Barack Obama on American benevolence

“America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens.”

“We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can.”

“We have set ourselves back in terms of the leverage we have in the world, in terms of our ability to persuade other countries to cooperate with us. And so we're gonna have to fix a very difficult situation. But the one thing I always remind people, because they get discouraged, they say, you know, people around the world, they're expressing hatred towards America. You know, people outside of this country are expressing disappointment because they got high expectations for America. And they want America to lead, they want America to lead through our values, and through our ideals and through our example. But they have high expectations of us because, I think, that this country is still the last best hope on earth.”