Jack Keane Quotes
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I remember speaking to a sheik who came back into the political system in late 2008, laid down his arms. His troops became part of the Sons of Iraq, the so-called Sunni Awakening.
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Rebuilding the military is something Putin will pay attention to.
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This radical Islam is a religious-based ideology. And you actually have to, when you deal with the ideology, you have to attack it on that basis.
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Putin has put Russia on a path to be a world power with global influence.
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The Taliban has not, in my judgment, in any significant way changed their fundamental goal and objective, which is to take over Afghanistan and return to running that country. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't have negotiation talks with them. I think we should. But we've got to be clear-eyed about it.
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I have lots of concerns at working with Russia going against ISIS until we have agreements in terms of what Russia's behavior is going to be.
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Historically, aggression unanswered has led to more aggression.
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The Pentagon is a series of wedges. So you have - the outer wedge has windows on the outside, and then inside of that, it has windows with an alleyway; then there's another wedge with windows outside, windows inside. And we call them the E Ring, the D Ring, the C Ring.
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Here's the problem the Free Syrian Army has. They really want to topple the regime in Damascus, and this is where most of the fight takes place, between Aleppo and Damascus for the Free Syrian Army.
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If Assad continues to conduct strikes against the Free Syrian Army at will, it would be very difficult for them to have any success against ISIS.
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Everybody wants to talk about sectarian conflicts of the war in Iraq, but the fact of the matter is, Sunnis have lived with Shias in harmony more in the confines of Iraq, in that land, than they have been in conflict. That's an historical fact.
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Very unusual in an insurgency to have absolutely no political agenda other than to return to power. Most insurgents have a political side to them.
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In my own mind, it is profoundly disappointing to see what has occurred in Iraq given the sacrifice of our troops, given our commitment to removing Saddam Hussein and putting in place a fledgling government that would have a chance for a stable, secure Iraq.
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In 2012, General Dempsey, General Petraeus directed the CIA, Secretary Panetta and Secretary Clinton recommended to the president to robustly arm and train the Syrian moderates. He says no. In 2013, conduct a military strike, same national security team, against the Assad regime because he violated the chemical red line. He says no.
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Russia, their number one client in the Middle East is Syria; that is their foothold in the Middle East. They want to have influence there.
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In 2011, General Alston, four-star commander in Iraq, recommended to the President, a force level of over 20,000. The President rejected it and pulled out all the forces with what is now known as a disastrous consequence in Syria.
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Despite the obvious intelligence and security failures that contributed to the attack against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, the reality is that in one night, an al Qaeda-affiliated group destroyed a diplomatic post, killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, and forced an end to clandestine U.S. activity in the area.
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Senator Clinton is very knowledgeable about national security and is probably going to be strong on defense. I have no doubts whatsoever that if she were president in January '09, she would not act irresponsibly and issue orders to conduct an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, regardless of the consequences, and squander the gains that have been made.
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Air power will not defeat ISIS. It has not been able to deny ISIS freedom of maneuver and the ability to attack at will.
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In Washington, D.C., in 2006, Democrats had long since given up on the war in Iraq in terms of any tangible political support for it. The new factor was the Republicans were beginning to give up as well, and they were truly challenging the strategy and the lack of success.
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There are very few fighters in the ISIS organization in Iraq and Syria coming from the United States; most of them have either come from a region of the Middle East or from Europe.
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Yes, we need a force to continue to train, assist, advise the Iraqi army.
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We must take all that territory away from ISIS.
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Sometimes, our expectations of being all-knowing is somewhat unrealistic. At the end of the day, there are people out there who mean harm to us, are thinking about doing harm to us and motivated to do it, and we don't know what that is.