Chuck Hagel Quotes
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Our alliances should be understood as a means to expand our influence, not as a constraint on our power. The expansion of democracy and freedom in the world should be a shared interest and value with all nations.
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It is easy to get into war, not so easy to get out.
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We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam.
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I believe, and always have, that America must engage - not retreat - in the world.
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Nations, great nations have limitations. All nations have limitations. Even great powers have limitations.
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This is a ping-pong game with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad, are not beans. They're real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder.
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Peace comes through dealing with people. Peace doesn't come at the end of a bayonet or the end of a gun.
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I have never believed you go to war in Iraq, you go to war in Afghanistan, and believe that you can deal with those battlefields, those countries, in microcosms, or narrow channels.
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Alliances and international organizations should be understood as opportunities for leadership and a means to expand our influence, not as constraints on our power.
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The United Nations has a critical role to play in promoting stability, security, democracy, human rights, and economic development. The UN is as relevant today as at any time in its history, but it needs reform.
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The Israeli people must be free to live in peace and security.
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Too often in Washington we tend to see foreign policy as an abstraction, with little understanding of what we are committing our country to: the complications and consequences of endeavors.
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The United States can't impose democracies. We can't impose our will. The Russians found that out in Afghanistan.
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When you're dealing in situations that are uncontrollable and combustible, you try to stabilize the situation as quickly as you can and then work toward and work out toward democratic reform.