Tim Kaine Quotes

I have a question for all my friends who have served or are currently serving in our military ... I cannot and do not understand why no action is being taken against our domestic enemy. I know he is supposedly the commander in chief, but the constitution gives you the authority.

I think one of the great things about the United States has been our ability to maintain a distinction between our military and domestic law enforcement.

The American people are going to judge the majority party here today. If they go out here and vote for this rule that allows this provision to be stricken, they are voting against the men and women in the military of our country.

If my own country is subverting the rule of law and sending its own citizens, its military, into harm's way on the basis of lies and propaganda, I would argue that being a patriot is calling out those lies and saying, 'No, you don't send our military into harm's way with no legal justification.'

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we've done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own lives in peace.

The military is very constitutionalist, and I have my faith in them and in the cooler heads of the people.

I want young people to be hesitant to glorify war and to demand of their leaders justification for the sacrifices they ask of our citizens.

I think we look to the military as something that protects our shores.

The danger of having the military take over intelligence is that the military has a very different perspective on the world.

As far as this citizen is concerned, the decision to commit men and women, who are also sons and daughters, to combat is an extraordinarily important one, and not to be done to just feel good; to be done to absolutely accomplish a mission.

The American people have no control over what the military does. We have no say in American foreign policy.

As Commander in Chief of the United States Military, I will never send our sons and daughters and our brothers and sisters to die in a foreign land without telling the truth about why they're going there.

I'm going to vote in support of the president of the United States in keeping the troops in Iraq until the president and our military is convinced that the mission is complete.

Those who served, and those who continue to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard took an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and we can never forget the importance of their commitment to our Nation.

Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.

There is a difference between a military mission and the aspiration for the long-term plans for the country. What we want is a stable enough Afghanistan, able to look after its own security so we can leave without the fear of it imploding... But let's be clear - it's not going to be perfect.

It's a professional military. You sign up and agree to allow your countrymen to use your life as they see fit for the next four years. And I think we all should have a greater role in ensuring that we use those lives wisely.

There are three agencies of government that have to be changed. They are the CIA, the FBI and the Draft Boards under General Hershey.

Far beyond the bounds of human decency …. soldiers ought not be asked to defend a Constitution indifferent to their essential human dignity.

The Pentagon is always going to be the last to want to intervene. It is up to the civilians to tell us what they want to do and we’ll figure out how to do it.

I succeeded in staying out of the military during the Vietnam War, and I would never assume the right to tell others to do a “duty” that I shirked.

Considering standing armies as dangerous to free governments in time of peace, I shall not seek to enlarge our present establishment, nor disregard that salutary lesson of political experience which teaches that the military should be held subordinate to the civil power.

An armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics—that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe.

It is for Parliament to decide whether or not we should participate in wars in different parts of the world, and it is neither right nor proper for any individual, for any group of individuals, to take any step which in any way might limit the rights of Parliament in a matter which is of such great concern to all of the people ...

The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State; and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up. And the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by the civil power.