Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, in 2011, former Secretary Robert Gates, as he was departing office, gave a speech at the West Point academy in which he said: In my opinion, any future Defense Secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined, as General MacArthur so delicately put it. I think Secretary Gates spoke for the entire country in terms of that sentiment, which, after a long, bitter experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, speaks to the weariness that many feel today in terms of those conflicts, and, certainly, with the motion that is before us this afternoon, it still rings in people's ears. I think it is important therefore to sort of measure what we are voting on with what Secretary Gates, I think, so accurately stated. The motion before us is to provide for title 10 authorization to allow the U.S. military to train and equip forces in Saudi Arabia to take up arms against ISIL. I checked with the Congressional Research Service yesterday to determine how many title 10 operations over the last 3 years have been conducted by the U.S. military. In 28 countries all across the world, the U.S. military has been involved in training and equipping operations, from the Philippines to Yemen to Poland.…”