You cannot allow any of your people to avoid the brutal facts. If they start living in a dream world, it's going to be bad.
James MattisThere are some people who think you have to hate them in order to shoot them. I don't think you do. It's just business.
James MattisThe United States has been essentially engaged in an ongoing war that most people date from 2001. That war has taken us to Afghanistan, to Iraq, in a lesser way to other countries - Libya, Somalia, Yemen.
James MattisI think as we look at this problem of ISIS, it's more than just an army. It's also a fight about ideas. And we have got to dry up their recruiting. We have got to dry up their fundraising. The way we intend to do it is to humiliate them, to divorce them from any nation giving them protection, and humiliating their message of hatred, of violence. Anyone who kills women and children is not devout. They have - they cannot dress themselves up in false religious garb and say that somehow this message has dignity.
James Mattis