“Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years. At what price?… On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with.”

Paragraphs 3-4
2006, Letter to George W. Bush, 2006

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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad77

6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran 1956

Ahmed Sheikh (1949) Palestinian journalist

On the Iraqi insurgency. <br class="br">Source: World Politics Watch http://www.worldpoliticswatch.com/article.aspx?id=395, 7 December 2006.

“Other people can occupy your country, they can even put you in prison, but they cannot take away your true home and your freedom.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

"Returning Home" http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2877&Itemid=0, Shambhala Sun (March 2006) <br class="br">Context: Your true home is in the here and the now. It is not limited by time, space, nationality, or race. Your true home is not an abstract idea. It is something you can touch and live in every moment. With mindfulness and concentration, the energies of the Buddha, you can find your true home in the full relaxation of your mind and body in the present moment. No one can take it away from you. Other people can occupy your country, they can even put you in prison, but they cannot take away your true home and your freedom.

“The ground which a colored man occupies in this country is, every inch of it, sternly disputed.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech at the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society annual meeting, New York City (May 1853)
1850s

“When the country is occupied and the people are being killed by the enemy, everyone must take action, even if he sacrifices himself in so doing.”

Ahmed Sheikh (1949) Palestinian journalist

On Palestinian suicide bombings. <br class="br">Source: World Politics Watch http://www.worldpoliticswatch.com/article.aspx?id=395, 7 December 2006.

“The resettlement of populations scattered by war and by enemy occupation is one of the problems with which Europe will be most urgently faced when the occupied countries are set free. Since hostilities began, millions of people have left homes destroyed or threatened with destruction; millions more have been transplanted, deported, or expelled to make room for foreign newcomers who have taken over their property; millions of others again have been taken prisoner or individually recruited as workers and sent away from their countries to serve the occupying power.”

Eugene M. Kulischer (1881–1956) American sociologist

Prefatory note
The Displacement Of Population In Europe, 1943

“A playwright lives in an occupied country… And if you can't live that way you don't stay.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

The New York Times (9 Feb 1986)

“In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

An Address on Abraham Lincoln before the Republican Club of New York City (12 February 1909)

“We permit absolute possession of the soil of our country, with no legal rights of existence on the soil to the vast majority who do not possess it. A great landholder may legally convert his whole property into a forest or a hunting-ground, and expel every human being who has hitherto lived upon it. In a thickly-populated country like England, where every acre has its owner and its occupier, this is a power of legally destroying his fellow-creatures; and that such a power should exist, and be exercised by individuals, in however small a degree, indicates that, as regards true social science, we are still in a state of barbarism.”

Alfred Russel Wallace book The Malay Archipelago

Last Words, addendum to later editions.
The Malay Archipelago (1869)

“The United States is the most powerful technically advanced country in the world to-day. Its influence on the shaping of international relations is absolutely incalculable. But America is a large country and its people have so far not shown much interest in great international problems, among which the problem of disarmament occupies first place today. This must be changed, if only in the essential interests of the Americans. The last war has shown that there are no longer any barriers between the continents and that the destinies of all countries are closely interwoven. The people of this country must realize that they have a great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The part of passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end to lead to disaster all round.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, The World As I See It (1949)

“No one, I think, can deny that the depression of the agricultural interest is excessive. Though I can recall periods of suffering, none of them have ever equalled the present in its instances. ... [N]or is it open to doubt that foreign competition has exercised a most injurious influence on the agricultural interests of the country. The country, however, was perfectly warned that if we made a great revolution in our industrial system, that was one of the consequences that would accrue. I may mention that the great result of the returns we possess is this, that the immense importations of foreign agricultural produce have been vastly in excess of what the increased demands of our population actually require, and that is why the low prices are maintained...That is to a great degree the cause of this depression.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in the House of Lords on the agricultural depression (28 March 1879), reported in The Times (29 March 1879), p. 8

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