James Mattis Quotes - Page 3

I can't imagine that I would be asked that by the president-elect [Donald Trump], or then-president [Barack Obama]. But it's - I'm very clear. I voted for the change that put the Army Field Manual in place as a member of Congress. I understand that law very, very quickly and am also deeply aware that any changes to that will come through Congress and the president.

What would you do differently as defense secretary to compensate for this record in which the greatest military in the world, as we are constantly told, doesn't get the job done?

Our strategy right now is to accelerate the campaign against ISIS. It is a threat to all civilized nations.

It's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling.

We are going to have to continue to keep the pressure on the enemy. There is no room for complacency on this.

I find it disturbing that no member of the Senate Armed Services Committee is willing to acknowledge that record of failure and to ask our next secretary of defense what he proposes to do to amend that sorry record.

We do not draw red lines unless we intend to carry them out. We have made very clear that we are willing to work with China, and we believe China has tried to be helpful.

Yousef Aid Ahmed has memorized the places where his four brothers' bodies laid after they were killed by US marines, he said. The family recounts that November day in 2005 and says it was a massacre of the brothers, along with 20 other people, following a roadside bomb in Haditha.

Anyone who kills women and children is not devout. ISIS cannot dress themselves up in false religious garb and say that somehow this message has dignity. We're going to strip them of any kind of legitimacy.

The United States has been essentially engaged in an ongoing war that most people date from 2001. That war has taken us to Afghanistan, to Iraq, in a lesser way to other countries - Libya, Somalia, Yemen.

I think, broadly speaking, the US military's role - US military activism in various parts of the Islamic world over the past several decades has been counterproductive.

2017 is going to be another tough year for the valiant Afghan Security Forces and the international troops who have stood and will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with Afghanistan against terrorism.

The importance of strengthening Euro-Atlantic security: the growing dangers pile pressure on our rules-based international system, so we need to do more to strengthen NATO, the bedrock of our defense - not just upping spending, but making the alliance more agile and more capable of tackling dangers from all directions.

We have the most skillful, firecest, and certainly the most ethical ground forces in the world... I'm not saying we have to commit right now, but certainly don't pull it off the table.

Once ISIS is defeated, there is a larger effort under way to make certain that we don't just sprout a new enemy. We know ISIS is going to go down. We have had success on the battlefield. We have freed millions of people from being under their control.

Right now, Russia's future should be wedded to Europe. Why they see NATO as a threat is beyond me. Clearly, NATO is not a threat.

Congressman [Mike] Pompeo said he believes the intelligence agencies' claims that Russia hacked the US election.

Since 9/11 we've been engaged in wars around the world, and General [James] Mattis has been a leading battlefield commander in many of those theaters, including in the April 2004 siege of Fallujah, where the US Marines killed so many people that the municipal soccer stadium in the city had to be turned into a graveyard for the dead.

ISIS is a threat to all civilized nations. America's intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa. We're not going to allow them to do so. We're going to stop them there and take apart the caliphate.

We do everything humanly possible, consistent with military necessity, taking many chances to avoid civilian casualties, at all costs.

North Korea is a direct threat to the United States. They have been very clear in their rhetoric we don't have to wait until they have an intercont- intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear weapon on it to say that now it's manifested completely.

I would consider the principal threats to start with Russia. And it would certainly include any nations that are looking to intimidate nations around their periphery, regional nations nearby them, whether it be with weapons of mass destruction or I would call it unusual, unorthodox means of intimidating them.