Top 141 Quotes & Sayings by Michael T. Flynn - Page 2

One letter to bin Laden reveals that al Qaeda was working on chemical and biological weapons in Iran.

I think that our weakness is understanding that when we go to war, we go to war to win.

Be more conscious about what you say about foreign policy issues, because they are complicated.

I believe that our country is going in the wrong direction, and I have a very strong desire to help out in any way that I can.

We are in a global war with a radical and violent form of the Islamic religion, and it is irresponsible and dangerous to deny it.

I think ISIS is achieving the objectives that they have set out to achieve. I think that they feel probably very emboldened. They feel pretty good. Their resiliency is extraordinary.

What we have to do is we have to make sure that our country is as strong as it can be economically and from a defense standpoint.

Despite what you hear in the news from the Obama administration and the military, our strategy of conducting infrequent airstrikes and re-taking pockets of Iraq and Syria terrain will only help us achieve short-lived tactical victories.

Our message must be that we want to help and that we will leave once the problems have been solved.

We want, certainly, the threats around the world, those that don't like our way of life, we want them to wonder what options we still have.

We have to face the fact that ISIS and its army of like-minded jihadists are determined to win that war and believe they are on the path to victory. They may well be right.

I love serving this country, and I miss serving this country.

I believe our inability to achieve victory stems mainly from having lost sight as a nation of what it means to win.

The Arab nations must be on our side. And if we catch them financing, if they funnel money to IS, that's when sanctions and other actions have to kick in.

When my father served in World War II, he wasn't told, 'Go to Europe for four months, for six months, and then you can come back, and there'll be plenty of big bases there for you to serve on, and don't worry about it.'

There is no substitute - none - for American power.

The lack of trust between the federal government and the American citizens of this country is such a wide gap, we have to renew that trust for the people of this country going forward.

There's a lot of information on Iran in the files and computer discs captured at the Pakistan hideout of Osama bin Laden.

What we achieved under General Petraeus up through 2011, and defeating this threat that we faced out there, I mean, once we decided to come out of there, we squandered an enormous opportunity that, frankly, the military did actually provide our nation and provided the Middle East.

The tactical issue is ISIS or ISIL in the greater Levant area, which is essentially Syria, and Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, et cetera. But the wider problem is not just trans-regional in that part of the world, but it's also global. I mean, 40 to 50 countries supplying fighters to this current fight in the Middle East? Come on.

Given its Internet sophistication and the attraction the group has with vast numbers of potential recruits from among disaffected populations around the globe, ISIS has the realistic potential to eventually swell its ranks of jihadists waging a 'holy war' to hundreds of thousands in both the western and eastern hemispheres.

I do believe - I very strongly believe that the Arab nations would be willing to put together an Arab NATO-like structure.

The world has lost faith in American leadership, and the threats are mounting.

Put simply, we are still at war with radical Islamic groups and an ideological movement that can't be ignored nor wished away.

What he's really talking about - and I'm speaking for Mike Flynn, not Donald Trump - is that he's saying, essentially, we have to have options. We have to have a lot of options. And, frankly, we do. We do have a lot of options.

Why are all these refugees rushing to the beauty and strength of Europe and to the United States and not rushing to their own capitals or the capitals of the Muslim world? We ought to be pushing back. We ought to be putting people back on these boats and putting them back into the places where they came from and telling these leaders in the Arab world, "You have a responsibility as well."

Donald Trump is a great listener, and he's a good challenger. He doesn't come across as a person who thinks he knows it all. In fact, he once told me he has had lot of things to learn.

People aren't going into gay bars in Orlando and saying, "Jesus Christ!" They're not going into the Charlie Hebdo, the 85-year-old priest who was beheaded on his alter, [the assailant wasn't] yelling Jesus Christ.

The Islamic ideology is a political ideology based on a religion.

Obama's decision to leave, to not sustain the victory that resulted after eight years of fighting, from 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, was another incredibly stupid decision. It was totally based on politics, not based on any notion of national security. It's a nightmare for our national security. And then you have the Libya intervention.

This [U.S.] bombing in Libya. So what are we doing in Libya? We just dropped some bombs on someone who we found is a leader there, maybe we killed some group attending a leadership meeting. Does this mean the problem is going to go away? No. It means we're going to have worse guys.

What I know is it is a disservice to those who continue to serve to think that there's going to be a civil-military breakdown because those who serve, they know who they serve. They know what their loyalties are, that's why you take an oath to the Constitution and your loyalty lies in the chain of command and your buddies. That's always been there. We are a professional military.

You look at Libya, and you go, "Jesus, why the hell did we do that?" That's beyond stupid. That's so irresponsible and dangerous for our national security and frankly for the national security of Europe because you go and you look at where a lot of these refugees are coming out of, they're coming out of Misrata and Tripoli.

Foreign policy is about US national security, it is definitely not non-intervention. It is definitely not isolationist. That's where people want to hear what they want to hear and not listen to what Donald Trump says. It is about national security for the United States, and that's fine.

Trump respects people who are selfish about their country. Putin is a guy who is very selfish about Russia and about the Russian federation, and he understands the history of his country. You can't say, "I don't like you." You've got to respect him. He's a world leader.

I'm standing up for the U.S. But it's hard when Russians don't have any respect for the current leadership.

The Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party.

What do you do when you get out of the military, you stop serving? There are 26 presidents who served in the military. More than half of our presidents... that means that you stop being an American?

I think we have such a political cesspool in America right now.

I want to be able to speak freely about what I believe. There's a lot of people who would actually like to be able to do that but, for whatever reason, they can't.

If there's a way to serve America, I'd always consider it.

Trump realized that you had to drive a stake through the heart of this establishment and that millions of Americans do not feel represented by this sort of clique in Washington.

We're not going to act in a soft way for what we believe needs to be done.

Why do we go through all the nonsense with security at our airport? It's not because the Catholic Church is falling apart.

I like serving America.

Remember the box fight: You start as a southpaw, you go back to fighting as a right-handed fighter.

The United States should not have to intervene in every single problem around the world. The voters of this country are reacting in a very big, broad way to Mr. Trump. They are frustrated by lousy decisions made by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Look at the mess we have.

When you look back, history is not going to be kind to these last 16 years from 2000 to 2016.

One thing I agree with Donald Trump on is, there's something going on in the Muslim world.

Donald Trump has no intention to step away without examining all relationships that we have. His intent is to relook at the way we are organized globally, where the US is sort of expected to be a global leader, but relook at these alliances and these charters that we are under to make sure that they are still viable for the 21st century. It doesn't mean that President Trump comes into office and NATO goes away.

I know Donald Trump as a very adaptive person. In my nearly three and a half decades of being in the military, I've had maybe one, maybe two guys that I've worked for that were that adaptive in combat. He adapts to the great challenges, with his own sort of street smarts and his instincts.

I do care about the direction of America.

I think that [Obama] sees the military actually as something that is more dangerous to the world. I think that he looks at the United States military and sees it as a threatening application around the world than actually as a useful tool.

When you are given immunity that means that you've probably committed a crime.

It's not Islam, it's extremism in general, that is such a crock and that does a disservice to the people of America to make us sound like we're a bunch of idiots that we can't see what's going on in front of us and we're too weak to tell the truth.

Why is it that the U.S. has to take refugees? Why doesn't Saudi Arabia take more.

Trump will never give up his style, his way to target his enemies. The Americans are fed up with the bullshit they heard for many years. They want the truth, they want to believe what their leaders are saying again. Trump is such an underdog, a fighter - a man who rebels against the establishment, against all kinds of resistance. That is what Americans love.

I think all of Europe has been too soft on the refugee crisis.

There's one thing that I know about myself, I could wash dishes and be happy.

Islam is an ideology and there's a religious component to it that's radicalized and in some cases it masks itself behind that religion, especially in America, because of freedom of religion.