Words matter. These are the best Dennis C. Blair Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country.
As I’ve said many times and publicly, a war between China and Taiwan that involves the United States is a lose-lose-lose.
My experience is the White House is not a very good place to coordinate intelligence, much less to integrate it.
The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means.
I find when you talk with the Chinese on most subjects, they are very practical.
Nothing is more important to national security and the making and conduct of good policy than timely, accurate, and relevant intelligence. Nothing is more critical to accurate and relevant intelligence than independent analysis.
As is often the case when things are complicated, extreme views have superficial appeal. On the one extreme, some see China as an inevitable enemy that must be contained; on the other hand, there are those who see China as a slowly developing democracy that can be embraced.
You can’t always get someone where you want to with just sticks. There have to be some carrots, there have to be some other shaping things.
I know it sounds Pollyannish and ‘Kumbaya’-like, but I find that the more that you expose Americans to the diversity of what’s going on in China and vice versa, the more people find that there is this broad middle path. And so I’m a strong advocate of intense visits and dialogue back and forth.
I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.
Southeast Asia is an area in which there is a form of Islam which is both devout and progressive, and therefore to be supported. It’s an area in which I see a congruence of American interests and local interests: to have tolerant societies and become more prosperous.
The Industrial Revolution caused a centuries-long shift in power to the West; globalization is now shifting the balance again.
There’s sort of a theory that’s going around in the China-watching community about a perfect storm coming up with the 2008 Olympics, a U.S. election and a Taiwanese election, some sort of mutually reinforcing explosion and crisis.
In addition to anti-American terrorists with global reach, our adversaries include organizations – some nation states, some private and some criminal – that proliferate weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them.
I think American interests are served when there are sections of the world that have representative governments, politically open economic systems, and are willing to take a stand against some of the more extreme ideologies that there are around the world.
