Us Policy Quotes

...if the United States never intended to help, it shouldn't have built up the expectation. The false promise of help was cruel and inexcusable and it would only get worse over time. If a man is drowning and a boat drives past in the distance, the man accepts his death and goes down quietly. If a man is drowning and a boat pulls up beside him, dangles a life jacket, tells the world he wants to help, but then doesn't throw the life jacket, the drowning man dies crying and his family might take a blood oath to take revenge on the boat's crew. This type of anger was already starting to build in Syria and al-Qaeda would capitalize on it. ~ Richard Engel

The cable is evidence of a widespread US policy during the occupation of shooting first and asking questions later, as well as detaining anyone and everyone "suspected" of having any links to attacks on US forces. ~ Dahr Jamail

US policy of recruiting Syrian "moderates" to fight both ISIS and Assad, Biden said that in Syria the US had found "that there was no moderate middle because the moderate middle are made up of shopkeepers, not soldiers." Seldom have the real forces at work in creating ISIS and the present crisis in Iraq and Syria been so accurately described. ~ Patrick Cockburn

On August 3, 2012, the fifteenth day of the government offensive, rebels in the city said they were desperately low on ammunition and expressed dismay that the international community had not reacted when a huge massacre could be coming. Again, Libya was the example. Gadhafi threatened to overrun Benghazi and when he tried to do it, NATO started bombing. Now in Syria, Assad was threatening to crush the opposition in Aleppo and had already started doing it, but Washington's reaction was only hand-wringing. In my conversations with rebels it was clear they were becoming increasingly disheartened and desperate. (The rebels would usually communicate with each other on Skype, blending in with the billions of people using the Internet instead of going through cell-phone towers.) The United States was apparently still skittish about sending in arms because it feared they would end up in the hands of Islamic extremists, but that, like so many unintended consequences of US foreign policy in the Middle East, was a self-fulfilling prophecy. At this stage the rebels were numerous, strong, motivated, and moderate and I made that clear in my reports on the air. ~ Richard Engel

Reagan took an approach to the Cold War dramatically different from any other US President. To wit, he thought we should win. This was a fresh concept. At the time, it was widely ridiculed as a dangerous alteration of US policy. Only after it worked was Reagan's dangerous foreign policy recast as merely a continuation of the policies of his predecessors. ~ Ann Coulter

US policy toward Cuba [at the time] had two tracks. Track 1 was to assassinate Fidel Castro. Track 2 was to subvert the regime through people-to-people contact. ~ Rachael Price

In fact, five years ago, after Saddam ejected the UN inspectors, John McCain and I gave up on containment and introduced the Iraqi Liberation Act, which, when it became law, made a change of regime in Baghdad official US policy. You might therefore say that, when it comes to Iraq, President Bush is just enforcing the McCain-Lieberman policy. ~ Joe Lieberman

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy... ~ Alexander Fraser Tytler

The tragedy of Wilsonianism is that it bequeathed to the twentieth century's decisive power an elevated foreign policy doctrine unmoored from a sense of history or geopolitics. ~ Henry Kissinger

The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable. ~ Al Gore

Most humans subscribe to the policy of 'an eye for an eye, a life for a life'. Many of your religions are famous for this formula, which is well known throughout the UNIVERSE for its stupidity. Your christ and your buddah had a different vision, but nobody paid any attention to them, not even the christians and buddhists. ~ Gene Brewer

Decidedly it was the policy of an imbecile. ~ Agatha Christie

Business is one of the most powerful institutions on Earth for creating wealth and opportunity and helping to lift people out of poverty. When you think about it that way, then business is not separate from development policy. ~ Peter Blair Henry

There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept 'just a few controls' is to surrender the principle of inalienable individual rights and to substitute for it the principle of the government's unlimited, arbitrary power, thus delivering oneself into gradual enslavement. As an example of this process, observe the present domestic policy of the United States. ~ Ayn Rand

How many cities of forty thousand, which is the population of Burlington, have a foreign policy? Well, we did. During my tenure as mayor we made the point that excessive spending on the military and unnecessary wars meant fewer resources to address the needs of ordinary people. Somewhere in the Reagan Library, or wherever these things are kept, there is a letter from the mayor of Burlington opposing the U.S. funding of contras in Nicaragua. The letter stated, "Stop the war against the people of Nicaragua. Use our tax dollars to feed the hungry and house the homeless. Stop killing the innocent people of Nicaragua." As ~ Bernie Sanders

Somewhere in, I think, the back of the mind of some [education] policy makers is this idea that if we fine-tune it well enough, if we just get it right, it will all hum along perfectly into the future. It won't, and it never did. ~ Ken Robinson

Ethel Merman would stay with a show for years and tour with it. So would Mary Martin, the great stars. They recognized the value of that success and nurtured it. Now, you come from Hollywood, you play 12 weeks and go away. I don't think that's the best policy. ~ Harold Prince

One of the first things every trainee is taught is that an FBI agent only shoots to kill. The thinking that went into this policy is both rigorous and logical: if you draw your weapon, you have already made the decision to shoot. And if you have made the decision that the situation is serious enough to warrant shooting, you have decided it is serious enough to take a life. ~ John E. Douglas

Where defining foreign policy as 'ethical' went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes. ~ William Hague

Senator Biden was correct by calling for more to look into Governor Cuomo's defense policy. It is clear to me, by researching the governor's record on the issue, that he would be a wildcard on national defense issues. ~ Sam Nunn

And, frankly, what happens out of Washington is, it creates a wind in my face, uncertainty over Obamacare, uncertainty over their tax policy, uncertainty over the regulatory policy. ~ John Kasich

Europe has never had a single or unified voice in world affairs: a common foreign policy. It has often appeared to be rudderless and unable to make quick decisions when faced with economic crises, presenting instead an image of division and hopelessness. ~ Klaus Schwab

If the U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, they cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. On 9/11/2001, Americans noticed that payback can be a real motherfucker. ~ Ward Churchill

In 1975, the respected British medical journal Lancet reported on a study which compared the effect on cancer patients of (1) a single chemotherapy, (2) multiple chemotherapy, and (3) no treatment at all. No treatment 'proved a significantly better policy for patients' survival and for quality of remaining life.' ~ Barry Lynes

My point is that it's incorrect to say that the Iraq policy isn't working. It is working. It is doing what they want. They have got control of the oil and they are exporting it, and they have stripped a government that was 90% state owned and they are privatizing it ... They have taken a country that was self defining and self developing and is now an impoverished prostrate devastated country where people will line up to work for slave wages or become members of the police or army because it's the only job they can get and serve as adjuncts to U.S. imperialism. ~ Michael Parenti

A credit default swap was confusing mainly because it wasn't really a swap at all. It was an insurance policy, typically on a corporate bond, with semiannual premium payments and a fixed term. For instance, you might pay $200,000 a year to buy a ten-year credit default swap on $100 million in General Electric bonds. The most you could lose was $2 million: $200,000 a year for ten years. The most you could make was $100 million, if General Electric defaulted on its debt any time in the next ten years and bondholders recovered nothing. It was a zero-sum bet: If you made $100 million, the guy who had sold you the credit default swap lost $100 million. It was also an asymmetric bet, like laying down money on a number in roulette. The most you could lose were the chips you put on the table; but if your number came up you made thirty, forty, even fifty times your money. ~ Michael Lewis

The President's policy proposal, known as 'chained CPI,' would re-calculate the cost of living for Social Security beneficiaries. That new number won't keep up with inflation on things like food and health care
the basics that we need to live. In short, 'chained CPI' is just a fancy way to say 'cut benefits for seniors, the permanently disabled, and orphans.' ~ Elizabeth Warren

In order to achieve optimal economic growth, Congress must adhere to sane spending guidelines while promoting smart policies devoted to growing businesses and creating jobs. ~ Michael Steele

Quit getting bent out of shape about changes to the privacy policy of this free service you voluntarily use. Judging by the last few photos you posted from spring break, you're not too concerned with privacy anyway. ~ Tyler Stanton

Always obey your parents. When they are present. This is the best policy in the long run. Because if you don't, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment. ~ Mark Twain

Believing, as they now did, that the heavenly powers took part in human affairs, they became so much absorbed in the cultivation of religion and so deeply imbued with the sense of their religious duties, that the sanctity of an oath had more power to control their lives than the fear of punishment for lawbreaking. ~ Livy

Our country will need real leadership to undo President Obama's failed policies, and replace them with the conservative principles Mitt Romney learned turning around businesses and a failing Olympics and successfully, conservatively governing a Democratic state. I am proud to endorse him and will work my hardest to ensure he is elected so we can turn around our country. ~ Nikki Haley

We need a new Latin American policy that is bold - different. We need to focus on building civil society, focus on the lack of infrastructure. We need look at ways to foster economic opportunity. There needs to be a more comprehensive economic vision in the region. ~ Mel Martinez

We live today in a world where most of the really important developments in everything from math and physics and astronomy to public policy and psychology and classical music are so extremely abstract and technically complex and context-dependent that it's next to impossible for the ordinary citizen to feel that they (the developments) have much relevance to her actual life. ~ David Foster Wallace

Heritage will remain, first and foremost, a research institute dedicated to impeccable research and data-driven policy analysis. ~ Jim DeMint

Ideals without power are simply words - they can come alive only when reinforced by the capacity to act. Reality is understanding how to wield power, but by itself it doesn't guide you toward the ends to which your power should be put. Realism devoid of an understanding of the ends of power is frequently another word for thugishness, which is ultimately unrealistic. Similarly, idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can be corrected only by a profound understanding of power in its complete sense, while realism uncoupled from principle is frequently incompetence masquerading as tough-mindedness. Realism and idealism are not alternatives but necessary complements. Neither can serve as a principle for foreign policy by itself. ~ George Friedman

To narrate is to give oneself: it seems obvious that literature, as an effort to communicate fully, will continue to be blocked so long as misery and illiteracy exist, and so long as the possessors of power continue to carry on with impunity their policy of collective imbecilization through the mass media. ~ Eduardo Galeano

The collapse of an inflation policy carried to its extreme
as in the United States in 1781 and in France in 1796
does not destroy the monetary system, but only the credit money or fiat money of the State that has overestimated the effectiveness of its own policy. The collapse emancipates commerce from etatism and establishes metallic money again. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office and foreign policy matters with war on my mind. ~ George W. Bush

I wish we didn't have to own up to a policy deliberately designed to inflict suffering on people who have already been traumatised in the countries from which they've fled. ~ Hugh Mackay

The first weekend after the attacks of September 11, George W. Bush had a meeting at Camp David with his top advisors, including Colin Powell, the secretary of state. And there was a lively debate about Iraq policy, in which some people from the Pentagon were arguing that the war against terrorism should include Saddam Hussein. ~ Elaine Sciolino

The entire premise behind the Bush administration's policy of holding 'enemy combatants' in foreign military bases such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was so that neither U.S. domestic law nor American obligations under international law would be applicable. ~ Mark Gibney

At its worst, Washington is a place where name-calling partisan politics too often trumps policy. ~ Bernie Sanders

Obama occasionally pointed out that the post–Cold War moment was always going to be transitory. The rest of the world will accede to American leadership, but not dominance. I remember a snippet from a column around 9/11: America bestrides the world like a colossus. Did we? It was a story we told ourselves. Shock and awe. Regime change. Freedom on the march. A trillion dollars later, we couldn't keep the electricity running in Baghdad. The Iraq War disturbed other countries - including U.S. allies - in its illogic and destruction, and accelerated a realignment of power and influence that was further advanced by the global financial crisis. By the time Obama took office, a global correction had already taken place. Russia was resisting American influence. China was throwing its weight around. Europeans were untangling a crisis in the Eurozone.

Obama didn't want to disengage from the world; he wanted to engage more. By limiting our military involvement in the Middle East, we'd be in a better position to husband our own resources and assert ourselves in more places, on more issues. To rebuild our economy at home. To help shape the future of the Asia Pacific and manage China's rise. To open up places like Cuba and expand American influence in Africa and Latin America. To mobilize the world to deal with truly existential threats such as climate change, which is almost never discussed in debates about American national security. ~ Ben Rhodes

Now we Democrats, well, we're all for higher taxes, right? But man do we hate to pay those taxes, and most of the politicians I worked for took advantage of every tax loophole they could find, and if they couldn't find it, they'd just legislate one out of thin air. That's the D.C. way. Tax policy is a means to buy votes, but at the end of the day, we all share in a mutual disdain for government. It's ~ D.W. Ulsterman

I don't want to be creating new foreign policy for - for my country or in any way to distance myself in the foreign policy of - of our nation, but we respect the right of a nation to defend itself. ~ Mitt Romney

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. ~ William Ewart Gladstone

That a man who had once betrayed him, it would be an error in policy ever to trust again. ~ Charlotte Lennox

President Obama has called for economic and political empowerment of women globally. The Equal Futures Partnership promotes removal of policy, legal, and regulatory barriers that hold women back at local, state and national levels. ~ Lael Brainard

The Democrats need poor, dependent people if they're gonna stay in business. And if we don't have enough poverty at home, we'll import it. That's what our open-borders policy is: It's about importing poverty and importing the number of potential registered voters for the Democrat party. ~ Rush Limbaugh

You can't go out and adopt Democrat policies all the way or halfway to show that you're not what they think you are. ~ Rush Limbaugh