“We believe that the coalition's intervention in the civil war in Libya has not, essentially, been sanctioned by the UN Security Council resolution, its only purpose is to ensure the protection of the civilian population.”

Source: "Words of a Rebel"; as quoted in The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations: Cutting Comments on Burning Issues (1992) by Charles Bufe, p. 26

2011, Address on interventions in Libya (March 2011)
Context: In just one month, the United States has worked with our international partners to mobilize a broad coalition, secure an international mandate to protect civilians, stop an advancing army, prevent a massacre, and establish a no-fly zone with our allies and partners. To lend some perspective on how rapidly this military and diplomatic response came together, when people were being brutalized in Bosnia in the 1990s, it took the international community more than a year to intervene with air power to protect civilians. It took us 31 days.

UN expert on democracy highlights importance of free expression, information http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=46355&amp;Cr=information&amp;Cr1=#.Um9rdr_3DjA <br class="br">2013

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1993/feb/23/international-peacekeeping in the House of Commons (23 February 1993). <br class="br">1990s

Friday Sermon in Qom, Iran: Ayatollah Javadi-Amoli Calls on Americans Not to Vote for Bush http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/114.htm, June 19, 2004. <br class="br">America

Interview with Monte Leach, Peace is possible, peace is inevitable, Share International (July 2003) http://www.share-international.org/magazine/old_issues/2003/july_03.htm#voice.

The Farmer Refuted (1775)
Context: The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race; and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.

A new progressive internationalism (17 June 2016)
Context: After the horror of 9/11 ‘interventionism’ was increasingly expressed through the paradigms of ‘security’ or ‘counter terrorism’, rather than being grounded firmly in the protection of civilians. And then Labour’s support for military action in Iraq distorted a worthy principle with such devastating impact. The legacy of Iraq – an intervention I was wholly opposed to because it was not fundamentally about protecting civilians – still hangs over us. But Labour can no longer be paralysed by Iraq. We need to learn from its many lessons without forgetting the equally important lessons of Bosnia or Rwanda.

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)