk Away From Global Warming, Kyoto, When We Are Irresponsibly Slow In Moving Toward Aids In Africa, When We Don't Advance And Live Up To Our Own Rhetoric And Standards, We Set A Terrible Message Of Duplicity And Hypocrisy.

Folks, Sarah Palin Said She Could See Russia From Alaska. Mitt Romney Talks Like He's Only Seen Russia By Watching 'rocky Iv.'

I Voted To Threaten The Use Of Force To Make Saddam Hussein Comply With The Resolutions Of The United Nations.

Each And Every Child In This Country Is Valuable Because They Are Our Future As A Society. We Cannot Afford To Lose A Single Child To Ill-health, Under-education, Abuse, Addiction, Jail, Or Gun Violence. America's Highest Goal Should Be For Every Child To Grow Up To Be A Successful Young Adult -- Healthy, Educated, Free, Secure, And A Good Citizen.

I Think That Our Own Crisis Of Democracy Is In Its Own Way Affecting Our Ability To Leverage In The Same Way That We Used To In The World.

The World Has To Save Syria. I Mean, This Has Dramatic Implications For The Entire Region, Globally.

I Can't Take My Catholic Belief, My Article Of Faith, And Legislate It On A Protestant Or A Jew Or An Atheist. We Have Separation Of Church And State In The United States Of America.

Think About This: Terrorism, Epidemics, Poverty, The Proliferation Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction-all Challenges That Know No Borders-the Reality Is That Climate Change Ranks Right Up There With Every Single One Of Them.

It's Hard To Say That Something Is Legitimate When A Whole Portion Of The Country Can't Vote And Doesn't Vote.

I Think The United States Is Still The Indispensable Force For Positive Change And For Rule Of Law And For Order And Structure.

We Do Not Need More Division. We Certainly Do Not Need Something As Complex And Emotional As Vietnam Reduced To Simple Campaign Rhetoric.

Glossed Over The Disastrous War And Its Multibillion-dollar Price Tag And Implied Again That Our Presence In Iraq Is Somehow Improving The Situation In That Chaotic And Turbulent Country. The Congress Must Stand Up Against Bush's Plan To Escalate The War.

The Reagan Administration Has No Rational Plan For Our Military. Instead, It Acts On Misinformed Assumptions About The Strength Of The Soviet Military And A Presumed 'window Of Vulnerability,' Which We Now Know Not To Exist.

I Heard Katty Kay's Name And I Know Katty Kay Said We Didn't Have A Plan. Well, There Is A Plan, And The President [barack Obama] Is Moving Forward With Any Number Of Options And Ways To Augment Our Efforts On Isil.

The Fact Is That You Literally, By Definition, Cannot Have A Jewish State And A Democratic State And Have A Whole Bunch Of Palestinians In It Who Are Living Under Military Rule While The Rest Of The Country Is Living Under Civil Rule, And They Have Different Rights And Different - It's Just Not A Democracy.

I Refuse To Stand By While Our Democracy Is Trampled By Politicians More Concerned About Amassing Power Than Helping The People Who Sent Them To Washington In The First Place.

I Just Want To Assure You That Both President Bush And I Have Very Firm Alibis.

If You Don't Believe ... Saddam Hussein Is A Threat With Nuclear Weapons, Then You Shouldn't Vote For Me.

I Am Sympathetic To Developing Countries’ Concerns: Because Of Our Emissions It’s Their Crops That Will Disappear; Because Of Our Inaction, It’s Their Fields That Turn To Desert...

Developing Countries

The Ukrainian People Should Not Be Coerced. Make No Mistake: The Us Stands Together With The Ukrainians Aspiring For Democracy.

I Am A Veteran, I Fought In A War. I've Been A Prosecutor. I've Sent People To Jail For The Rest Of Their Life.

I'm Motivated By My Passion For Our Basic Values, Protecting Our Interests, And For Protecting The Future.

It's Hard To Believe That In The Greatest Democracy In The World, We Need Legislation To Prevent The Government From Writing And Paying For The News.

We Have To Create A Process Which Has Legitimacy For The People Of Syria. And We Have To Have A Process Where The Russians And The Iranians And The Neighbors - All Of Them, Saudis, Turks, Qataris, A Very Complicated Brew - That You Have To Bring Them Together And They Can Find Agreement. That's The Fundamental Premise Of The Geneva Communique That You Will Have, By Mutual Consent, A Process Of Transition.

I'm Not Going To Put My Energy Into Focusing On Things That Are Hypothetical That We Don't Know.

Those Who Deny The Science Or Choose Excuses Over Action Are Playing With Fire.

You Just Don't In The 21st Century Behave In 19th Century Fashion By Invading Another Country On Completely Trumped Up Pre-text.

We Need To Talk To All The Players In The Middle East, Not Because We Agree With Them, But Because They Play A Role.

You Can't Have Responsibility And You Can't Have Us Living Up To Our Ideals Unless It's Based On A Fairly Common Acceptance Of Truth, Of What Is True - What Is The Truth Here?

The Big Hang-up Was George Bush Wanted To Get Life Lines, You Know, So He Could Call Somebody.

This Fight Against Drilling In The Arctic Refuge Is A Fight About Our Principles. Its About Standing Up For Our Environment, Our Families And Our Future, And I Wont Give Up This Fight.

In A Few Years, You Should Be Able To Plug Your American-made Plug-in Hybrid Into The Outlet In Your Garage, So That You Never Use A Drop Of Gas On Your Daily Commute. This Won't Happen Overnight, But I Promise You, It Is Closer Than You Think.

America Is The One That Leads The Effort To Make Sure The Freedom Of Navigation In The South China Sea Is Protected.

I'm A Catholic, Raised A Catholic. I Was An Altar Boy. Religion Has Been A Huge Part Of My Life. It Helped Lead Me Through A War, Leads Me Today.

War On Terror Is Far Less Of A Military Operation And Far More Of An Intelligence-gathering, Law-enforcement Operation.

Intelligence Gathering

As President, I Will Not Be The Last To Know What Is Going On In My Command.

If [bashar] Assad Himself Could Save This Whole Process By Saying, "i Will Engage In A Managed Transition Where We All Work Together To Stabilize The Government, Save The Institutions Of Government, And Turn On Isil And Preserve Syria." That Could Happen. It All Depends On One Man, And Russia And Iran Should Not Be So Stubborn Here That They Tie This Whole Thing Up Simply Because Of One Person.

In Order To Have The Best Intelligence In The World To Know Who The Terrorists Are And Where They Are And What They're Plotting, You've Got To Have The Best Cooperation You've Ever Had In The World.

We Will Not Be Derailed By Criminal Anarchists Who Legitimately Claim A Religious Cause.

I Think George Mitchell Is A Consummate Professional. He Is The Ideal Selection To Handle The Job Of Special Envoy If You Choose To Have A Special Envoy.

We Are A Nation Of Laws And Liberties, Not Of A Knock In The Night. So It Is Time To End The Era Of John Ashcroft. That Starts With Replacing The Patriot Act With A New Law That Protects Our People And Our Liberties At The Same Time.

And Now That The Greatest Generation Is Getting Older, I Think It Is The Responsibility Of All Americans To Make Sure We Do Our Part For America's Seniors. You Have Earned The Best Of America -- And We Need To Make Sure You Get The Protection And Health Care You Deserve.

We Must Retool Our Nation To Prepare For The Challenge We Already Face To Maintain Our Position In The Global Economy. And This Much Is Certain: America Will Not Have National Security Without Economic Security.

You Might Not See Climate Change As An Immediate Threat To Your Job, Your Community, Or Your Families," Kerry Said. "but Let Me Tell You, It Is." He Continued, "climate Change Is Directly Related To The Potential Of Greater Conflict And Greater Instability. I'm Telling You That There Are People In Parts Of The World - In Africa Today, They Fight Each Other Over Water. They Kill Each Over It. And If Glaciers Are Melting And There's Less Water Available And More People, That Is A Challenge We Have To Face.

Republican Secretaries Of State From Kissinger To Baker, Powell To Rice, President Bush, 71 United States Senators All Supported President Obama's New Start Treaty, But Not Mitt Romney.

From The Moment I Take Office, I Will Stand Up To The Special Interests And Stand With Hardworking Families So That We Can Give America Back Its Future And Its Ideals.

Our Troops Are Terrorizing Women And Children In The Dark Of Night In Iraq.

Unlike Washington, Which Is Stuck In Ideological Gridlock, Americans Feel The Impact Of Climate Change In Their Own Hometowns And They Know Something Must Be Done.

I Think That All Of The Cyber Attacks That Are Taking Place, But Particularly This - The Russian One, Had A Profound Impact On The American System, On Our Political Process, On Our - It Invaded The Space Of Our Election. The Releasing On A Regular Basis Of One Party's Stolen Emails Had An Impact, And I Think That Other Things Also Had An Impact.

We Spent A Fair Amount Of Time On Ukraine. And I Think There's A Path That We Discussed That We Will Follow Up On In Order To Try To Resolve Some Of The Outstanding Issues In Order To Fully Implement Minsk.

There Are All Kinds Of Atrocities, And I Would Have To Say That, Yes, Yes, I Committed The Same Kind Of Atrocities As Thousands Of Other Soldiers Have Committed In That I Took Part In Shootings In Free Fire Zones. I Conducted Harassment And Interdiction Fire.

If You Think I Would Have Gone To War The Way George Bush Did, Don't Vote For Me.

Climate Change Is Real. The Science Is Compelling. And The Longer We Wait, The Harder The Problem Will Be To Solve.

I Don't Think Losing 3 Million Jobs, Having Deficits As Far As The Eye Can Go, Having 2 Million People Lose Their Health Insurance, Turning Your Back On Kids In Schools And Not Funding No Child Left Behind Represents A Vision.

Under This [bush] Administration, America's Middle Class Has Been Abandoned -- Its Dreams Denied, Its Main Street Interests Ignored And Its Mainstream Values Scorned By A White House That Puts Privilege First.

Without Question, We Need To Disarm Saddam Hussein. He Is A Brutal, Murderous Dictator, Leading An Oppressive Regime ... He Presents A Particularly Grievous Threat Because He Is So Consistently Prone To Miscalculation ... And Now He Is Miscalculating America's Response To His Continued Deceit And His Consistent Grasp For Weapons Of Mass Destruction ... So The Threat Of Saddam Hussein With Weapons Of Mass Destruction Is Real.

Mass Destruction

I Believe That This President [george W. Bush], Regrettably, Rushed Us Into A War, Made Decisions About Foreign Policy, Pushed Alliances Away. And, As A Result, America Is Now Bearing This Extraordinary Burden Where We Are Not As Safe As We Ought To Be.

Martin Luther King Challenged The Conscience Of My Generation, And His Words And His Legacy Continue To Move Generations To Action Today At Home And Around The World. His Love And Faith Is Alive In Millions Of Americans Who Volunteer Each Day In Soup Kitchens Or In Schools, Or Who Refused To Ignore The Suffering Of Millions They'd Never Met In Far-away Places When A Tsunami Brought Unthinkable Destruction. His Vision And His Passion Is Alive In Churches And On Campuses When Millions Stand Up Against The Injustice Of Discrimination Anywhere, Or The Indifference That Leaves Too Many Behind.

I'm Glad The President Finally Found An Economic Development Program. I'm Just Sad That It's Only In Baghdad.

In This Remarkable Time For The World, I Refuse To Believe It's Time To Stop Believing In The Possibilities Of Our Remarkable Country. I Refuse To Accept The Downsizing Of The American Dream. I Refuse To Bet Against American Entrepreneurial Spirit And American Ingenuity.the Competition's Tough, And It Requires Us To Be Tougher - Tough-minded, Never Hard Hearted.

We Don't Differ With The Government On The Demands [on Iran], But We Totally Reject How Bibi Is Handling It. Bibi Sacrificed Good Relations With The U.s. To Keep The Status Quo On The Palestinians. He Poked The [obama] Administration In The Eye On Settlements Just To Appease Right-wingers

Governor Dean Has No Policy On Iraq Evidently, Except 'no.' 'no' Is Not A Policy.

How Do You Ask A Man To Be The Last Man To Die In Vietnam? How Do You Ask A Man To Be The Last Man To Die For A Mistake?

There Are Issues Of War And Peace. And Then, There Are Issues Of Life And Death Like This One That Are No Less Morally Compelling Than War Itself.

We Don't Need A President Who Just Says, "gentlemen, Start Your Engines." We Need A President Who Says, America, Let's Start Our Economy And Put People Back To Work.

Just The Fact That We Can't Pass Budgets In Our Congress, Just The Fact That We Are Gridlocked In Our Own Democracy, The Fact That Everybody Who Travels Can See That We're Not Investing In Our Airports, In Our Rail, In Our Infrastructure And So Forth, People Are Noticing A United States That Is Not Getting The Job Done In Some Ways.

The Race For The White House Should Be About Leadership, And Leadership Requires That One Help Heal The Wounds Of Vietnam, Not Reopen Them.

You Can't Play Sports Without Losing Sometimes And, In Losing, You Learn Something About Grace And How To Act Under Pressure.

George Bush Sold Us On Going To War With Iraq Based On The Threat Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction. But We Still Haven't Found Them.

Mass Destruction

Where Are They Now That We, The Men Whom They Sent Off To War, Have Returned? These Are Commanders Who Have Deserted Their Troops, And There Is No More Serious Crime In The Law Of War. The Army Says They Never Leave Their Wounded. The Marines Say They Never Leave Even Their Dead. These Men Have Left All The Casualties And Retreated Behind A Pious Shield Of Public Rectitude. They Have Left The Real Stuff Of Their Reputation Bleaching Behind Them In The Sun In This Country.

I Would Rather Be The Candidate Of The Naacp Than The Nra.

There Should Be A Transatlantic Renaissance Between The Us And Europe Based On Shared Prosperity, Security, And Values.

I Believe America Is Safest And Strongest When We Are Leading The World And We Are Leading Strong Alliances.

I Believe America's Best Days Are Ahead Of Us Because I Believe That The Future Belongs To Freedom, Not To Fear.

I Look Forward To Standing Up And Holding George Bush Accountable For Pushing Seniors Off Of Medicare Into Hmos.

Reduce Us Military Presence In Iraq; And Bring In Neighbors.

I Believe It Is Both Unwise And Even Wrong To Interfere In The Affairs Of Other Nations. Indeed, If We Are Honest, We Will See That This Is One Of The Reasons For 9-11.

I Saw How Different Life Was On Different Sides Of The Same City. I Saw The Fear In The Eyes Of People Who Were Not Free. I Saw The Gratitude Of People Toward The United States For All That We Had Done. I Felt Goosebumps As I Got Off A Military Train And Heard The Army Band Strike Up 'stars And Stripes Forever.'

If You Don't Have Two States, You Have One State, Already The Non-jewish Population Outnumbers The Jewish Population In One State.

Bush-mccain Stategy In Iraq Is Policy To Stay, Not To Win.

The Problem With The American Health-care System That It Is Not Working For The American Family.

American Family

Those Who Doubted Whether Iraq Or The World Would Be Better Off Without Saddam Hussein, And Those Who Believe Today That We Are Not Safer With His Capture, Don't Have The Judgment To Be President.

America Has An Ability To Try To Make Some Things Happen That Other Countries Don't Necessarily Have.

If America Is At War, I Won't Speak A Word Without Measuring How It'll Sound To The Guys Doing The Fighting When They're Listening To Their Radios In The Desert.

As I Have Said For Two Years Now, When Osama Bin Laden And Al-qaeda Were Cornered In The Mountains Of Tora Bora, It Was Wrong To Outsource The Job Of Capturing Them To Afghan Warlords Who A Week Earlier Were Fighting Against Us.

Our Military Is Overextended. Nine Out Of 10 Active-duty Army Divisions Are Either In Iraq, Going To Iraq Or Have Come Back From Iraq. One Way Or The Other, They're Wrapped Up In It.

Assassination, Kidnappings And Suicide Attacks Have Become Too Much The Standard Operating Procedure In The Islamic World. So Much So That The Name Of Islam Itself Has Been Diminished In The Eyes Of Many People. It Is The Responsibility Of All Of Us, And Particularly Those In The Islamic World Who Care About Their Religion, To Rescue It From Its Increased Association With Violence.

If We Can't Have A Serious Conversation Without Politicizing It On Cable Tv And Making It A Scoring Point For One Day, We're In Trouble.

We Must Recognize That There Is No Indication That Saddam Hussein Has Any Intention Of Relenting. So We Have An Obligation Of Enormous Consequence, An Obligation To Guarantee That Saddam Hussein Cannot Ignore The United Nations. He Cannot Be Permitted To Go Unobserved And Unimpeded Toward His Horrific Objective Of Amassing A Stockpile Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

Mass Destruction

Guarantees That

I Saw Courage Both In The Vietnam War And In The Struggle To Stop It. I Learned That Patriotism Includes Protest, Not Just Military Service.

If The Tea Party Folks Would Go Out There And Get Angry Because They Think Their Taxes Are Too High, For God's Sake, A Lot Of Citizens Ought To Get Angry About The Fact That They're Being Killed And Our Planet's Being Injured By What's Happening On A Daily Basis By The Way We Provide Our Power And Our Fuel And The Old Practices That We Have. That's Something Worth Getting Angry About.

I Can Tell You, Massachusetts, Fastest Growing Sector Of Our Economy Is Clean Energy And Energy Efficiency Companies. And They're Growing Faster Than Any Other Sector.

I Know That Our Country Is Strongest When We Lead The World, When We Lead Strong Alliances. And That's The Way Eisenhower And Reagan And Kennedy And Others Did It.

After Mitt Romney Said It Would Be Naive To Go Into Pakistan To Pursue The Terrorists, It Took President Obama, Against The Advice Of Many, To Give That Order And Finally Rid This Earth Of Osama Bin Laden. Ask Osama Bin Laden Is He Is Better Off Now Than He Was Four Years Ago.

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.

I Don't Know What Compassionate Conservative Means. Does It Mean Cutting Kids Out Of After School Programs, Does It Mean Drilling In The Arctic Wildlife Refuge? Does It Mean Sending Kids To Iraq Without Body Armor That's State Of The Art?

American Soldiers [are] Going Into The Homes Of Iraqis In The Dead Of Night, Terrorizing Kids And Children, You Know, Women, Breaking Sort Of The Customs Of The ñ Of ñ The Historical Customs, Religious Customs.

People Talk About [bashar] Assad Running Syria. He Doesn't Control His Own Country. He's Down To About 20, 25 Percent Of The Country. What Is This Fiction That He Is Somehow The Only Person Who Can Save Syria? There's - With Assad There, There Is No Syria. So That's What The Iranians And The Russians Need To Really Begin To Focus In On.

I’ve Often Said That Global Climate Change Is An Issue Where No One Has The Luxury Of Being “half-pregnant.” You Either Are Or You Aren’t. And So It Is With Climate Change. You Either Understand And Accept The Science – Or You Don’t. Folks This Isn’t A Cafeteria Where You Can Pick And Choose And Accept The Science That Tells Us What Is Happening, But Then Reject The Science That Warns Us What Will Happen.

I Get Always A Little Uptight When I Hear Politicians Say How Exceptional America Is.

I Am Not A Spokesperson For The Church And The Church Is Not A Spokesperson For The United States Of America.

Our Military Deserves Leadership That Matches Their Service And Patriotism. Getting Our Troops The Pay Raise They Deserve Is The Very Least We Can Do To Show How Much We Value Everything They Do For Us.

I Will Never Cede The Authority Of Our Country Or Our Security To Any Other Nation. I'll Never Give A Veto Over American Security To Any Other Entity - Not A Nation, Not A Country, Not An Institution.

Our Cause In The War On Terror Isn't Helped When We Have Army Officers Like Lieutenant General William Boykin Speaking In Evangelical Churches And Claiming This As Some Sort Of Battle For The Christian Religion. That's Wrong. That's Un-american.

When President Bush Sees America, He Sees Only A Military Superpower. I See A Moral And Idealistic Beacon. Mr. Bush May Talk About Democracy All He Wants, But It Is Not Democracy To Wilfully Disdain And Heap Scorn On World Opinion. We Do Not Command Moral Leadership By Starting Pre-emptive Wars.

I Think That For Many Of Us, The Years Of The Civil Rights Movements - Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy Running For President In 1968 To End The War And So Forth - These Were Defining Moment In Terms Of Trying To Hold Government Accountable And Have A Level Of Responsibility And Truth-telling.

Iraq May Not Be The War On Terror Itself, But It Is Critical To The Outcome Of The War On Terror, And Therefore Any Advance In Iraq Is An Advance Forward In That.

America Has Not Led But Fled On The Issue Of Global Warming.

Sunni Are The Majority Of The [syria], 60 To 65 Percent. They've Been Ruled By [bashar] Assad, Who Represents A Minority Alawite Element, Which Is About 12, 13 Percent. And Because Of The Choices Assad Made, It's Very Difficult To See How You Resolve This Without Buy-in From The Sunni World.

We Do Not Need To Divide America Over Who Served And How. I Have Personally Always Believed That Many Served In Many Different Ways.

No One Is Going To Question My Commitment To The Defence Of Our Nation. I Don't Know What It Is These Republicans, Who Didn't Serve In Any War, Have Against Those Of Us Who Are Democrats Who Did.

You'd Be Amazed At The Number Of People Who Want To Introduce Themselves To You In The Men's Room. It's The Most Bizarre Part Of This Entire Thing.

America Is The Most Powerful Economy In The World. We're An $18-trillion-dollar Economy.

We Need A New Approach To National Security - A Bold, Progressive Internationalism That Stands In Stark Contrast To The Too Often Belligerent And Myopic Unilateralism Of The Bush Administration.

National Security

Jesus Did Not Help Just The Sick Who Could Afford To Pay For It.

In Case After Case, President Bush's Actions Have Made American Women Less Safe And Less Secure -- On The Job And On The Streets. As President, I Will Put American Government And Our Legal System Back On The Side Of Women. I Will Stand Up For Their Security, Ensure Their Safety, Support Their Rights, And Guarantee Their Dignity. This Nation Can Do No Less.

Gender Based Violence Anywhere Is A Threat To Peace And Security Everywhere.

President Clinton Was Often Known As The First Black President. I Wouldn't Be Upset If I Could Earn The Right To Be The Second.

I Accept That Friends Of Ours Have Decided That The President's Non-strike Has Somehow Impacted Perceptions Of Us. But I Believe They Are Dead Wrong And I Think The Critics Are Dead Wrong, And Here's Why. The President [barack Obama] Made His Decision To Strike. He Announced His Decision To Strike Publicly. And The Purpose Of The Strike Was To Get The Chemical Weapons Out Of Syria. That's The Purpose.

I've Met Foreign Leaders Who Can't Go Out And Say This Publicly, But Boy, They Look At You And Say, You've Got To Win This, You've Got To Beat This Guy, We Need A New Policy, Things Like That.

I Promise Just To Serve Two Terms. Republicans Do It Differently. They Just Have The Son Repeat The Father's Whole First Term.

For Those Of Us Who Are Fortunate To Share An Irish Ancestry, We Take Great Pride In The Contributions That Irish-americans.

I Mean Does Israel Want A Third Intifada?

We Must Uphold The Promise Of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, And Clinton And Never Allow The President And His Republican Friends To Threaten Social Security By Putting It On The Wall Street Trading Block.

It Is The Duty Of Any President, In The Final Analysis, To Defend This Nation And Dispel The Security Threat. Saddam Hussein Has Brought Military Action Upon Himself By Refusing For 12 Years To Comply With The Mandates Of The United Nations. The Brave And Capable Men And Women Of Our Armed Forces And Those Who Are With Us Will Quickly, I Know, Remove Him Once And For All As A Threat To His Neighbors, To The World, And To His Own People, And I Support Their Doing So.

My Dad Was A Member Of The Greatest Generation That Achieved Victory In World War Ii. This Was The Generation That Saved The World From Fascism, Came Home And Built The Great American Middle Class, Led The Way In The Civil Rights Movement, Protected Our Environment, And Created Great Programs Like Medicare.

We Have To Recognize That There Is A Strong, Fresh Wind Blowing, Powered By These New Information Technologies. It Will Be Increasingly Difficult For Dictators To Impose Their Will Through Sheer Brutality.

What Remains Unchanged Is The Principle, Which Is That We Do Not Launch Wars Without Overwelming Reasons, And Overwhelming Alliances, And Without Overwhelming Force.

I Do Think That It's Really Important For Leaders Of Countries To Be Very Clear And Careful In The Statements They Make Because Their Words Are Weighed Extremely Carefully By Other Countries, And You Have To Create A Continuity Of Seriousness And Of Credibility In Order To Be Able To Be Taken Seriously And Get Things Done.

If America Can Go To The Moon, Then In The Decades To Come We Should Not Ever Have To Have Young Americans Sent To Any Part Of The World To Defend And Die For America`s Gluttony On Fossil Fuel.

If The Threat Is Jihadism - And It Is - And The Threat Is The Destruction Of Syria So That All Of These Refugees Are Swamping Into Europe And Changing The Whole Character And Politics Of Europe, This Is The Time To Unite To Find A Way Out.

We Need A Leader Who Has A Sense Of Balance, An Understanding Of The Ebb And Flow Of History And A Sense Of Our Country's Unique Place In It. This Is A Foreign Policy Debate, And You Cannot Conduct Foreign Policy Without A Sense Of What We Are Fighting For. And Any President Who Can Reduce The Conduct Of This Country's Affairs To A Morning's Attack By A Bunch Of Demented Fascists Does Not, In My View, Understand What This Great Nation Is All About.

I Will Be Voting To Give The President Of The United States The Authority To Use Force-- If Necessary-- To Disarm Saddam Hussein Because I Believe That A Deadly Arsenal Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction In His Hands Is A Real And Grave Threat To Our Security.

I Met With Many Of - A Number Of [syrian] Refugees In Berlin The Other Day, And I Was Struck By How Educated, Intelligent, And Patriotic They Are. They Want To Go Back. They Love Their Country. And There Are So Many Of Them Still In Jordan And In Refugee Camps In Lebanon And In Turkey, That If You Could Create The Climate Within Which They Could Begin To Come Back, I Believe There Is Such A History Of Secularism Within Syria, Even Tolerance Within Syria, That If We Can Deal With Isil, Yes. That's The Key. And With Isil There, Not A Chance.

Three-quarters Of [bashar Assad] Country Is Displaced. It's In Jordan, It's In Lebanon, It's In Turkey, And In The Desert. The Threat Is That Those People In The Desert And Others Could Become The Next Acolytes Of Isil If We Don't Find A Way To Join Together To Go After Isil.

We Achieved A Deal With The Russians That Didn't Wind Up In Two Days Of Strikes That Would Have Sent A, Quote, "message," But Would Not Have Removed The Weapons. We Struck A Deal To Get All Of The Declared Weapons Out Of Syria. Never Before In A Conflict Has That Ever Happened, That During The Conflict Weapons Of Mass Destruction Are Taken Out Of The Zone Of Conflict. And Thank God We Did That, Because If We Hadn't Done That, Today Isil Would Have Those Chemical Weapons In Large Parts Of The Country.

Trending Author

Alberto Manguel

Category