Mac Thornberry Quotes

We have to have a conversation about whether Obama's plan to increase spending to occupy Afghanistan helps make America a safer country, or not. I think at some point, we may decide that we don't have to have that size military and cost footprint in the country. You look at what you want to accomplish, how many soldiers you need.

We had eight years of Barack Obama depleting our military, ignoring a lot of the threats around the world.

I don't think the U.S. military is conservative. It's pragmatic.

Our military and the strength of our military and the strengthening of our military is a number one priority for the Trump administration.

President Bush has a track record of making the right decisions when it comes to national security.

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

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.

We need a very strong military to protect the freedoms we do have.

In State of the Union addresses, I always look at the foreign policy and military parts first, which are generally pretty minimal.

For 50 years, the Republicans have been accusing the Democrats of being soft on national security.

We can go to the American people on this issue of winning the war [against terrorism]. We can go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America.

We have a military policy instead of an energy policy.

I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place

Now that Washington once again has a tangible adversary -- variously described as ‘freedom-hating terrorists,’ ‘Salafist jihadis,’ or ‘Islamofascists’ -- U.S. leaders have convinced the American public that foreign policy is an ‘us-versus-them’ contact sport in which the primary tactics are military and coercive

The involvement of the government in military adventures always results in the expansion, at least temporarily, of Presidential power.

In a democracy such as ours military policy is dependent on public opinion.

There is only one Republican presidential candidate that has a proven, courageous, and conservative record on national security: Marco Rubio.

The world relies upon, and America must rely upon, a strong military.

Our national-security strategy must drive our military budget, rather than the budget setting our strategy.

Senator Clinton is very knowledgeable about national security and is probably going to be strong on defense. I have no doubts whatsoever that if she were president in January '09, she would not act irresponsibly and issue orders to conduct an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, regardless of the consequences, and squander the gains that have been made.

I think it's encouraging that President Trump is talking about strengthening our national defense, something he ran on again.

Israel's security policy is determined by our needs. I strongly reject all the unfounded publicity suggesting that Israel is prevented from taking action because of international pressure.

As a member of the Armed Service Committee and a co-chair of the Democratic National Security Task Force, I will continue to work to keep Americans safe at home and abroad.

The No. 1 purpose of the federal government is national defense.

The biggest budget is the military budget. For what? We're fighting two wars in very small countries that have no nuclear weapons, that have no capabilities to destroy anything. They probably couldn't even get to America.