Quotes About Intervention

If you're going to be involved in Syria, then you need to make sure that there really is peace in Syria. And that means making sure that President Assad does not use chemical weapons on his own people.

Imagine if these computer geeks who are running baseball now were allowed to run a war? They'd be telling our soldiers: 'That's enough. You've fired too many bullets from your rifle this week!'

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Scandal begins when the police put a stop to it.

It's expensive to police the world.

I know that sometimes we, as Americans, we reach outside of our means, and every once in a while we like to 'police the world,' but I think we do a lot of good as well.

We must hire more social workers and counselors in our schools than police officers.

America is a world leader, but we should not be its policeman or ATM.

I think that although we say we don't want to be the policeman of the world and et cetera, when 911 is dialed, it's the United States that has to answer the call.

Why does America always need to be the world's policeman?

It is impossible to objectively define how free a market is. This is a political definition. Government is always involved, and those free marketers are as politically motivated as anyone.

If there's a clear genocide somewhere, don't we really want to positively impact that kind of a situation? Isn't that what we're all about? Isn't that what we've always been about?

There was a lot of me trying to be a 'fixer.' I was that kind of guy. I'd meet someone who had 'so much potential' that needed 'help.' I think that was kind of my curse for a long time.

The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate black poverty and dysfunction. We also need intervention to promulgate a middle-class ethic of success among the poor, while expanding opportunities for economic betterment.

I'm all for accountability courts and helping those who need helping.

When we look at economic crises, it is more often policy makers do too little than too much.

When everything is going well, the role of the state in the economy should be limited. When we are in a crisis, it's different.

You should never take military intervention off the table. When you do so, you give an out to a rogue nation or rogue actors.

I think the Iraq War is not particularly tailored to American interests.

If I'd seen a grown man beating a crippled boy, of course I'd intervene. If my father died and left my mother destitute, it's your instinct to take care of her. So when I started to think about it in those terms, it started to make sense to me.

Countries such as the U.S. and Britain have taken it upon themselves to decide for us in the developing world, even to interfere in our domestic affairs and to bring about what they call regime change.

I think one can easily make a case for taking out Saddam Hussein. In fact, one could probably be made on humanitarian grounds alone. But just as there's a downside risk to doing nothing about this man, there is a very serious downside risk to invading the country.

When US-led forces toppled the Taliban government in November 2001, Afghans celebrated the downfall of a reviled and discredited regime.

Rebuilding Afghanistan is not going to be solved by pouring billions in. Getting rid of the Taliban does not rid us of the problems of fundamentalism and instability.