No president can amend the past, and the public is tired of candidates who simply point fingers instead of offering their own solutions. They want a leader who will describe the threats as they are and rally the country behind a strategy to defeat them.

Pete Hoekstra

Real leadership is leaders recognizing that they serve the people that they lead.

Pete Hoekstra

real leadership inspirational

The danger of having the military take over intelligence is that the military has a very different perspective on the world.

Pete Hoekstra

perspective different military

Consumer accountability drives quality and efficiency.

Pete Hoekstra

efficiency accountability quality

Hard work, years of sacrifice, and dedication are necessary to succeed in the real world. Snowden's most notable accomplishment was lying about his military service, his experience, and education to procure a job with the NSA in the first place.

Pete Hoekstra

service hard-work education work

Good governance requires working toward common ground. It isn't easy.

Pete Hoekstra

good-governance ground good easy

The anniversary of the tragic attacks on September 11, 2001, and September 11, 2012, is a day to remember those who died and suffered. It is also an opportunity to open a new dialogue on the tactics and strategies that have been successful - and unsuccessful - in confronting, containing, and defeating the threat from radical Islam.

Pete Hoekstra

day islam anniversary opportunity

Libya became a rat's nest of extremism after NATO helped depose dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and it now exports weapons, jihadists, and ideology to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Pete Hoekstra

nest africa now ideology

The unregulated migration of hundreds of thousands of refugees from terrorist safe havens in Syria, Iraq, and Libya has created a very difficult threat environment for Europe.

Pete Hoekstra

migration difficult environment safe

Libya is a huge disaster.

Pete Hoekstra

libya disaster huge

I'm not OK with clergy, students, and those of different opinions chanting and swearing, but it is their constitutional right.

Pete Hoekstra

opinions right different students

Sports are trivial compared to matters of war and peace, but some parallels apply.

Pete Hoekstra

some sports war peace

The U.S. faces a very dangerous sprint by outlaws to gather the deadliest weapons and technology on the planet, something we always thought possible but hoped would never occur.

Pete Hoekstra

never thought dangerous technology

Briefly after the 9/11 attacks, Republicans and Democrats were united in identifying the evil of the radical jihadists and fighting it.

Pete Hoekstra

democrats after fighting evil

Both Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama pursued policies of regime change after 9/11 - with Bush removing al-Qaida's safe haven in Afghanistan and the sadistic anti-American dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq - but Obama took it a step further and disregarded regional stability as a guiding factor for U.S. policy.

Pete Hoekstra

step policy change safe

The primary role of government is to provide for the safety and security of their populations.

Pete Hoekstra

role security safety government

Europe and the United States are better off extending a helping hand to those who know best rather than dictating to them an unfamiliar future.

Pete Hoekstra

better best know future

The Obama administration notoriously refuses to acknowledge that Islamists commit Islamist terror, so it logically follows that a Christian victim of Islamist violence should not address the issue lest it challenge accepted political orthodoxy.

Pete Hoekstra

challenge political violence victim

As a member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee during the 2000s, I met with civilian and military officials in Kurdistan, Libya, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and Yemen. They shared many of the same international defense priorities as the United States. We acknowledged our differences, but we worked from where we found common ground.

Pete Hoekstra

intelligence priorities differences

The U.S. must remember - as the Gadhafi loyalists have and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh are now realizing - that it cannot get into bed with groups affiliated with the jihadist movement.

Pete Hoekstra

turkey now bed remember

Choices abound in the free market. Choice creates real and immediate accountability.

Pete Hoekstra

free choice choices real