“This is not about the security of the United States. This is about domestic American politics. The national security of the United States of America has been hijacked by a handful of neo-conservatives who are using their position of authority to pursue their own ideologically-driven political ambitions. The day we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed collectively as a nation.”

— Scott Ritter

Truth Out, 24 July 2002
2000

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Scott Ritter 13

American weapons inspector and writer 1961

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“Call it habit or conditioning or socialization: The citizens of the United States have essentially forfeited any capacity to ask first-order questions about the fundamentals of national security policy.”

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Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

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“Ours is a nation of immigrants. We're also a nation of law. Unfortunately, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders for decades and, therefore, illegal immigration has been on the rise. We have a responsibility to address these challenges. We have a responsibility to enforce our laws. We have a responsibility to secure our borders. We take this responsibility seriously.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

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“There is one compromise and one only, and that is the United Nations. If the United States and Britain go to the United Nations and the United Nations says we have concrete evidence of the existence of these weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we feel that we must do something about it, we would all support it. … There is no doubt that the United States now feels that they are the only superpower in the world and they can do what they like. And of course we must consider the men and the women around the president. Gen. Colin Powell commanded the United States army in peacetime and in wartime during the Gulf war. He knows the disastrous effect of international tension and war, when innocent people are going to die, young men are going to die. He knows and he showed this after September 11 last year. He went around briefing the allies of the United States of America and asking for their support for the war in Afghanistan. Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, they are people who are unfortunately misleading the president. Because my impression of the president is that this is a man with whom you can do business. But it is the men who around him who are dinosaurs, who do not want him to belong to the modern age.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

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“To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

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“Last August 4th, I was a victim of a terrorist attack with drones that tried to kill me in a military event on one of the main avenues in Caracas. If it had been executed as planned, it would have been a massacre, an assassination of the institutional, political and military high command of our nation…. the terrorists… who attacked me… were captured by the security… agencies. The 28 perpetrators were captured…are convicted and sentenced. As I informed… different governments of the world, all the investigations about that terrorist attack indicate that it was prepared, financed and planned in the territory of United States of America… I would like to ask the United Nations system to appoint a special delegate of the Secretariat of the United Nations to conduct an independent investigation internationally about the implications and responsibilities of this terrorist attack.”

Nicolás Maduro (1962) 53rd President of Venezuela

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“I am a citizen of the greatest Republic of Mankind. I see the human race united like a huge family by brotherly ties. We have made a sowing of liberty which will, little by little, spring up across the whole world. One day, on the model of the United States of America, a United States of Europe will come into being. The United States will legislate for all its nationalities.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Attributed to Washington in "Farewell to the United States of Europe: long live the EU!" by André Fontaine at Open Democracy (29 November 2001) http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-europefuture/article_344.jsp. It appears to have originally circulated in French:
:: Je suis citoyen de la Grande République de l'Humanité. Je vois le genre humain uni comme une grande famille par des liens fraternels. Nous avons jeté une semence de liberté et d'union qui germera peu à peu dans toute la Terre. Un jour, sur le modèle des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, se constitueront les États-Unis d'Europe. Les États-Unis seront le législateur de toutes les nationalités.
: An anonymous blogger in "Did George Washington predict a "United States of Europe"? (30 January 2010) http://racehist.blogspot.com/2010/01/did-george-washington-predict-united.html showed that it derived from Gustave Rodrigues, Le peuple de l'action: essai sur l'idéalisme américain (A. Colin, 1917), p. 207:
:: Washington écrivait à La Fayette qu'il se condérait comme « citoyen de la grande république de l'humanité » et ajoutait : « Je vois le genre humain uni comme une grande famille par des liens fraternels ». Ailleurs il écrivait, prophétiquement: « Nous avons jeté une semence de liberté et d'union qui germera peu à peu dans toute la terre. Un jour, sur le modèle des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, se constitueront les États-Unis d'Europe. »
: A translation by Louise Seymour Houghton ( The People of Action: An Essay on American Idealism (1918) http://books.google.com/books?id=b8Y9AAAAYAAJ) reads:
:: Washington wrote to Lafayette that he considered himself a "citizen of the great republic of humanity," adding: "I see the human race a great family, united by fraternal bonds." Elsewhere he wrote prophetically: "We have sown a seed of liberty and union that will gradually germinate throughout the earth. Some day, on the model of the United States of America, will be constituted the United States of Europe." [pp. 209-210]
: The first two quotations come from a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette of 15 August 1786 (see above) as quoted in Joseph Fabre's Washington, libérateur de l'Amérique: suivi de Washington et la revolution Américaine (Ch. Delagrave, 1886), and the third is also found in that source where, although placed between quotation marks, it is clearly intended as the author's own comments on what "Washington and his friends" were saying to the world by establishing the American Constitution. Gustave Rodrigues mistakenly printed Fabre's words as Washington's alongside some actual observations of his from a letter to Lafayette, and so created the misquotation.
Misattributed

“Now look at the ideology of American supremacy. It has a solid foundation in reality; namely, the United States is the dominant power in the world. The current government believes the United States ought to use this dominant position to impose its will on the world. That is the misconception. This approach is not what made America great. America did not arrive at its dominant position by imposing its will on the world.”

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

BuzzFlash interview (2004)

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