Jack Keane Quotes

I’d rather build highways here then try nation building in Iraq

Now, I know there are many Americans who say, 'Get out of Afghanistan. Bring 'em all home.' And there are others who say, 'Put in hundreds of thousands of more.'

One of the enduring mysteries of America's occupation of Iraq is why a nation that so little relishes peacekeeping nonetheless refuses to turn the job over to the United Nations.

I believe in a strong national defense. But it's my belief that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan poses a threat to national security, and we shouldn't be involved in either area.

For eight years, you had the Bush administration with a very interventionist policy, driving into world affairs, driving primarily into the Islamic world, army first or fist first.

One of the lessons of Vietnam, which we failed to heed in the Iraq war and the Afghanistan surge, is that before you commit U.S. military forces to aid or assist, it is essential to know what you want them to achieve.

We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened.

Our country is being bled daily in an effort to create a democracy in a place where it never existed.

Most people are disturbed by the shift from deterrence to preemption but the fact is that in international relations, deterrence has a poor track record

Our military knows how to invade and conquer a country, but we do not know how to run one.

Barack Obama has done something I find very hard to understand. Ever since FDR, we've had the capacity to be engaged in two conflicts at once, and he's saying, No, we're going to cut that back to only one conflict.

On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq, [Bush's] assumptions and policies have been wrong. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw.

The president made clear when he was a candidate for this office and when he took this office, that unfortunately prior to his taking office, because of the focus on Iraq, and the U.S. efforts there, that the original war, if you will, in Afghanistan had been neglected, the strategy there was unclear, and that it was not properly resourced.

Our safety at home and the cause of freedom abroad is largely contingent upon our success in Iraq.

Bush will keep up that policy that gives the United State the role of promoting freedom in the world.

America has lost the moral high ground with the rest of the world, and we have fewer allies as a result. President Bush and his administration have undermined the war on terror by using tactics outlawed by international treaty and condemned by even our closest friends.

War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world's first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions.

The U.S. has intervened more often in more countries farther from its own shores than has any power in modern history.

Put simply, the Bush administration policy in the Middle East is continuing to fail.

But, if you believe we should go around the world overturning regimes to make little United States, I don't agree with that, because I don't think we're capable of doing that.

When we see a lack of leadership coming from the White House, that's what brings leaders in Turkey to attack Israel the way they do. When we see a lack of leadership coming from the White House, that's why we see the leader of Iran... continuing to build the nuclear reactors.

It is part of my responsibility as a bridge builder to speak the truth about what's great about America, what we've done right, and what our less glorious moments. And many people feel that the Iraq adventure, for example, has been one of our less glorious moments.

I'm not apologetic with respect to the policies of the Bush administration. I think we basically got it right.

It's not the job of the U.S. military to do nation-building or produce democratic utopias.

I think Tony Blair has to come down on one side or the other. You can't be a half-hearted supporter of the possible attack on Iraq. You're either with George Bush or you're against him.