Notice: ob_end_flush(): Failed to delete and flush buffer. No buffer to delete or flush in /home1/ntptuqmy/public_html/quotes/includes/header_html.php on line 6 John O. Brennan Quotes - IQDb - Internet Quotes Database
Our democratic values also include - and our national security demands - open and transparent government. Some information obviously needs to be protected. And since his first days in office, President Obama has worked to strike the proper balance between the security the American people deserve and the openness our democratic society expects.
The United States is the first nation to regularly conduct strikes using remotely piloted aircraft in an armed conflict. Other nations also possess this technology. Many more nations are seeking it, and more will succeed in acquiring it.
The president's priority is to protect the safety and security of the American people. That's the physical security of the American people as well as the prosperity of the American people.
Sometimes there are actions that we are forced to take, but there need to be boundaries beyond which we are going to recognize that we're not going to go because we still are Americans, and we are supposed to be representing something to people in this country and overseas.
We're trying to be very careful and precise in our use of language, because I think the language we use and the images we project really do have resonance. It's the reason why I don't use the term jihadist to refer to terrorists. It gives them the religious legitimacy they so desperately seek, but I ain't gonna give it to them.
Al-Qa'ida seeks to portray America as an enemy of the world's Muslims. But President Obama has made it clear that the United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam.
Why should a great and powerful nation like the United States allow its relationship with more than a billion Muslims around the world to be defined by the narrow hatred and nihilistic actions of an exceptionally small minority of Muslims?
When we uphold the rule of law, our counterterrorism tools are more likely to withstand the scrutiny of our courts, our allies, and the American people. And when we uphold the rule of law it provides a powerful alternative to the twisted worldview offered by al-Qa'ida.
We need to make sure that leaks of classified information, of national security secrets, needs to be rigorously pursued and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The United States does not view our authority to use military force against Al Qaeda as being restricted solely to 'hot' battlefields like Afghanistan.
The preservation of our national security and the laws that define us as the United States of America demand that we understand the intersection of the two - indeed, how they reinforce one another.
Simply stated, the need for accurate intelligence and prescient analysis from CIA has never been greater than it is in 2013 - or than it will be in the coming years.
Our counterterrorism tools do not exist in a vacuum. They are stronger and more sustainable when the American people understand and support them. They are weaker and less sustainable when the American people do not.
Obviously, the death of Usama Bin Laden marked a strategic milestone in our effort to defeat al-Qa'ida. Unfortunately, Bin Laden's death, and the death and capture of many other al-Qa'ida leaders and operatives, does not mark the end of that terrorist organization or its efforts to attack the United States and other countries.
By the time President Obama took office, Guantanamo was viewed internationally as a symbol of a counterterrorism approach that flouted our laws and strayed from our values, undercutting the perceived legitimacy - and therefore the effectiveness - of our efforts.
