Leon Panetta Quotes

If the United States were attacked by rockets from one of our neighboring countries, we would be a lot tougher on them than Israel has been on the Palestinians. When we were attacked, we sent an army abroad and took over Afghanistan from the Taliban.

Who did I fight? I fought terrorists. Who did I protect? I protected the whole of Russia so that people in Moscow or St. Petersburg... could live in peace.

We are at war, and our security as a nation depends on winning that war.

The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.

What I've learned, and will try to remember from now on, is that defending your country's credibility is never sufficient reason to fight a war.

What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.

In order to have defense here at home, we have to have offense in Iraq and Iran.

You have repeatedly asserted that you and the German people have no desire for war. If this is true there need be no war. Nothing can persuade the peoples of the earth that any governing power has any right or need to inflict the consequences of war on its own or any other people save in the cause of self-evident home defense.

The United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.

Politics is the womb in which war develops.”

The sometimes contradictory demands of the American people—perfect security at home without burdensome military engagements abroad—have fueled the technology-driven, tactical approach of drone warfare.

America is carrying out policies against Russia and its leadership. They know I'm among those ready to give my life for Russia and that I have a good army capable of attacking and defending. We'll see who comes out on top.

American nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will defend our freedom and we will take the fight to the enemy.

This war is being played in the realm of public opinion and has dire consequences for our soldiers in Iraq, the future of our country, and freedom around the world.

We must continue to ensure law enforcement has the necessary tools to combat terrorism here at home. We must also work with our allies and provide our military with the weapons and protective gear they need to defeat terrorism abroad.

Though no one wants war, Congress needed to give the President the authority he needs to protect America while encouraging the use of diplomacy and negotiations to try and arrive at a peaceful solution to this problem.

I think, unfortunately, we live in a world where people attack other people and I think a legitimate rationale for war is the saving of human life, the saving of lives of people who cannot defend themselves.

It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war.

The greatest country in the history of the world being attacked. So all of this doesn't mean very much today.

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

You could argue that war is always an irrational act, and yet many states enter into military conflict out of rational calculation or national interest or the stability or longevity of their regime.

First and foremost arms are tools in the service of rival nations, pointing at the possibility of a future war.

We are at war with enemies that still have the intent to do further damage to Americans at home and abroad.

No man could know whether war might not at any moment break out.

Wars are to be undertaken in order that it may be possible to live in peace without molestation. Bella suscipienda sunt ob eam causam, ut sine injuria in pace vivatur.