James Mattis quotes:

You are part of the world's most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.

General [James] Mattis's primary experience - indeed, his only experience - is as a member of the United States Marine Corps, where he served for 41 years. That's his experience.

I find it disturbing that no member of the Senate Armed Services Committee is willing to acknowledge that record of failure and to ask our next secretary of defense what he proposes to do to amend that sorry record.

Demonstrate to the world there is 'No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy' than a U.S. Marine.

You've been told that you're broken. That you're damaged goods ... there is also Post-Traumatic Growth. You come back from war stronger and more sure of who you are.

In this age, I don't care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are, if you cannot create harmony-even vicious harmony-on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete. We have got to have officers who can create harmony across all those lines.

We've backed off in good faith to try and give you a chance to straighten this problem out. But I am going to beg with you for a minute. I'm going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.

Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every one of them until they're so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact.

Fight with a happy heart.

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

You've been told that you're broken, that you're damaged goods and should be labeled victims. I don't buy it. The truth, instead, is that you are the only folks with the skills, determination, and values to ensure American dominance in this chaotic world.

The role that General [James] Mattis played as the convening authority, basically the boss, of the entire military justice process around this massacre, often called the My Lai massacre of the Iraq War.

There are hunters and there are victims. By your discipline, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.

You can overcome wrong technology. Your people have the initiative, they see the problem, no big deal ... you can't overcome bad culture. You've gotta change whoever is in charge.

The most important six inches on the battlefield is between your ears.

Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face NOTHING new under the sun.

PowerPoint makes us stupid.

There's documented cases of US marines shooting at ambulances, shooting at aid workers, destroying shopping centers, raising huge issues not only of violations of the Geneva Convention over targeting protected groups, but also of proportionality, because the entire battle was launched to get the people who killed four Blackwater security contractors, and a city of 300,000 people, about the same size as Oakland, California, or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was leveled in response, under the command of General [James] Mattis.

What concerned me was that [James Mattis] played not only a critical role as a battlefield commander in Fallujah, but also, afterwards, when he was promoted to various other higher-ranking positions, he served as a convening authority in court-martial proceedings against various marines who had been accused of atrocities - for example, in the Haditha massacre, where a group of marines went on a killing spree after one in their unit was killed.

I don't lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.

If in order to kill the enemy you have to kill an innocent, don't take the shot. Don't create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.

You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling.

I can't imagine that I would be asked that by the president-elect [Donald Trump], or then-president [Barack Obama]. But it's - I'm very clear. I voted for the change that put the Army Field Manual in place as a member of Congress. I understand that law very, very quickly and am also deeply aware that any changes to that will come through Congress and the president.

For the mission's sake, for our country's sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division's colors in past battles - "who fought for life and never lost their nerve" - carry out your mission and keep your honor clean. Demonstrate to the world there is "No Better Friend - No Worse Enemy" than a US Marine.

No war is over until the enemy says it's over. We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.

There 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.

The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event. That said, there are some *******s in the world that just need to be shot. There are hunters and there are victims. By your discipline, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.

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.

We can kill lots of people. We do kill lots of people. We can destroy virtually anything we choose to destroy.

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, that sort of thing.

I would happily storm hell in the company of these troops ... how strongly they have demonstrated to the world that free men and women can fight like the dickens.

I think the core problem is much closer to recognizing where force is of value, where it is useful, and to distinguish that from situations in which war is not useful or is indeed counterproductive.

Treachery has existed as long as there's been warfare, and there's always been a few people that you couldn't trust.

The destruction that we have wreaked in the various theaters in which we've been engaged is really quite astonishing. But again, lethality, destruction, killing doesn't seem to achieve our objectives. So, my own sense is that a lack of lethality does not define the core problem.

A country that armed Stalin to defeat Hitler can certainly work alongside enemies of al-Qaida to defeat al-Qaida.

Be the hunter, not the hunted: Never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down.

An untrained or uneducated Marine ... deployed to the combat zone is a bigger threat to mission accomplishment ... than the enemy.

It is mostly a matter of wills. Whose will is going to break first? Ours or the enemy's?

There is nothing better than getting shot at and missed. It's really great.

I think, broadly speaking, the US military's role - US military activism in various parts of the Islamic world over the past several decades has been counterproductive.

Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot.

In a country with millions of people & cars going everywhere, the enemy is going to get a car bomb out there once in a while.

It's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling.

The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event.

We have the most skillful, firecest, and certainly the most ethical ground forces in the world... I'm not saying we have to commit right now, but certainly don't pull it off the table.

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.

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

With respect to the outlines of what's in the Army Field Manual, there's no doubt in my mind about the limitations it places not only on the DOD, but on the Central Intelligence Agency. And I'll always comply with the law.

What would you do differently as defense secretary to compensate for this record in which the greatest military in the world, as we are constantly told, doesn't get the job done?

I don't see lethality as the problem. I mean, the lethality of US forces is quite remarkable.

The 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.

We face now an era where we're going to be fighting the terrorist threat. I mean, that's simply a reality we are going to have to address that one.

They [US troops] killed, according to a Time magazine investigation, dozens of Iraqi civilians in their homes and also in a car and up on a ridge. And General [James] Mattis dismissed the charges against many of the marines accused, personally intervening to clear their names before the justice system had run its course.

[James Mattis] also intervened in the case in Hamdania, a massacre - a killing, broken by The Washington, where a disabled Iraqi man was pulled out of his house and shot in the face by marines, who then tried to frame him as an insurgent by placing a machine gun and a shovel on him, on his dead body, to make it look like he was an insurgent.

I was struck by the fact that none of the senators, basically, asked General [James] Mattis, "Well, General, how is it that we haven't won?" We haven't won anywhere, 'winning' in the sense of conclusively achieving our political objectives, however you might want to define those objectives.

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.