Penn Jillette Quotes

We know that U.S. voters, and world leaders, allow Obama extraordinary leeway when it comes to deadly drone strikes, precisely because of his politics, character and background. (We are talking about a man, after all, who won the Nobel Peace Prize while ordering the automated killing of suspected Muslim terrorists around the world).

The only difference between Obama and Bush is that Obama is killing more people.

While this debate today is a belated effort to inform the American people, it is nevertheless an empty gesture. It is time to admit our mistake in Iraq and begin to bring our troops home with honor.

It [the Vietnam War] is worse than immoral. It's a mistake.

We’ve got to get out of Vietnam or else we have to educate the people as to why we are in there.

What scares me about drone strikes is how they are perceived around the world. The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes... is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who've never seen one or seen the effects of one.

In Yemen, the United States conducted more drone strikes in 2016 than any year except 2012, the peak of the campaign in the country, according to data collected by New America.

Reasonable people can disagree about the authorities the NSA should have, when it's appropriate for the CIA to use drone strikes, and how assertive U.S. foreign policy and intelligence should be.

Yemen is a symbol of our continued military hubris in the Middle East - an addiction Obama was supposed to cure but didn't.

I would think Trump would feel free to bomb Syria any time he wanted. Nobody clearly seems to care very much about if we bomb Syria. Whether or not we have authority, it's just not of interest to most people.

The president and other government officials denounce school violence, yet still advocate for endless undeclared wars abroad and easy abortion at home. U.S. drone strikes kill thousands, but nobody in America holds vigils or devotes much news coverage to those victims, many of which are children, albeit, of a different color.

People say the war in Iraq is a bad war, and the war in Afghanistan is a good war, but what's the difference between them? Democratic people around the world cannot accept that this is a good war. This is just endless war.

Neoconservatives and the Pentagon have good reason to fear the return of the Vietnam Syndrome. The label intentionally suggests a disease, a weakening of the martial will, but the syndrome was actually a healthy American reaction to false White House promises of victory, the propping up of corrupt regimes, crony contracting and cover-ups of civilian casualties during the Vietnam War that are echoed today in the news from Baghdad.

Michael Moore: a man who never without an excuse for keeping murdering tyrants in power. But now he's supporting the man who bombed Milosevic into submission? How about an explanation, Mr Moore?

The fact that the U.S. government spends millions of dollars to send murderous robot planes into other people's land to murder them, into other countries, that's a problem. That's what people should be concerned about. The fact that other people don't understand me is not a problem. I keep things in perspective.

The only time Republicans will shake fists and point fingers is over a war delayed, one that isn't led by the US, or a war waged without the necessary conviction (read collateral damage).

For those suggesting criticisms of drone kills should wait until the election: that'd be reasonable if he stops killing until the election.

Since 2005, a majority of Americans, according to the Gallup poll, have said it was wrong and a mistake to go into Iraq.

If I had been President, I should have acted on the thirtieth or thirty-first of July, as head of a signatory power of the Hague treaties, calling attention to the guaranty of Belgium's neutrality and saying [to Germany] that I accepted the treaties as imposing a serious obligation which I expected not only the United States but all other neutral nations to join in enforcing. Of course, I would not have made such a statement unless I was willing to back it up. I believe that if I had been President the American people would have followed me.

It’s hard to know whether drone strikes have provoked more anger than other forms of Western power.

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.'

There is obviously a gap between the public's perception of the role of U.S. foreign policy and the elite's perception.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the number of violent extremist groups has grown across multiple continents. From Syria to Somalia to Pakistan, the United States is combating many of these groups - usually with bombs and missiles. Large numbers of innocent people are invariably caught in the middle.

I simply told people what I thought about the state of the war in Vietnam, and it was that we better get out of this.

I think the reason that drones have become so controversial is because they're used in Pakistan; they're used in Yemen; they've been used in all kinds of places.