We've been conducting military and diplomatic dialogues with the Turks and it was a very, very useful discussion today.

James Mattis

Categorized in : Politics

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.

afghanistan tough terrorism

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.

unusual intimidating mean

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

complacency enemy

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.

dignity religious children

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.

effort people enemy

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.

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.

rhetoric threat waiting

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.

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.

strengthening importance danger

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.

marine brother people

Congressman [Mike] Pompeo said he believes the intelligence agencies' claims that Russia hacked the US election.

agency russia believe

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.

marine soccer war

I come to you in peace. I did not bring artillery, but I am pleading with you, with tears in my eyes; if you f*** with me, I will kill you all.

Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.

This is how I saw the strength of America -- that we keep our alliances together, and keep them tight.

If you leave an administration, you owe some silence, when you leave an administration over clear policy differences, you need to give the people who are still there as much opportunity as possible to defend the country.

There is a period in which I owe my silence, it's not eternal. It... by James Mattis

There is a period in which I owe my silence, it's not eternal. It's not going to be forever.

I may not like a commander in chief one fricking bit, but our system puts the commander in chief there, and to further weaken him when we're up against real threats -- I mean, we could be at war on the Korean Peninsula, every time they start launching something.

Thirty days from now we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pullback from the border and then based on ceasing dropping of bombs that will permit the( United Nations-sponsored) special envoy, Martin Griffiths -- he's very good, Martin Griffiths knows what Martin Griffiths's doing -- to get them together in Sweden and end this war.

China's militarization of the South China Sea and aggressive action in international waters destabilizes the region and threatens shared efforts to promote security, the US will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, and we encourage all nations to confidently exercise their right to do the same.