Washington is politics! Somehow if people have political objectives, then those objectives are automatically disqualified? If that's the case, the Democrats have no business being legitimized about anything because everything they do is political.
Each achieves one or both of two objectives — making liberals feel good about themselves and being good to liberal candidates.
Can a nation use the methods of terrorism? Can it harm innocent civilians in the process? What are the costs? Where is the line?
A great politician has to bother himself less with means than with goals.
Partisans fight on familiar territory with professed political objectives to conquer power. This is what distinguishes them from terrorists.
Instead of ideological objectives of a political nature, today we are faced with ideological objectives of economic nature.
Hamas's strategy is resistance and survival. As long as they survive, this is a victory.
The Chechnya problem is a centuries-old problem. The thing is that today, fundamentalists and terrorists are exploiting those centuries-old problems to accomplish their own objectives that have nothing to do whatsoever with the interests of Chechnya.
To debate political objectives, views, and goals is the most American thing conceivable.
War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing... but controlled and purposeful violence.
My great objective as a parliamentarian was to dramatise the deficiencies and devise practical government programs to deal with them. It was a cause that went to the heart of our way of life.
I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.
Terrorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic used by an enemy in pursuit of a political objective. There will be no final victory against terrorism, but there may be victories that are close enough to final against particular political groups that use terror tactics.
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.
People in uniform are not sacrosanct. They don't have all the answers. The use of force is a political decision at its core, in terms of its objectives; then the military, as the experts, must be brought in to tell you how to do it.
In the years leading up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, thinking about defense was driven by ideas that regarded successful military operations as ends in themselves rather than just one instrument of power that must be coordinated with others to achieve - and sustain - political goals.
Like Vietnam, Afghanistan was never about troop levels; it is about how troops are utilized.
Sinn Fein has the potential and capacity to become the vehicle for the attainment of republican objectives.
The problem is, Hamas is using force to try to extort progress on its political objectives.
War is, in fact, an extension of politics, and in any war, military operations have to be conducted in such a way that they contribute to sustainable political outcomes consistent with vital interests that are at stake in that war.
Donald Trump has made the principle of purposely breaking a taboo into a means of achieving his political objectives, which is something that he has in common with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Trump systematically violates international rules. But we cannot allow ourselves to forget that Trump is not the U.S.
At that time, the army leadership said the implementation of this agreement would allow everyone, including the IRA, to take its political objectives forward by peaceful and democratic means.
However, crisis in world trade is, among other things, the result of using political tools in competition or simply for achieving political objectives with the help of economic restrictions.
All of these years I've been doing my program I was under the impression the Republican Party wanted to beat Democrats. And as the years have gone by, it's become obvious to me that that's not their number one objective.
Ted Cruz is a patriot. He believes in what he does. He's done marvels in mobilizing conservatives, mobilizing Americans concerned about the direction of the ever-expanding entitlement state under Obama, and particularly the threat it is to freedom. I disagree with his tactics, but I agree entirely with his objectives.
