Political Quotes

“Air Force Colonel John Boyd, perhaps our Nation's greatest military strategist, once said, ``Machines don't fight wars, people do, and they use their minds.'' Last week, a group of terrorists shattered all of our established notions of warfare, commandeering four of this country's own commercial airlines and utilizing them as weapons that wrought catastrophic damages on two of our major cities. Yet today, we gather to debate a defense bill oriented towards the type of war fought in past generations. The tactics the perpetrators employed, fourth-generation warfare, are vastly different from traditional modes of battles. They are unorthodox and irregular, as likely to be carried out by non-state actors as nation states. They seek to create chaos by attacking people, cultures, and institutions rather than militaries. They have been in development for years, and on September 11th they became impossible to ignore. The bill we debate here today allocates $343 billion for the defense of our Nation. Will the expenditure of this money protect our Nation from the type of attack we faced last Tuesday? That is a key question.”