Like Vietnam, Afghanistan was never about troop levels; it is about how troops are utilized.

After 9/11, a few hundred CIA and Special Operations personnel, backed by airpower and Afghan militias, devastated Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. That effort has since turned into a conventional Pentagon nation-building exercise and gone backward.

America is a great nation, but it cannot spend blood and treasure endlessly.

Russia is basically Italy with nuclear weapons.

We need to privatize whenever possible.

I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.'s disposal for some very risky missions. But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.

I've been overtly and covertly serving America since I started in the armed services.

I'm painted as this war profiteer by Congress. Meanwhile I'm paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support American national security, out of my own pocket.

I am a businessman, not a politician, but I am also a proud American who would never do anything against my country's national interest.

There are some phone calls where it's not even worth wasting the electrons on.

If someone is doing that, saving the customer money, is making a profit so bad?

I'm a very free market guy.

I'm not a huge believer that government provides a whole lot of solutions.

We have a great all-volunteer force, but the fact is that 0.5% of the U.S. population serves in the military, maybe another 3-5% knows someone who serves. Leaving 95% of Ameria with no real contact with the military.

We have the finest officers in the world, but it seems like once they become generals it is a self-licking ice cream cone of who gets promoted and who gets approved to join that club. No one thinks outside the box.

We have no George Pattons anymore. We have no Ulysses S. Grants. We have none of the swashbuckling generals that actually made things happen.

The people we helped in the field, they know what the legacy is. The 40% or so of Americans that really can't stand the name of Blackwater, that's fine, I'll never really win them over anyway. And I really don't care.

Any systems can always be made better.

We have done great work for the U.S. government.

We're trying to do for the national ­security apparatus what FedEx did for the postal ­service.

The Janjaweed is a truly unfettered bully. No one has stood up to them. If they were met by a mobile quick reaction force of African Union soldiers, the Janjaweed would quickly learn their habits were not sustainable.

Any time you employ thousands of people, some people do dumb things.

For people to mischaracterize my time or ownership of Blackwater as being some great financial bonanza, it was not. It was most definitely not.

I've done dumb things.

I'm a strong supporter of the military.

I'm a business guy just trying to make - provide great services to the customers that need us.

I'm a pretty stubborn guy. I don't quit too easily.

Limited government is best.

Video games are an exciting medium. The creativity of design, the technology and the interaction represent the best of American innovation.

My father was a brilliant inventor and businessman. He taught me to appreciate the opportunities that America offers to innovators.

The video game industry is constantly evolving. The sheer creativity matched with cutting-edge technologies gives me the comfort that innovation is alive and well in America.

Training for any difficult job is essential.

America is way too quick to trade freedom for the illusion of security. Whether it's allowing the NSA to go way too far in what it intercepts of our personal data, to our government monitoring of everything domestically and spending way more than we should.

I will support vigorously whoever commits to reduce the size of government the most.

China trading with its neighbours and building infrastructure brings only benefits.

You pretty much remove the entire political texture from Blackwater when you come to China. What they look at is our 100 per cent success rate.

If the Chinese are sensitive about anything, it's not having their people die.

C'mon now, I'm not going to make it easy for the terrorists to get me.

I started a private equity fund and we invest in energy, mining, agriculture kind of things in Africa.

I think everybody wanted to help the U.S. government in some way after 9/11.

I've certainly been mortared and rocketed a few times.

Some of the most dedicated, most passionate people I've ever met have been part of the United States armed forces.

My dad built his business by providing products he figured the customers would want.

I give people ideas on how to solve intractable problems.

I can relate to ranchers and roughnecks and professional game guides and farmers and homemakers.

I believe there is significant overreach by the NSA in how it monitors American citizens.

Let's stop trading freedom for the illusion of security.

We're very excited about Africa - it can be the breadbasket of the world.

Sometimes motorists do irrational things.

The greatest threat to our freedom and prosperity is not al-Qaida, the Taliban, Iran or even China. It's an idea, the idea that we can spend our way out of our problems without tightening our belt and paring down the very bloated government.