“Did we not aid the grisly Taliban to achieve and hold power? Yes indeed 'we' did. Well, does that not double or triple our responsibility to remove them from power?”

Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays (Nation Books, 2004): On the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
2000s, 2004

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Did we not aid the grisly Taliban to achieve and hold power? Yes indeed 'we' did. Well, does that not double or triple …" by Christopher Hitchens?
Christopher Hitchens photo
Christopher Hitchens 305
British American author and journalist 1949–2011

Related quotes

“If you did not suffer from emotions, from feelings, you could be as powerful as we are.”

Stirling Silliphant (1918–1996) American screenwriter and film producer

David Zellaby (Martin Stephens), Village of the Damned, (speaking to his father) (1960)

Malala Yousafzai photo

“The content of a book holds the power of education and it is with this power that we can shape our future and change lives.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

Inauguration of Library of Birmingham, Jan 2013

George Soros photo

“We are the dominant power. And that imposes on us a responsibility to be actually concerned with the well being of the world.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Interview with David Brancaccio (2003)
Context: We are the dominant power. And that imposes on us a responsibility to be actually concerned with the well being of the world. Because we set the agenda. And there are a lot of problems, including terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, that can only be tackled by collective action. And we ought to be leading that collective action, instead of riding roughshod over other people's opinions and interests.

Bill Clinton photo
Mengistu Haile Mariam photo
Charles Evans Hughes photo

“Great powers agreeing among themselves may indeed hold small powers in check. But who will hold great powers in check when great powers disagree?”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

The Pathway of Peace (1923)
Context: Time has shown how illusory are alliances of great powers so far as the maintenance of peace is concerned.
In considering the use of international force to secure peace, we are again brought to the fundamental necessity of common accord. If the feasibility of such a force be conceded for the purpose of maintaining adjudications of legal right, this is only because such an adjudication would proceed upon principles commonly accepted, and thus forming part of international law, and upon the common agreement to respect the decision of an impartial tribunal in the application of such principles. This is a limited field where force is rarely needed and where the sanctions of public opinion and the demands of national honor are generally quite sufficient to bring about acquiescence in judicial awards. But in the field of conflicting national policies, and what are deemed essential interests, when the smoldering fires of old grievances have been fanned into a flame by a passionate sense of immediate injury, or the imagination of peoples is dominated by apprehension of present danger to national safety, or by what is believed to be an assault upon national honor, what force is to control the outbreak? Great powers agreeing among themselves may indeed hold small powers in check. But who will hold great powers in check when great powers disagree?.

Lucy Stone photo

“We pleaded that whatever was fit to be done at all might with propriety be done by anybody who did it well; that the tools belonged to those who could use them; that the possession of a power presupposed a right to its use.”

Lucy Stone (1818–1893) American abolitionist and suffragist

The Progress of Fifty Years (1893)
Context: Half a century ago women were at an infinite disadvantage in regard to their occupations. The idea that their sphere was at home, and only at home, was like a band of steel on society. But the spinning-wheel and the loom, which had given employment to women, had been superseded by machinery, and something else had to take their places. The taking care of the house and children, and the family sewing, and teaching the little summer school at a dollar per week, could not supply the needs nor fill the aspirations of women. But every departure from these conceded things was met with the cry, "You want to get out of your sphere," or, "To take women out of their sphere;" and that was to fly in the face of Providence, to unsex yourself in short, to be monstrous women, women who, while they orated in public, wanted men to rock the cradle and wash the dishes. We pleaded that whatever was fit to be done at all might with propriety be done by anybody who did it well; that the tools belonged to those who could use them; that the possession of a power presupposed a right to its use.

Andrew Vachss photo
Jens Stoltenberg photo

“We have a high standard of living. … In Norway, we've tripled our income since 1970. In the rest of western Europe, income has merely doubled.”

Jens Stoltenberg (1959) Norwegian politician, 13th Secretary-General of NATO, 27th Prime Minister of Norway

Interview in Torgrim Eggen (2001). " At the Top: An interview with Jens Stoltenberg http://www.torgrimeggen.no/Reportasje/jens.htm", Scanorama.
2000s

Heather Brooke photo

“The public pay for and elect the government and it is only by the people’s will that those in public office hold power. Public servants’ primary responsibility is to serve the people and we have a right to know what they are doing in our name and with our money. Public accountability does not end the day after an election.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Newsletter (UK) http://www.newsletter.co.uk/community/columnists/maurice-neill-upholding-our-right-to-accountability-1-3856967 "MAURICE NEILL: Upholding our right to accountability", 18 May 2012.
Attributed, In the Media

Related topics