#policy

Freight mobility and movement, while not a sexy policy issue, is a highly important one. Capacity constraints and congestion on our nation's freight rail system create many problems. ↗

— Bill Lipinski

#congestion #constraints #create #freight #highly

It is like our foreign policy has attention deficit disorder. ↗

— Tim Ryan

#attention deficit #deficit #disorder #foreign #foreign policy

The American people have no control over what the military does. We have no say in American foreign policy. ↗

— Aaron McGruder

#american foreign policy #american people #control #does #foreign

I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create and destroy money. And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people. ↗

— Richard McKenna

#am #banks #citizen #control #create

My goal in Baghdad was to facilitate a debate here in the United States on America's policy toward Iraq, a debate that's been sadly lacking. ↗

— Scott Ritter

#baghdad #been #debate #facilitate #goal

When I resigned, I put the U.S. Government on notice that I'm going to stick to policy issues, that I have no intention of going out and blowing the cover off of the intelligence operations, that those are truly sensitive and they should not be exposed. ↗

— Scott Ritter

#cover #exposed #going #government #i

Developing and implementing IT governance design effectiveness and efficiency can be a multidirectional, interactive, iterative, and adaptive process. ↗

— Robert E. Davis

#feedback-control #goals #internal-control-systems #itg #management

Facing a deteriorating economy and a weakening hold over the populace, the Iraqi state under Saddam Hussein opted to revitalize tribal leaders and conservative practices as a means of stabilizing state power; those conservative practices were not an inherent feature of a predominantly Muslim country. ↗

— Nadje Al-Ali

#foreign-policy #government #iraq #iraqi-state #islam

Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it's not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago. ↗

— Will Rogers

#government #money

During an hour-long conversation mid-flight, he laid out his theory of the war. First, Jones said, the United States could not lose the war or be seen as losing the war. 'If we're not successful here,' Jones said, 'you'll have a staging base for global terrorism all over the world. People will say the terrorists won. And you'll see expressions of these kinds of things in Africa, South America, you name it. Any developing country is going to say, this is the way we beat [the United States], and we're going to have a bigger problem.' A setback or loss for the United States would be 'a tremendous boost for jihadist extremists, fundamentalists all over the world' and provide 'a global infusion of morale and energy, and these people don't need much.' Jones went on, using the kind of rhetoric that Obama had shied away from, 'It's certainly a clash of civilizations. It's a clash of religions. It's a clash of almost concepts of how to live.' The conflict is that deep, he said. 'So I think if you don't succeed in Afghanistan, you will be fighting in more places. 'Second, if we don't succeed here, organizations like NATO, by association the European Union, and the United Nations might be relegated to the dustbin of history.' Third, 'I say, be careful you don't over-Americanize the war. I know that we're going to do a large part of it,' but it was essential to get active, increased participation by the other 41 nations, get their buy-in and make them feel they have ownership in the outcome. Fourth, he said that there had been way too much emphasis on the military, almost an overmilitarization of the war. The key to leaving a somewhat stable Afghanistan in a reasonable time frame was improving governance and the rule of law, in order to reduce corruption. There also needed to be economic development and more participation by the Afghan security forces. It sounded like a good case, but I wondered if everyone on the American side had the same understanding of our goals. What was meant by victory? For that matter, what constituted not losing? And when might that happen? Could there be a deadline? ↗

— Bob Woodward

#bob-woodward #foreign-policy #obama-s-wars #terrorism #united-states