Jim Webb

We need a strategy that has clearly articulated endpoints, not simply benchmarks, so we really know where we are going.

I don't believe it's always necessary that, if the American flag goes down, that we end up staying to rebuild a nation.

I actually offered an amendment yesterday, on the exact point that you just made.

Well, a defensive action of some sort emanating from the target has an impact on the people trying to take the target.

I understand that if we were to put embarked military security on ships at certain points that there's a wider group of international associations that would be comfortable with that, but that's not what I'm talking about.

It's not necessarily best practices that we would define if we were looking at this from a different viewpoint in terms of putting armed security people on these ships.

Hopefully, we'll come to a conclusion on that sometime in the next 10 days.

We're obviously concerned about that, but principally concerned about American shipping.

To me, it makes a tremendous amount of sense to get small groups of highly trained people to work in a synergistic fashion with the military.

I mean, this is not that old when Captain Phillips saved the Alabama.

This is so clear, I think to everyone, that we all have an inherent right to self-defense in international waters.

I think there's going to be a more militarily oriented hearing next week on this as well.

Your position would be that China would also have to have a specific obligation?

The major polluters in the world today--China and India--are not Annex 1.

The bureaucracy that would come out of last year's bill was--it looked like something you would get out of the old Soviet Union.

Why wouldn't they have the same obligation?

Many of us feel a strong commitment to improving environmental conditions, but that doesn't mean that the mail has been answered on a lot of these other questions.

The developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol have specific obligations.

We have a situation where it is assumed that we have greater financial resources to deal with this problem, when China is a greater emitter and they're sitting on a $2 trillion surplus.

Actually, the more I read about cap and trade, the less comfortable I am with it.

I would share that I think Senator Webb's comments about the difficulty of creating a fully functional government in Afghanistan are correct.

So it largely will depend on the competence and the willpower of the local Afghanis?

I would say perhaps a brief period more than 30 years ago, for about 30 years, you could say that there was some sort of a functioning national army in Afghanistan, not previous to that and not since.

When is the last time that Afghanistan had an actual functioning national army that could clearly be said to be in control of operations inside its own country?

To me, it is when we have reduced the threat and built that capacity locally to the point where they can be much more self-reliant in managing this problem.