Latest James Mattis Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• The importance of strengthening Euro-Atlantic security: the growing dangers pile pressure on our rules-based international system, so we need to do more to strengthen NATO, the bedrock of our defense - not just upping spending, but making the alliance more agile and more capable of tackling dangers from all directions.

  James Mattis

  Danger, Importance, Strengthening

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• Our world is becoming darker. The dangers are increasing from North Korea, whose recent provocation underscored the need to impose a higher price on this rogue regime, a problem that is not just the United States alone, but a problem for us all.

  James Mattis

  World, Problem, Danger

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• 2017 is going to be another tough year for the valiant Afghan Security Forces and the international troops who have stood and will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with Afghanistan against terrorism.

  James Mattis

  Tough, Terrorism, Afghanistan

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I would consider the principal threats to start with Russia. And it would certainly include any nations that are looking to intimidate nations around their periphery, regional nations nearby them, whether it be with weapons of mass destruction or I would call it unusual, unorthodox means of intimidating them.

  James Mattis

  Mean, Intimidating, Unusual

  Source: www.pbs.org

• We do not draw red lines unless we intend to carry them out. We have made very clear that we are willing to work with China, and we believe China has tried to be helpful.

  James Mattis

  Believe, Helpful

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• We do everything humanly possible, consistent with military necessity, taking many chances to avoid civilian casualties, at all costs.

  James Mattis

  Military, Chance, Consistent

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• We are going to have to continue to keep the pressure on the enemy. There is no room for complacency on this.

  James Mattis

  Enemy, Complacency

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• Our strategy right now is to accelerate the campaign against ISIS. It is a threat to all civilized nations.

  James Mattis

  Strategy, Threat, Civilized

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• Anyone who kills women and children is not devout. ISIS cannot dress themselves up in false religious garb and say that somehow this message has dignity. We're going to strip them of any kind of legitimacy.

  James Mattis

  Religious, Children, Dignity

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• Nothing keeps me awake at night. I keep other people awake at night.

  James Mattis

  Night, People, Awake

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• Once ISIS is defeated, there is a larger effort under way to make certain that we don't just sprout a new enemy. We know ISIS is going to go down. We have had success on the battlefield. We have freed millions of people from being under their control.

  James Mattis

  People, Effort, Enemy

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• I just hope we can find our way back to engaging with one another, arguing strongly with one another, and then going down and having a root beer together or something and - and having a good laugh about it as we work together for the best interests of the next generation of Americans who are going to inherit this country.

  James Mattis

  Country, Beer, Laughing

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• Right now, Russia's future should be wedded to Europe. Why they see NATO as a threat is beyond me. Clearly, NATO is not a threat.

  James Mattis

  Threat, Nato

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• The American people and the American military will never get used to civilian casualties. And we will - we will fight against that every way we can possibly bring our intelligence and our tactics to bear. We're not the perfect guys, but we are the good guys.

  James Mattis

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• North Korea is a direct threat to the United States. They have been very clear in their rhetoric we don't have to wait until they have an intercont- intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear weapon on it to say that now it's manifested completely.

  James Mattis

  Waiting, Threat, Rhetoric

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• I think as we look at this problem of ISIS, it's more than just an army. It's also a fight about ideas. And we have got to dry up their recruiting. We have got to dry up their fundraising. The way we intend to do it is to humiliate them, to divorce them from any nation giving them protection, and humiliating their message of hatred, of violence. Anyone who kills women and children is not devout. They have - they cannot dress themselves up in false religious garb and say that somehow this message has dignity.

  James Mattis

  Religious, Children, Divorce

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• I'm from the American West. We have forest fires out there. And some of the worst forest fires in our history, the most damage were caused when we pulled the fire crews off the line too early. And so we're going to have to continue to keep the pressure on the enemy - ISIS. There's no room for complacency on this.

  James Mattis

  Enemy, Complacency, Worst

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• There is no corporation in the world that would, in a competitive environment, try and concentrate all decisions at the corporate level.

  James Mattis

  Decision, Trying, World

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• ISIS is a threat to all civilized nations. America's intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa. We're not going to allow them to do so. We're going to stop them there and take apart the caliphate.

  James Mattis

  Home, Fighting, Fighter

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• When you're in operations, the best thing you can do at the top level is get the strategy right. You have to get the big ideas right, you have to determine what is the policy, what is the level of effort you're willing to commit to it? And then you delegate to those who have to execute that strategy to the appropriate level. What's the appropriate level? It's the level where people are trained and equipped to take decisions so we move swiftly against the enemy.

  James Mattis

  Moving, People, Effort

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• Yousef Aid Ahmed has memorized the places where his four brothers' bodies laid after they were killed by US marines, he said. The family recounts that November day in 2005 and says it was a massacre of the brothers, along with 20 other people, following a roadside bomb in Haditha.

  James Mattis

  Brother, Marine, People

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• What concerned me was that [James Mattis] played not only a critical role as a battlefield commander in Fallujah, but also, afterwards, when he was promoted to various other higher-ranking positions, he served as a convening authority in court-martial proceedings against various marines who had been accused of atrocities - for example, in the Haditha massacre, where a group of marines went on a killing spree after one in their unit was killed.

  James Mattis

  Marine, Atrocities, Groups

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Since 9/11 we've been engaged in wars around the world, and General [James] Mattis has been a leading battlefield commander in many of those theaters, including in the April 2004 siege of Fallujah, where the US Marines killed so many people that the municipal soccer stadium in the city had to be turned into a graveyard for the dead.

  James Mattis

  Soccer, War, Marine

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• General [James] Mattis's primary experience - indeed, his only experience - is as a member of the United States Marine Corps, where he served for 41 years. That's his experience.

  James Mattis

  Marine, Years, United States

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• I find it disturbing that no member of the Senate Armed Services Committee is willing to acknowledge that record of failure and to ask our next secretary of defense what he proposes to do to amend that sorry record.

  James Mattis

  Sorry, Defense, Records

  Source: www.truth-out.org