Sherrod Brown Quotes

I applaud President Obama's decision to begin a partial withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan. However, I believe that we must go further and have a full withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops.

In Washington the semantics of the military muted the reality of war for the civilian policy-makers. In quiet, air-conditioned, thick-carpeted rooms, such terms as 'systematic pressure,' 'armed reconnaissance,' 'targets of opportunity,' and even 'body count' seemed to breed a sort of games-theory detachment.

America's foreign policy lacks the backbone to do the right thing in Afghanistan - which is leave.

In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.

I believe there should be no arbitrary date set for withdrawal and yet no permanent, unending deployment. No cut and run, yet measured progress in helping a people who want to be free without an illusion of overnight success.

I believe sincerely that we should bring in U.N. peacekeepers and bring our troops home.

As we've seen, deploying large armies abroad won't always be our best offense. Countries typically don't want foreign soldiers in their cities and towns.

Never in the history of the United States have we cut back on troops when we've been at war.

One of the lessons of Vietnam, which we failed to heed in the Iraq war and the Afghanistan surge, is that before you commit U.S. military forces to aid or assist, it is essential to know what you want them to achieve.

There is no area where experience matters more than in war and diplomacy.

I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation-building. I think our troops ought to be used to fight and win war.

Any future Defense Secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.

War should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.

I don't think that anyone in the pages of 'War on Peace' is arguing that diplomacy is the replacement for military power. But, correctly, the job of the military is to think tactically.

I know I will be severely criticized by the interventionists in America when I say we should not enter a war unless we have a reasonable chance of winning.

There's a fundamental difference between many of the Democrats and my party. And that is: They want to leave before the job is completed in Iraq. Again, I repeat: These are decent people. They're just as American as I am. I just happen to strongly disagree with them. And it's very important for the American people to understand the consequences of leaving Iraq before the job is done. This is a global war on terror.

The United States must reach out to the world community with a new plan to stabilize Iraq, bring U.N. peacekeepers in, and bring U.S. troops home.

I think the President ought to bring everybody that's in American uniform back because we're headed for war.

Obama's decision to leave, to not sustain the victory that resulted after eight years of fighting, from 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, was another incredibly stupid decision. It was totally based on politics, not based on any notion of national security. It's a nightmare for our national security. And then you have the Libya intervention.

I believe that the president's (Bush) leadership in the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience in making the decisions that would have been necessary to truly accomplish the mission without the deaths to our troops and the cost to our taxpayers.

Most Americans believe that escalation will not bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end, and that's why I've proposed not just a troop cap, but a phased redeployment that will start bringing our troops home.

Deadline for Iraqi withdrawal is legislating defeat.

We're in danger of breaking our army and preventing our national leaders from having the flexibility to confront not just Iraq and Afghanistan, but crises around the globe.

We've made some mistakes in this country in times past - the Korean conflict proceeding that, some say proceeding the Persian Gulf War, where we were ambiguous as to what we would do.

We all know that in war the political and military factors have to complement each other.