There are always so many conjectures as to the issue of any event that, whatever the outcome, there will always be people to say: 'I said then that it would be so'
Fighting with a large army under your command is nowise different from fighting with a small one: it is merely a question of instituting signs and signals.
We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We see no military - we seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can.
All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.
When any kind of military action is popular it's because either there's been a very clear, direct threat to us - 9/11 - or an administration uses various hooks to suggest that American interests were directly threatened - like in Panama or Grenada. And sometimes, those hooks are more persuasive than others, but typically, they're not put before Congress.