GOP primary debate on Univision: on War & Peace

Duncan Hunter: Son serves in Marines, in Iraq & Afghanistan

A: My son came back from his third tour as a US Marine on Thanksgiving, having served in Iraq twice and Afghanistan. And, you know, if you check with the Hispanics of the 1st Marine Division or the 10th Army Division of the 1st Cavalry, you’ll get a lot different poll than the poll that you’re telling me right now, because the young men and women who are serving over there know we can win in Iraq. And let me tell you what they’ve done. With blood, sweat and tears they have brought down the attack rate in Anbar province by 80%. They brought it down over the entire nation. The Iraqi army is now standing up, all 131 battalions. That government’s going to hold and the army’s going to hold, and we are going to leave Iraq in victory, and we’re going to leave an Iraq that will be a friend, not an enemy of the US. So we’re going to be victorious in Iraq, and Hispanic Americans who serve there know that.

Mike Huckabee: Stay in Iraq because we’re winning; we lose if we walk away

A: Because we are winning. Civilians deaths are down 76% since the surge. Even the military deaths are down over 60%. And that’s not the only way we know we’re winning. We’re winning because we see in the spirit of our own soldiers a sense of duty and honor that they are being able to carry out a mission that they were sent there to do. To take them out of it not only means we lose, but it means we totally destroy their sense of morale, and it may take a generation to get it back. But there’s more at stake than just their morale. It’s the safety and the security of the Middle East and the rest of the world. This is about every one of us being able to be free, to have a future, and to be able to know that we’re not going to allow a vacuum there, which happens if we lose--and we lose when we walk away--to create an opening so that terrorists can build even greater cells of training there. That’s why we have to stay. And it’s why we have to win.

Mitt Romney: Staying in Iraq protects lives of American citizens

A: Let’s talk about our mission there. This is not just about strategy & allies. It’s not about oil. It’s not about just the economy. It’s not just about standing up for the fact that we’ve been there for a long time. It’s about human lives. What we’re doing in Iraq relates to protecting the lives of American citizens, here, around the world. It relates to lives throughout the world. It relates to dignity & freedom. We’re in Iraq because we want to make sure that Iraq does not become what Afghanistan was under the Taliban: a place that they could recruit and train and launch attacks against us on 9/11, and other attacks throughout the world. The last thing America could stand for would be to have Iraq become an Afghanistan. Fortunately, the surge is working. It’s going to keep that from happening. We’re going to have stability and security there and American lives will be saved by virtue of the extraordinary sacrifice of American servicemen.

Ron Paul: Different view on war because I adhere to the Constitution

A: I do. I definitely have a different point of view, because we weren’t justified in going over there. We did not declare the war. You might ask the question, why is it that I have a different view point on foreign policy? Because I adhere to the Constitution and the advice of the founders to stay out of the entangling alliances, the internal affairs of other nations.