Quotes about casualty (112 quotes, page 2)

“The Air Force and the Navy carriers may have kept us from losing the war, but they were denied the opportunity of influencing the outcome decisively in our favor. They gained complete mastery of the skies, gave magnificent support to the infantry, destroyed every worthwhile target in North Korea and took a costly toll of enemy personnel and supplies. But as in Italy, where we learned the same bitter lesson in the same kind of rugged country, our air power could not keep a steady stream of enemy supplies and reinforcements from reaching the battle line. Air could not "isolate" the front. This made it a footslogger's war. To have pushed that war to a conclusion in the mud and mountains of Korea would have required more trained divisions, more supporting air and naval forces, would have incurred staggering casualties and could not have been attempted with any hope of success unless we had lifted the self-imposed tactical restrictions which gave the enemy a sanctuary north of the Yalu. I believe, however, that we could have obtained better truce terms, shortened the war and saved lives, if we had got tougher faster.”

Mark W. Clark (1896–1984) American general

Source: From the Danube to the Yalu (1954), p. 2-3

War , Hope , Mountain , Support

“So the question we have to ask ourselves in 2017 is: Why does North Korea risk its long-enjoyed security by developing long-range nukes? Why is it doing the one thing that might force America to attack, to accept even the likelihood of South Korean civilian casualties? The only plausible goal big enough to warrant the growing risk and expense is the goal North Korea has been pursuing from day one of its existence: the unification of the peninsula.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

More concretely, North Korea wants to force Washington into a grand bargain linking de-nuclearization to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. South Korea would then be pressured into a North-South confederation, which is a concept the South Korean left has flirted with for years, and which the North has always seen as a transition to unification under its own control.
2010s, Interview with the Reuters War College (April 2017)

“In war, truth is the first casualty.”

Aeschylus (-525–-456 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

This is often attributed to U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson, but does not appear anywhere in his speeches. Arthur Ponsonby#Falsehood in Wartime (1928) quoted: "When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty", but the first recorded use seems to be by Philip Snowden in his introduction to Truth and the War, by E. D. Morel. London, July 1916: "'Truth,' it has been said, 'is the first casualty of war.'" Samuel Johnson#The Idler (1758–1760) expressed a similar idea: "Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."
Misattributed

War , Truth

“It was explained that the North Korean matter was a diplomatic inconvenience, while Iraq's non-disarmament remained a "crisis". The reason was strategic: even without WMDs, North Korea could inflict a million casualties on its southern neighbour and raze Seoul. Iraq couldn't manage anything on this scale, so you could attack it.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"The Palace of the End" (2003)
Context: It was explained that the North Korean matter was a diplomatic inconvenience, while Iraq's non-disarmament remained a "crisis". The reason was strategic: even without WMDs, North Korea could inflict a million casualties on its southern neighbour and raze Seoul. Iraq couldn't manage anything on this scale, so you could attack it. North Korea could, so you couldn't. The imponderables of the proliferation age were becoming ponderable. Once a nation has done the risky and nauseous work of acquisition, it becomes unattackable. A single untested nuclear weapon may be a liability. But five or six constitute a deterrent. From this it crucially follows that we are going to war with Iraq because it doesn't have weapons of mass destruction. Or not many. The surest way by far of finding out what Iraq has is to attack it. Then at last we will have Saddam's full cooperation in our weapons inspection, because everything we know about him suggests that he will use them all. The Pentagon must be more or less convinced that Saddam's WMDs are under a certain critical number. Otherwise it couldn't attack him.

“The world had been repeatedly swept by war and famine and plague when the population had been a quarter of what it was now! Less than a hundred years ago. Sparse population didn’t equal peace. It never had. All it meant were fewer casualties.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Fresco (2000), Chapter 43, p. 322

World , War , Peace

“Revision of character will be a much more tangible and scientific thing when the physiology of psychology becomes more than a controverted conjecture. There has been no attempt, no methodical attempt, to amend character thru physiological and neural violence; and about all we know about the possibilities of such a surgery consists of glimpses caught on occasions of casualty. We do know, however, that neural changes appear promptly and invariably in consciousness, and that there is every reason to suspect perfect parallelism between the neural and psychic processes. This unfailing attendance and dependence of mind on physical phenomena, and the superior tangibility of matter over consciousness, assure the prophet that an accomplished and sensitized attention is the all-essential to the achievement of psychical amendment by neural and physiological alteration. In the New Age which we prevision and approach, among the marvels to amaze our clumsy contemplations will be the miracles of cerebral surgery, the physics of the humors, the science of the physiology of consciousness.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Individual Culture, pp. 274–275

Dependency , Perfection , Appearance , Age

“Ibn Tulun, when he built his world-famous mosque in Egypt, at one end of it there was a place for ablutions and a dispensary also as annexes. The dispensary was well equipped with medicines and attendants. On Fridays there used to be a doctor on duty there so that he might attend immediately to any casualties on the occasion of this mammoth gathering.”

Al-Maqrizi (1364–1445) Egyptian Arab historian

in David W. Tschanz, Islamic Roots of Modern Hospitals https://www.aramcoworld.com/en-US/Articles/March-2017/The-Islamic-Roots-of-the-Modern-Hospital

World

“Truth is the first casualty in war, but communications is the second.”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Ramal Extraction (2012), Chapter 12

Truth , War , Communication

“When we talk about "clean war," when there is no casualties, no civilians, no innocent people to be killed, that doesn't exist, no one could make it, no war in the world...”

Bashar al-Assad (1965) President of Syria

Interview with Bill Neely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45odEv_1DAY (July 2016) on " NBC: Exclusive Interview with Bashar al-Assad https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/syria-s-president-bashar-al-assad-speaks-nbc-news-n608746"

World , War , Making love , People