I have clearly said we faced terrorist enemies who use Islam to justify slaughtering innocent people and we have to stop them and we will. We have to defeat radical jihadist terrorism.
Our challenge is much more pervasive than it would be if we were just facing one enemy in one place. [Instead there is] the Middle East, Iraq, North Korea, Iran. There's a relatively long list that we believe are linked to the al Qaeda network in the Philippines, in Indonesia and in Yemen and other places. That makes it very clear that this is a global network.
When you are engaged in both trying to kill and capture the enemy and get support from the local population, you have to be always asking yourself, "Is what I'm doing keeping that balance?"
I think Barack Obama had the right idea [on negotiations with enemies], and the bottom line is that of course there have to be conditions. But, of course it doesn't do us any good to not talk with our adversaries.
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