Quotes about military
page 10

“When an attacking force laid siege to a castle, they used techniques and weapons not unlike those developed by the ancient Romans. First they surrounded the castle in order to cut off all avenues of escape and resupply. They also built a camp ringed by ditches and palisades to secure their own position. Then they built siege engines—great stonethrowing devices—which they hoped would break down the castle walls. Although the knights’ chivalric code gave pride of place in warfare to a charge on horseback with lance or to hand-to-hand combat with swords, military engineers skilled in the mechanics of offensive engines had to first break through the walls. To breach the walls the army used battering rams, various kinds of projectiles, and mines. In other words they tried to go through, over, or under the walls.”

Marilyn Stokstad (1929–2016) art historian

Source: Medieval castles (2005), Ch. 2 : The Castle as Fortress : The Castle and Siege Warfare

Hope

“The DPRK derives its legitimacy from the myth that the anti-Japanese hero Kim Il Sung was all right-thinking citizens' choice as the man to found and lead the new Korea after liberation in 1945… Until the mid-1960s the USSR was credited with defeating Japan, but since then propaganda has claimed that Kim and his guerillas freed the race on their own. That this is known to be untrue by those who lived through the time is of minor importance. The painful historical reality of mass collaboration (and the military insignificance of all armed Korean resistance to colonial rule) is precisely what made the Kim myth so attractive.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, North Korea's State Loyalty Advantage (December 2011)

Pain, Thinking, Reality, Time

“Imagine […] that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of "keeping us safe" or "promoting democracy" or "protecting their strategic interests." Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up checkpoints on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence. Imagine if some Americans were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty, because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so. Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers' attitude was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed. […] The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Imagine by Ron Paul http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul512.html (11 March 2009). 2000s, 2006-2009

Women, Children, People, Fear

“Sandinistas are a democratically elected government which originally led a popular revolution to overthrow a dictatorship based on slavery…
US foreign policy could be best defined as follows: kiss my arse or I'll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. It can hardly be said to be a complicated foreign policy. What is interesting about it is that it is so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies. It is very successful propaganda. They have the money, they have the technology, they have all the means to get away with it, and they do. I find the ignorance in this country, Britain, and certainly the US, really quite deep. It is not only the Republican Party and government in the US which are responsible for this state of affairs, but I see the Democrats as only differing by degrees. While they say "no more military aid to the Contras"… they are still referring to an innate and deeply embedded assumption that they are talking about a Marxist-Leninist totalitarian dictatorship; gangsters, thugs, instructed from Moscow.”

Harold Pinter (1930–2008) playwright from England

Quoted in an interview http://www.haroldpinter.org/politics/politics_america.shtml, conducted by Andrew Graham-Yooll, South Magazine (May 1988)

Money, Kiss, Success, Country

“Just as Mycenaean civilisation is a development of the Minoan, so too the Philistines who came to Palestine from Caphtor were an offshoot of the same general Aegean civilisation. …until David's victories around 1000 B. C., the Philistines dominated the Hebrews, so that, militarily at least, the Davidic monarchy was the Hebrew response to the Philistine stimulus. …the Achaeans, Trojans, Philistines and Hebrews during the closing centuries of the second millennium belonged to the same international complex of peoples, sharing many conventions and institutions, specifically in military matters.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Introduction
The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962])

People, Victory

“As a military professional, I knew that the most important element is trust- the vision had to be built on trust. The very basis for why soldiers fight the way they do is the trust they have in their teammates, their fellow soldiers. It's usually less dramatic off the battlefield but still equally important. Without trust in each other and trust in the institution, you will not be able to realize your vision.”

Ann E. Dunwoody (1953) U.S. Army, first four-star general in U.S. military history

Source: A Higher Standard (2015), p. 191

Way, Fight

“If the West has its military-industrial complex, we in the ex-Yugoslavia had a poetic military complex: the post-Yugoslav was was triggered by a mixture of poetic and military components.”

Slavoj Žižek (1949) Slovene philosopher

Vacillating the Semblances
Less Than Nothing (2012)

“This absence of similarity among military questions naturally brings out the inability of memory to solve them; also the sterility of invariable forms, such as figures, geometrical drawings (épures), plans (schémas), etc. One only right solution imposes itself : namely, the application, varying according to circumstances, of fixed principles.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 154

Question, Nature, Memory, Drawing

“I share with you an innate desire to be of public service to this country. It is the lot of our generation to serve as military men first, and then, with an idealism undaunted to enlist with as much zeal to form a lasting peace. All will come right, our cause is just and righteous. This country will not lose.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Letter to friend Loren Hickerson (December 13, 1941)

Men, Peace, Country

“When I was in the military I always made it my first mission to burn the enemy's crops!”

William J. Crowe (1925–2007) United States admiral

After being caught smoking a Havana cigar in the embassy, he was accused of breaking his country's strict embargo on all things Cuban. The Times Obituary http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article2718310.ece (23 October 2007).

“Decisive breakthroughs in military medical administration came just after the turn of the twentieth century. Until then, in even the best-managed armies, disease was always a far more lethal factor than enemy action, even during active campaigns.”

William H. McNeill (1917–2016) Canadian historian

Source: Plagues and Peoples (1976), Ch.6.

Disease, Decision

“Returning home on leave following my second year at West Point, I called on a great-uncle who had joined the Confederate Army at the age of sixteen and had fought in a number of major Civil War battles, including Gettysburg, and had been with Robert E. Lee at Appamatox. My Uncle White was the younger brother of my grandfather. He hated Yankees and Republicans, not necessarily in that order, and talked derisively about both. When I visited, he was seated in a wheel chair, in grudging acquiescence to the infirmities of age. Tobacco juice decorated his shirt and stains around a spittoon on the floor testified to the inaccuracy of his aim. Flies buzzed through screenless windows. "What are you doing with yourself, son?" Uncle White asked. I answered the old veteran with trepidation. "I'm going to that same school that Grant and Sherman went to, the Military Academy at West Point, New York."”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Uncle White was silent for what seemed like a long time. "That's all right, son," he said at last. "Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson went there too."
Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 12.

Hate, War, Age, School

“This administration came out opposing military tribunals, wanting to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York, reading the Christmas Day bomber his Miranda rights and trying mightily […] to close Guantanamo. Yet alongside this exquisite delicacy about the rights of terrorists is the campaign to kill them in their beds. You festoon your prisoners with rights — but you take no prisoners. The morality is perverse. Which is why the results are so mixed.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, May 31, 2012, "Barack Obama: Drone Warrior" http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/barack-obama-drone-warrior/2012/05/31/gJQAr6zQ5U_story.html at washingtonpost.com. 2010s, 2012

Reading, Christmas

“…I’ve moderated my hawkishness, but I’m still fairly much a military hawk. I mean, I thought Afghanistan was a perfectly justifiable war.”

Markos Moulitsas (1971) American blogger

Q&A - Series - C-SPAN.org http://www.q-and-a.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1018,

War

“On the other hand, when we think of what would have happened to us, to France or to Belgium if the Germans had won; when we think of the terms which they exacted from Rumania, or of the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; when we remember that up to a few months of the end of the War German authorities refused to consider that Belgium could ever be liberated, but said that she should be kept in thrall for military purposes for ever, I do not think that we need break our hearts in deploring the treatment that Germany is receiving now. Germany is not satisfied; but…no concession which has been made has produced any very marked appearance of gratitude. Once it has been conceded it has seemed less valuable than when it was demanded.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1933/apr/13/adjournment-easter-1#column_2790 in the House of Commons (13 April 1933) The 1930s

War, Thinking, Appearance, Heart

“To make peace in the world secure, the United Nations must have readily at its disposal, as a result of firm commitments undertaken by all of its members, military strength of sufficient dimensions to make it certain that it can meet aggressive military force with international military force, speedily and conclusively. If that kind of strength is made available to the United Nations […] in my view that strength will never again be challenged in war and therefore need never be employed. But military strength will not be enough. The moral position of the United Nations must ever be strong and unassailable; it must stand steadfastly, always, for the right.”

Ralph Bunche (1904–1971) American diplomat

Some Reflections on Peace in Our Time (1950)

War, World, Peace, Strong

“Even if military advantages were not to be had by deliberately limiting attack to counterforce targets, I suspect that most governments would still prefer to observe such limits. Almost nobody wants to go down in history as the first man to kill 100,000 people.”

Herman Kahn (1922–1983) American futurist

The Magnum Opus; On Thermonuclear War

People, History

“The tragedy of Korea is further heightened by the fact that its military action is confined to its territorial limits. It condemns that nation, which it is our purpose to save, to suffer the devastating impact of full naval and air bombardment while the enemy's sanctuaries are fully protected from such attack and devastation. Of the nations of the world, Korea alone, up to now, is the sole one which has risked its all against communism. The magnificence of the courage and fortitude of the Korean people defies description.
They have chosen to risk death rather than slavery. Their last words to me were: "Don't scuttle the Pacific!"”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

1950s, Farewell address to Congress (1951)

Death, People, World, Communication

“Amazon society, as mythology, history, and universal male nightmare, represents a culture in which women reign culturally supreme because of their gender. Amazon societies are also important because women were trained to be warriors—military and, presumably, in other ways as well. ...

In Amazon societies, women were mothers and their society's only warriors; mothers and their society's only hunters; mothers and their society's only political and religious leaders. No division of labor based on sex seems to have existed in such societies. Although Amazon leaders existed and queens were elected, the societies seem to have been … ones in which any woman could aspire to and achieve full human expression.

In Amazon society, only men, when they were allowed to remain, were, in widely differing degrees, powerless and oppressed.”

Phyllis Chesler (1940) Psychotherapist, college professor, and author

Women and Madness (2005), pp. 335–336 (emphases in original), and see Women and Madness (1972), pp. 284–285 (similar text).
Women and Madness (1972, 2005)

Women, Men, Sex, Way

“I believe in a political revolution, without the aid of the military. I would rather win a man’s mind than compel his obedience.”

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Relatives (1973)., Chapter 3 (p. 59).

“This is about a deterrence effect to stop the Syrian regime targeting their own civilians. I think it would be enforceable from the Mediterranean using US French and UK military capability already out there. It would mean the aerial bombardment of Syrian civilians would stop, and it would create space for peace talks.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Speaking on BBC Daily Politics show — UK 'should enforce Syria no-fly zone even if Russia vetoes UN resolution' https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/12/uk-should-be-prepared-enforce-syria-no-fly-zone-russian-veto-un-isis-assad (12 October 2015)

Peace, Thinking

“Unless we act to end the slaughter of civilians in Syria by President Assad, Isis will continue to find a steady stream of recruits from the Syrian Sunni population driven to desperation and radicalisation. In this context no amount of military action against Isis will be able to eradicate them. … As long as these attacks persist these forces will not be able to focus – as many want to – on freeing their country from the cancer of Isis.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

A new progressive internationalism (17 June 2016)

Country

“Here I must inject a personal note—I never shed blood upon the field of Sidwell Friends, nor did I fight the battles of Yale Law. I am a miner's son, and my father was a self-made man who unmade himself during my youth. Education was not a family legacy, and my kin belonged to the United Mine Workers of America, not to Skull and Bones. My forebears fought this country's wars from the bottom ranks, and I began my own military career as a private. I have felt the full arrogance of those to whom much was given, and personally, wish that I might come to bury the elite, not to praise them. Yet, those who would rise need examples to emulate. It grates on me to write it, but our military needs a return of the nation's elite to the officer corps, to the extent that a traditional elite, with its spotty but essential ideals of service, still exists.”

Ralph Peters (1952) American military officer, writer, pundit

autobiographical aside from Beyond Terror, p. 319. Originally part of an essay entitled "Hucksters in Uniform" which appeared in the May 1999 edition of The Washington Monthly.
1990s, Hucksters in Uniform (1999)

War, Youth, Education, Family

“Shortly after the British government had protested Hitler's violation of the military clauses of the Versailles Treaty on March 16 and then joined Italy and France in proclaiming their determination to uphold the sanctity of treaties, it had, behind the backs of its two Stresa allies, negotiated a naval agreement which violated the naval clauses of the Versailles Treaty and gave Hitler the right and encouragement to build all the warships his shipyards could construct for at least ten years.* The Naval Pact was signed in London on June 18, 1935, without the British government having the courtesy to consult with France and Italy, or later, to inform them of the secret agreements which stipulated that the Germans could build in certain categories more powerful warships than any the three Western nations then possessed. The French regarded this as treachery, which it was. They saw it as a further appeasement of Hitler, whose appetite grew on concessions. And they resented the British agreeing, for what they thought a private gain, to scrap further the peace treaty and thus add to the growing overall military power of Nazi Germany.”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

Secret, Peace

“The administration, through senior Air Force officials, wants the U. S. to achieve military supremacy in outer space. Dominating all earth from outer space will have an out-of-world price tag, perhaps more than $1 trillion.A question: Why reach for the stars with guns in our hands? Are there weapons of mass destruction on Mars?Yesterday 28 Members of Congress signed on to H. R. 2420, a bill to stop the weaponization of space, urging the President to sign an international treaty to ban such weapons. If we work together towards creating peace on earth, we would not bring war to the high heavens.While some fantasize about being "masters of the universe," there are 45 million Americans without health insurance. Corporations are reneging on pension obligations. Social Security is under attack. We are headed towards a $400 billion annual budget deficit, a $600 billion trade deficit, an $8 trillion national debt. The cost of the war in Iraq is over $200 billion. While we build new bases in Iraq, we close them in the United States.Earth to Washington, D. C. Earth to Washington, D. C. D. C., call home.”

Dennis Kucinich (1946) Ohio politician

Speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressional Record (19 May 2005) http://frwebgate1.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=239723145903+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve.

War, Health, World, Peace

“Mr. Trump has said very clearly for months now a policy that's been ignored, which is that he believes that we need to have a temporary suspension to stop refugees from coming in from countries where terrorist activities are rampant or in a war. That's the issue, not the Khan family loss which we all regret, not the loss of many other American families which we all regret. The issue is how to protect the homeland. And the second part of the issue which is being ignored is the cause of these losses, because it forced our American military to go back into Iraq, to go into Syria and that cause was the policies that were put together in January of 2009 by President Clinton and Secretary Obama that caused ISIS to rise.”

Paul Manafort (1949) American political consultant

Interview on NBC News' Meet The Press (July 31, 2016)

War, Family, Loss, Parting

“He's a hope to Latin America and I would like if that philosophy came to Brazil. I think he's unique. I intend to go to Venezuela and to try to meet him. I want to pass a week there and to try to schedule an audience. I think he'll do what the militaries did in Brazil in 1964, with much more strength. I just hope the opposition doesn't go into a guerrilla warfare like they did here.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

About Hugo Chávez. "É uma esperança para a AL" http://acervo.estadao.com.br/pagina/#!/19990904-38672-nac-0007-pol-a7-not/busca/Bolsonaro. O Estado de S. Paulo (4 September 1999).

Hope, Thinking

“The deceit of the Allies would have fateful consequences. Germany, even under Hitler, would never have risked invading France again if her rulers and her generals had known in advance that Britain and America would oppose it by military force. The U. S. Senate's rejection of the Treaty of Guarantee brought a certain responsibility on the United States for the subsequent course of events which pushed western Europe to the brink of destruction by Germany, though this was scarcely recognized in America. The Senate's action did not spare the American republic in the end. It only made the reconquest of western Europe from the Germans, when the Second World War came, infinitely more costly in American lives and treasure than it would have been had a President's word been honored in the first place by the Senate. The United States, supremely complacent in its shortsighted isolation, was lost as a factor in guarding the peace of Europe it had helped to win, and in which its fate would always be intertwined.”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

Fate, War, World, Peace

“Hunter was picked as a promising electronics technician because he aced the Air Force radio-tech exam. Hunter shrugged off the the triumph. Tests were easy. You didn't have to know about radio and electronics; you just needed to be savvy in answering multiple-choice questions. He scored so high, the military thought he was the second coming of Marconi.”

William McKeen (1954) American academic

Source: Outlaw Journalist (2008), Chapter 2, Square Peg, Round Hole, p. 23

Question

“Though many will criticize the president for mis-steps in Iraq and at home, it is with the complicity of Congress that we have become a nation of pre-emptive war, secret military tribunals, torture, rejection of habeas corpus, warrantless searches, undue government secrecy, extraordinary renditions, and uncontrolled spying on the American people. Fighting over there has nothing to do with preserving freedoms here at home. More likely the opposite is true.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Getting Iraq War Funding Wrong Again, April 30, 2007 http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst043007.htm 2000s, 2006-2009

War, People, Secret, Home

“England looked strange to us returned soldiers. We could not understand the war madness that ran about everywhere, looking for a pseudo-military outlet. The civilians talked a foreign language; and it was newspaper language.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

Source: Goodbye to All That (1929), Ch. 21.

War, Understanding, Madness

“I know not whether government can command such sums of money as are necessary for the current expenses of the nation; but it is a folly to expect that this expensive department can be long supported on credit. A further attempt would only bring ruin and distress upon ourselves, without affording any substantial advantage, either to the public or the army; and, therefore, I think it highly necessary, as all military movements are under your immediate direction, and as the affairs of this department are intimately connected with all the active operations, that you should have a right understanding with Administration, with respect to the support they can give. in executing the measures you may think proper to take. There is no deficiency in the resources of the country. On the contrary, I have authentic reasons to conclude the country is more plentifully stored with every material necessary for the provision and support of an army, than it has been for three years past. The defect lies in a want of proper means to draw them into public use. I cannot see how a remedy will be applied to this evil in the present management of finance. The wretched state in which that is involved, creates obstructions, and an accumulation of expenses in every branch of the department.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (January 1780)

Money, Understanding, Support, Thinking

“This Australia of ours is a vast island continent inhabited largely by people of British or other European stock and with a heritage of national freedom, personal liberty and the institutions of a British parliamentary democracy. But geographically we are part of Asia, and increasingly we have become aware of our involvement in the affairs of Asia. Our greatest dangers and our highest hopes are centred in Asia's tomorrows. Already one Asian country [Japan] has become established as the largest purchaser, in terms of money value, of Australian exports. The only military operations in which we are now engaged or in which we have been engaged since the Second World War are located in Asia.”

Harold Holt (1908–1967) Australian politician, 17th Prime Minister of Australia

address to federal parliament after returning from a tour of Asia, 12 April 1967
As prime minister
Source: http://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/original/00001559.pdf

Money, War, People, World

“My Drawings expressed my despair, hate and disillusionment, I drew drunkards; puking men; men with clenched fists cursing at the moon … I drew a man, face filled with fright, washing blood from his hands … I drew lonely little men fleeing madly through empty streets. I drew a cross-section of tenement house: through one window could be seen a man attacking his wife; through another, two people making love; from a third hung a suicide with body covered by swarming flies. I drew soldiers without noses; war cripples with crustacean-like steel arms; two medical soldiers putting a violent infantryman into a strait-jacket made of a horse blanket … I drew a skeleton dressed as a recruit being examined for military duty. I also wrote poetry.”

George Grosz (1893–1959) German artist

as cited by Otto Friedrich in Before the Deluge, Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987, p. 37 - ISBN 0-88064-054-5

Love, Men, Hate, War

“Kath Two was Survey. Whether or not this made her military was a topic of almost theological complexity.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

"Five Thousand Years Later"
Seveneves (2015), Part Three

“Operation Rat-Killer: A U. S. military campaign of 1951-1952, designed to wipe out North Korean guerillas; the terminology reveals an early version of the Mere Gook Rule.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Source: Beyond Hypocrisy, 1992, Doublespeak Dictionary (within Beyond Hypocrisy), p. 160.

“With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity… As he himself never abandoned any of his partisans… but adhered to his friends--and that not merely from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him.]]The superintendence of the administration of justice and the administrative control of the communities remained in their hands; but their command was paralyzed by the new supreme command in Rome and its adjutants associated with the governor, and the raising of the taxes was probably even now committed in the provinces substantially to imperial officials, so that the governor was thenceforward surrounded with an auxiliary staff which was absolutely dependent on the Imperator in virtue either of the laws of the military hierarchy or of the still stricter laws of domestic discipline.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, pt. 2, translated by W.P.Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2
Context: The system of administration was thoroughly remodelled. The Sullan proconsuls and propraetors had been in their provinces essentially sovereign and practically subject to no control; those of Caesar were the well-disciplined servants of a stern master, who from the very unity and life-tenure of his power sustained a more natural and more tolerable relation to the subjects than those numerous, annually changing, petty tyrants. The governorships were no doubt still distributed among the annually-retiring two consuls and sixteen praetors, but, as the Imperator directly nominated eight of the latter and the distribution of the provinces among the competitors depended solely on him, they were in reality bestowed by the Imperator. The functions also of the governors were practically restricted. His memory was matchless, and it was easy for him to carry on several occupations simultaneously with equal self-possession. Although a gentleman, a man of genius, and a monarch, he had still a heart. So long as he lived, he cherished the purest veneration for his worthy mother Aurelia... to his daughter Julia he devoted an honourable affection, which was not without reflex influence even on political affairs. With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity... As he himself never abandoned any of his partisans... but adhered to his friends--and that not merely from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him. The superintendence of the administration of justice and the administrative control of the communities remained in their hands; but their command was paralyzed by the new supreme command in Rome and its adjutants associated with the governor, and the raising of the taxes was probably even now committed in the provinces substantially to imperial officials, so that the governor was thenceforward surrounded with an auxiliary staff which was absolutely dependent on the Imperator in virtue either of the laws of the military hierarchy or of the still stricter laws of domestic discipline. While hitherto the proconsul and his quaestor had appeared as if they were members of a gang of robbers despatched to levy contributions, the magistrates of Caesar were present to protect the weak against the strong; and, instead of the previous worse than useless control of the equestrian or senatorian tribunals, they had to answer for themselves at the bar of a just and unyielding monarch. The law as to exactions, the enactments of which Caesar had already in his first consulate made more stringent, was applied by him against the chief commandants in the provinces with an inexorable severity going even beyond its letter; and the tax-officers, if indeed they ventured to indulge in an injustice, atoned for it to their master, as slaves and freedmen according to the cruel domestic law of that time were wont to atone.

Death, Men, Justice, Law

“My foreign policy has three fundamental branches: first, confidence in our cause, a recognition that the principles America was based upon are not something we shrink from or apologize for, that we stand for those principles; the second is clarity in our purpose, which is that when we have a foreign policy objective, we describe it honestly and clearly to the American people, to Congress and to the people of the world; and number three is resolve in our might, that in those rare circumstances, those rare circumstances where we decide it's essential for us to apply military might, that we do so with overwhelming force, that we do so in the clarity of a mission, understanding the nature of the U. S. interest involved, understanding when the mission would be complete, what will be left when it is -- what will be left behind us when that mission has been -- has been terminated.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

televised remarks, , quoted in * 2012-09-12
What They Said, Before and After the Attack in Libya
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/12/us/politics/libya-statements.html
2012-09-18
2012

People, World, Confidence, Understanding

“What our enemies have sought to destroy is beyond their reach. It cannot be taken from us. It can only be surrendered.
My friends, we are again met on the field of political competition with our fellow countrymen. It is more than appropriate, it is necessary that even in times of crisis we have these contests, and engage in spirited disagreement over the shape and course of our government.
We have nothing to fear from each other. We are arguing over the means to better secure our freedom, and promote the general welfare. But it should remain an argument among friends who share an unshaken belief in our great cause, and in the goodness of each other.
We are Americans first, Americans last, Americans always. Let us argue our differences. But remember we are not enemies, but comrades in a war against a real enemy, and take courage from the knowledge that our military superiority is matched only by the superiority of our ideals, and our unconquerable love for them.
Our adversaries are weaker than us in arms and men, but weaker still in causes. They fight to express a hatred for all that is good in humanity.
We fight for love of freedom and justice, a love that is invincible. Keep that faith. Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong.
Do not yield. Do not flinch. Stand up. Stand up with our President and fight.
We're Americans.
We're Americans, and we'll never surrender.
They will.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2004, Speech at the Republican National Convention (2004)

Love, Men, War, Fear

“Well, Mister President, with all due deference to you, I don't believe in natural-born generals except where they have had proper military training, and it seems to me the siege of Vicksburg is too important a matter to trust to anybody except a scientific military man; besides, if you take troops from Grant and Sherman to give them to McClernand, you will weaken the army.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 123

Nature, Training

“We are carrying into the next decade many unresolved problems raised by Vietnam. How can a democracy such as ours defend its interests at acceptable cost and continue to enjoy the freedom of speech and behavior to which we are accustomed in time of peace? To a Communist enemy the Cold War is a total, unending conflict with the United States and its allies- without formal military hostilities, to be sure- but conducted with the same discipline and determination as a formal war. Unless we can learn to exercise some degree of self-discipline, to accept and enforce some reasonable standard of responsible civic conduct, and to remove the many self-created obstacles to the use of our power, we will be unable to meet the hard competition waiting for us in the decade of the 1970s.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 408

Hostility, War, Peace, Behavior

“Our military forces are an arm of government, just like the Department of Social Welfare, although probably less able to inflict widespread harm.”

David Lange (1942–2005) New Zealand politician and 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand

Source: Defence Quarterly, 1993, p. 32.

“The first documentary I saw as a child was Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) broadcast one Sunday afternoon. Nanook enchanted me by his courage to smile in a frozen wasteland, and by the simple fact that he wore a fur coat rather than a military uniform: this gentle hunter wasn’t a conqueror. Later, I understood how great Flaherty was: he told a timeless story without using commentary or pedagogues, and he didn’t interview Nanook like a celebrity or an aggressive talk-show host. He remained off-screen, observing and listening to create that exceptional complicity we feel in this documentary that eschews didacticism. The emotion of life found its counterpart in the emotion of art - a rare and precious achievement in a genre that is often limited to the emotion of the informational narrative.”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

On documentary influences, Sundance Channel Interview (July 2004)

Life, Smile, Art, Feeling

“Teller’s irascible behavior forced him out of the mainstream but not out of the lab, thanks to Oppenheimer who didn’t think we should be without geniuses, even those whose enormous egos caused serious friction. As bright and innovative as Teller was, his overall performance during the war left a lot to be desired. He was not content to be part of a team effort (like yours truly) and preferred to work off to the side on new and different and sometime pretty far-out ideas (like yours truly). This caused considerable resentment. After all there was a war going on and most people thought future nuclear weapon concepts should be worked on sometime in the future, after we had finished our primary assignment. Edward’s behavior was like a colonel on a planning staff during a military campaign who tells his commanding general that he’d like to plan for the next war. That would be the end of the colonel, who would be demoted and shipped off to some base in the Aleutian Islands.
[5]Oppenheimer, however, realized that guys like Teller, despite their shortcomings, were necessary to have around; one never knows when a guy like that can be worth his weight in gold, which to the best of my recollection never happened with Teller. So an arrangement was worked out where Teller and a handful of like-minded theoretical physicists, willing to put up with his domineering ways, formed a small group dedicated to doing what they pleased, realizing their efforts stood precious little chance of impacting on the project.
[5]The one idea dearest to Teller’s heart was the H-bomb. He and a couple of his cronies applied themselves to devising various schemes on designing such a weapon. All of them turned out to be impractical and most of them unworkable. Which never slowed him down in the slightest for reasons we’ll never know nor will he. I’ve known Edward for a very long time and although I’ve never known him well, one thing about him became clear to me from the very beginning: he was a creature possessed. By what? Again, who knows? Many, if not most, who have read about his life and what he has done, plus those who have known him directly and observed him close at hand and at great length, would say by Satan (which has been said all over the world about me). I wouldn’t go along with that and although I have seen Teller give some of the most impassioned statements morally defending his positions, some of which I have found deeply moving and thoroughly convincing, I would not say that the God I’ve been told exists has had a tight hold on him. If Edward has been possessed by anyone it’s been himself. I’d say the same for myself, and I’ve given you some reasons why, but hardly all of them. I don’t know all of them and would be ashamed to tell you if I did.”

Samuel T. Cohen (1921–2010) American physicist

F*** You! Mr. President: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb (2006)

Life, God, War, People

“The enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honorable and decent spirit of the American military. In this conflict, America faces an enemy who has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality. Saddam Hussein has placed Iraqi troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military -- a final atrocity against his people.”

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

2000s, 2003, Invasion of Iraq (March 2003)

Women, Men, War, Children

“Both Abrams and Westmoreland would have been judged as authentic military "heroes" at a different time in history. Both men were outstanding leaders in their own right and in their own way. They offered sharply contrasting examples of military leadership, something akin to the distinct differences between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant of our Civil War period. They entered the United States Military Academy at the same time in 1932- Westmoreland from a distinguished South Carolina family, and Abrams from a simpler family background in Massachusetts- and graduated together with the Class of 1936. Whereas Westmoreland became the First Captain (the senior cadet in the corps) during their senior year, Abrams was a somewhat nondescript cadet whose major claim to fame was as a loud, boisterous guard on the second-string varsity football squad. Both rose to high rank through outstanding performance in combat command jobs in World War II and the Korean War, as well as through equally commendable work in various staff positions. But as leaders they were vastly different. Abrams was the bold, flamboyant charger who wanted to cut to the heart of the matter quickly and decisively, while Westmoreland was the more shrewdly calculating, prudent commander who chose the more conservative course. Faultlessly attired, Westmoreland constantly worried about his public image and assiduously courted the press. Abrams, on the other hand, usually looked rumpled, as though he might have slept in his uniform, and was indifferent about his appearance, acting as though he could care less about the press. The sharply differing results were startling; Abrams rarely receiving a bad press report, Westmoreland struggling to get a favorable one.”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Source: The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. 134

Men, War, World, Family

“Modern militarism is the result of capitalism. In both its forms it is the “vital expression” of capitalism — as a military force used by the capitalist states in their external conflicts and as a weapon in the hands of the ruling classes for suppressing every kind of movement, economic and political, of the proletariat.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Collected Works, Vol. 15, pp. 191–201.
Collected Works

“In the meantime, I urge all military and police commanders to make sure that human rights are respected during this period.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Statement: on the Declaration of Martial Law in Maguindanao

“As many of you may know, my first chosen career was in the United States Navy, where I served as a submarine officer. At that time, my shipmates and I were ready for combat and prepared to give our lives to defend our nation and its principles. At the same time, we always prayed that our readiness would preserve the peace.
I served under two presidents, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, men who represented different political parties, both of whom had faced their active military responsibilities with honor.
They knew the horrors of war. And later as commanders in chief, they exercised restraint and judgment, and they had a clear sense of mission.
We had a confidence that our leaders, both military and civilian, would not put our soldiers and sailors in harm's way by initiating wars of choice unless America's vital interests were in danger.
We also were sure that these presidents would not mislead us when issues involved our national security.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Post-Presidency, DNC address (2004)

Men, War, Peace, Way

“The [president] is right to point to an international [jihadist] movement aimed at the collapse of the United States. He has gone after that threat in the right way and with great energy and vigor, and I applaud the fact that he has taken it on very seriously and has not considered it just a criminal action but instead a war action, which requires a military … response.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Interview with James Taranto, December 2005.
2003–2007 Governor of Massachusetts

War, Way

“Being a bourgeoisie in a colonial and semi-colonial country and oppressed by imperialism, the Chinese national bourgeoisie retains a certain revolutionary quality at certain periods and to a certain degree--even in the era of imperialism--in its opposition to the foreign imperialists and the domestic governments of bureaucrats and warlords (instances of opposition to the latter can be found in the periods of the Revolution of 1911 and the Northern Expedition), and it may ally itself with the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie against such enemies as it is ready to oppose. In this respect the Chinese bourgeoisie differs from the bourgeoisie of old tsarist Russia. Since tsarist Russia was a military-feudal imperialism which carried on aggression against other countries, the Russian bourgeoisie was entirely lacking in revolutionary quality. There, the task of the proletariat was to oppose the bourgeoisie, not to unite with it. But China's national bourgeoisie has a revolutionary quality at certain periods and to a certain degree, because China is a colonial and semi-colonial country which is a victim of aggression. Here, the task of the proletariat is to form a united front with the national bourgeoisie against imperialism and the bureaucrat and warlord governments without overlooking its revolutionary quality.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On New Democracy (1940)

Country

“While I do not believe that there is a purely military solution to this conflict, I do believe that there will be a military component to any viable solution.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Don’t leave Syria to become a graveyard — this generation’s responsibility to the world (13 October 2015)

“The left should carve out a new long-term narrative about British foreign policy: one that puts human rights and the protection of civilians centre stage again. And one that reasserts our commitment to the responsibility to protect those most at risk of mass atrocity crimes. This isn’t really about being pro or anti-military intervention. Rather it’s a call to redefine the principles that will guide the decisions we take, as well as a commitment to then honour them.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

A new progressive internationalism (17 June 2016)

Decision

“We cannot rely exclusively on military power to assure our long-term security. Lasting peace is gained as justice and democracy advance.”

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

2000s, 2003, Remarks on U.S.-British relations and foreign policy (November 2003)

Peace, Justice, Democracy

“Do they believe that the aim of teaching English is to increase the exact and beautiful use of the language? Or that it is to inculcate and augment patriotism? Or that it is to diminish sorrow in the home? Or that it has some other end, cultural, economic, or military? … it was their verdict by a solemn referendum that the principal objective in teaching English was to make good spellers, and that after that came the breeding of good capitalizers. … I have maintained for years, sometimes perhaps with undue heat: that pedagogy in the United States is fast descending to the estate of a childish necromancy, and that the worst idiots, even among pedagogues, are the teachers of English. It is positively dreadful to think that the young of the American species are exposed day in and day out to the contamination of such dark minds. What can be expected of education that is carried on in the very sewers of the intellect? How can morons teach anything that is worth knowing?”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

On "teachers of English" in "The Schoolmarm's Goal" in The Lower Depths (1925)
1920s

Education, Beauty, Home, Thinking

“The world "legendary" is much overused, but it certainly applies to the seventy-six-year-old Andreas Papandreou, whose life had encompassed so much Greek-American history. As a Greek-born American citizen, he earned a doctorate in economics from Harvard, served in the United States Navy during World War II, and then taught at Harvard, the University of Minnesota, and Berkeley (where he was chairman of the economics department). He was part of Adlai Stevenson's advisory team during his two runs for the presidency. Then he returned to Greece and fought his way into power, surviving a long period in the political wilderness after right-wing pressure forced the resignation of his father, Georgios Papandreou, in 1965, two years before the military coup. He won the prime ministership fifteen years after his father had been forced out of it, and then lost it following a series of corruption scandals - only to make another astonishing comeback, regaining it again in 1993. To conservative Americans, he was anathema, an American turncoat. To Greeks, both those who followed him and those who hated him, he was the dominant political figure of the era.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 124

Life, Hate, War, World

“The intention of not only the screenwriter, but also the entire production staff, was to focus on how people would react if a creature such as Godzilla really did appear. What would the politicians do? How about the scientists? How would the military handle the situation? Given this, it was inevitable that the film would seem at least somewhat like a documentary.”

Ishirō Honda (1911–1993) Japanese film director

As quoted by David Milner, "Ishiro Honda Interview" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/honda.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1992)

People, Appearance

“The drums ceased and the parade ground was as silent as an inland sea. At the other end of the parade ground, I heard Gauldin Grace's harsh, overextended voice screaming out the findings of the honor court. "Gentlemen, the honor court has met tonight and has found Pignetti, D. A., Company R, guilty of the honor code violation of stealing. His name will never be spoken by any man from Carolina Military Institute. He will never return to the campus so long as he may live. His name and memory are anathema to anyone who aspires to wear the ring. Let him go from us and never be heard from again. Let him begin the Walk of Shame."”

Pat Conroy The Lords of Discipline

Source: The Lords of Discipline (1980), p. 439

Memory, Sea

“The bones of Cambodia, and the millions who risked death to flee communist Vietnam and Laos for an uncertain life anywhere else, tells us about the moral value, though not necessarily the military tactical wisdom, of the anti-communist cause.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011)

Life, Death, Wisdom

“I am very pleased to be here in Israel, the land of our friends, friends who are going through a complex period like their neighbors. We are convinced that the efforts of all countries and governments in the region will find a way to reach peace and long-term security. I have arrived here after visiting Beirut and Damascus and I want to tell the Prime Minister and all other ministers that today, everyone wants peace more than ever, peace and security.Now, the preferred position is that of those who do not want to live amidst endless arguments about who was right first and last. Everybody wants to sit around the negotiating table. Everyone aspires to reach decisions that will be acceptable to all and certainly to Israel. We always point out the Russian Federation’s full agreement that the State of Israel has the full right to peace and security. We are convinced that that there is no other way to resolve this problem except through peace.We are certain that UN Security Council Resolution #1701, that we all worked on together, will be carried out in full by all sides. We think that the abductees should be released as soon as possible and we are also convinced that the military blockade of Lebanon must be lifted and that the Lebanese army needs to deploy in southern Lebanon in order to facilitate the Israeli army’s withdrawal as quickly as possible. But we are convinced that peace is attainable only if an international conference - with the participation of all sides - convenes. Lastly, I would like to point out that we are very much looking forward to the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow in order to discuss bilateral relations.”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

In Israel, where he meets the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, {{September 2006)) http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2006/PM+Olmert+meets+Russian+FM+Lavrov+7-Sept-2006.htm

Peace, Way, Problem, Thinking

“As for some countries’ concerns about Russia's possible aggressive actions, I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO. I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people’s fears with regard to Russia. They just want to play the role of front-line countries that should receive some supplementary military, economic, financial or some other aid. Therefore, it is pointless to support this idea; it is absolutely groundless. But some may be interested in fostering such fears. I can only make a conjecture.

For example, the Americans do not want Russia's rapprochement with Europe. I am not asserting this, it is just a hypothesis. Let’s suppose that the United States would like to maintain its leadership in the Atlantic community. It needs an external threat, an external enemy to ensure this leadership. Iran is clearly not enough – this threat is not very scary or big enough. Who can be frightening? And then suddenly this crisis unfolds in Ukraine. Russia is forced to respond. Perhaps, it was engineered on purpose, I don’t know. But it was not our doing.

Let me tell you something – there is no need to fear Russia. The world has changed so drastically that people with some common sense cannot even imagine such a large-scale military conflict today. We have other things to think about, I assure you.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

2015-06-06, Interview to the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/49629 2011 - 2015

People, World, Fear, Dreams

“Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business.”

Noam Chomsky book Deterring Democracy

Deterring Democracy (1992), p. 357 http://books.google.com/books?id=uZui06DXqmcC&pg=PA357. Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994

Business

“Why do serious scholars persist in believing in the Aryan invasions?… Why is this sort of thing attractive? Who finds it attractive? Why has the development of early Sanskrit come to be so dogmatically associated with an Aryan invasion?… Where the Indo-European philologists are concerned, the invasion argument is tied in with their assumption that if a particular language is identified as having been used in a particular locality at a particular time, no attention need be paid to what was there before; the slate is wiped clean. Obviously, the easiest way to imagine this happening in real life is to have a military conquest that obliterates the previously existing population! The details of the theory fit in with this racist framework… Because of their commitment to a unilineal segmentary history of language development that needed to be mapped onto the ground, the philologists took it for granted that proto-Indo-Iranian was a language that had originated outside either India or Iran. Hence it followed that the text of the Rig Veda was in a language that was actually spoken by those who introduced this earliest form of Sanskrit into India. From this we derived the myth of the Aryan invasions. QED. The origin myth of British colonial imperialism helped the elite administrators in the Indian Civil Service to see themselves as bringing `pure' civilization to a country in which civilization of the most sophisticated (but `morally corrupt') kind was already nearly 6,000 years old. Here I will only remark that the hold of this myth on the British middle-class imagination is so strong that even today, 44 years after the death of Hitler and 43 years after the creation of an independent India and independent Pakistan, the Aryan invasions of the second millennium BC are still treated as if they were an established fact of history.”

Edmund Leach (1910–1989) British anthropologist

Sir Edmund Leach. "Aryan invasions over four millennia. In Culture through Time, Anthropological Approaches, edited by E. Ohnuki-Tierney, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1990, pp. 227-245.

Life, Death, Way, Imagination

“The men of my group who are under indictment here were under my military command. If they had not executed the orders which they were given, they would have been ordered by me to execute them. If they had refused to execute the orders they would have had to be called to account for it by me. There could be no doubt about it. Whoever refused anything in the front lines would have met immediate death. If the refusal would have come about in any other way, a court martial of the Higher SS and Police Leader would have brought about the same consequences.”

Otto Ohlendorf (1907–1951) German general

At the Nuremberg Trials. Quoted in "Valhalla's Warriors: A History of the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front" - Page 186 - by Terry Goldsworthy - History - 2007.

Death, Men, Way

“France isn't France anymore. We're not going. And so many people are saying that. Look at what's going on with Germany. Look at what's happening with Germany. Look at the crime; look at the problems. We have enough problems in our country right now. We don't need additional problems, folks. We don't need additional problems. And for all we know, this could be the great Trojan Horse. This could be. We don't know who these people are. … We have to get smart, folks. We don't need the problems — and we've already got those problems, just so you understand. Because they're coming into the country, they're being put where nobody even knows where they are. It's like, if I were the enemy, I would say, I can't believe they're that stupid. They're taking my people and they're putting them all over the place, because you have great military right here.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, August, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)

People, Stupidity, Understanding, Problem

“I was reminded as I was reviewing my life, that I have been in too many conflicts, too many wars, political battles, military battles, civil strifes in government. And always one lesson stands out and that is, those whom you fight most passionately often turn out to be your best friends.”

Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986

Extemporaneous speech at the Sixth Centennial Celebration of Islam in the Philippines (10 June 1980)
1965

Life, War, Passion, Fight

“He was the guy who by his heroic actions gave a morality and dignity to the American military effort. At war sometimes things get topsy turvy, so he was a moral example at a time when things were pure evil.”

Hugh Thompson, Jr. (1943–2006) United States helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War

Douglas Brinkley, Tulane history professor. http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1136568553158920.xml&storylist=louisiana Quotes of others about Thompson

War, Guy, Effort, Evil

“We all want to put the brakes on the arms race…we all want to achieve arms control…but to those who say we must take risks for peace by cutting the meat from our military muscle, I say you are unwittingly risking war.”

Henry M. Jackson (1912–1983) American politician

" Henry “Scoop” Jackson for President 1972 Campaign Brochure http://www.4president.org/brochures/scoopjackson1972brochure.htm", 4President.org. Retrieved 07-02-2006.

War, Peace

“The world is a troubled and divided place. I will conclude with this thought. As we speak, the poorest of the poor countries in the world are getting poorer. There is more unemployment, poverty, homelessness and hunger. Resources are being transferred rapidly from the poor to the rich. Most conflicts stem from poverty and from arguments about resources and power. If one tenth of the money that this country is putting into the defence estimates had gone to the people of Somalia and the other countries that were facing terrible economic strife in the 1970s and 1980s, perhaps there would not be the awful conflicts in that region now. We should be dedicating ourselves to a peaceful world, rather than arming ourselves for war upon war upon war. We should deal with the basic problems of the planet. I hoped at least that there would be a defence review. The review could look at what is, I believe, the unanswerable case for a large reduction in Britain's military spending to make an example to the rest of the world.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1993/oct/18/statement-on-the-defence-estimates in the House of Commons (18 October 1993). 1990s

Money, Hunger, War, People

“The United States would seek more than the mere reduction or elimination of atomic materials for military purposes. It is not enough to take this weapon out of the hands of the soldiers. It must be put into the hands of those who will know how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, Atoms for Peace (1953)

Peace, Art

“The outburst of the first crusade was splendid even in a military sense, but it was great beyond comparison in its reflexion in architecture, ornament, poetry, color, religion and philosophy. Its men were astonishing, and its women were worth all the rest.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Women, Men, Religion, Color

“The annual payment [of German reparations] will very likely spread over some thirty years at least. It would therefore be fair and logical for the military occupation of the left bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads to last for the same length of time…There is, moreover, something quite unusual in the idea of renouncing a security before the amount secured has been completely paid…After the war of 1870, the Germans occupied various French provinces until they received the last centime of the indemnity imposed on France…It is argued that even when the occupation ceased, it could be resumed in the event of non-payment. This option to renew occupation may look tempting to-day on paper. But its bristling with drawbacks and risk. Let us imagine ourselves sixteen or seventeen years ahead. Germany has paid regularly for fifteen years. We have evacuated the whole left bank of the Rhine. We have returned to our side of the political frontiers which afford no military security. Imagine Germany again prey to Imperialism or imagine that she simply breaks faith. She suspends payment and we are obliged to reoccupy. We give the necessary orders, but who will vouch for our being able to carry them out without difficulty?”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Memorandum to Clemenceau (28 April 1919), quoted in David Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties. Volume I (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), p. 428.

War, Faith, Imagination, Idea

“We intend to check up on the fitness of our small units…If each such particle attains real efficiency and brings genuine military skill to our large units, our troops, should they be called upon to fight, will carry out their operations without sustaining heavy losses.”

Semyon Timoshenko (1895–1970) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "Timoshenko: Marshal of the Red Army" - Page 130 - by Walter Mehring - 1942

Loss, Fight

“Think of it this way. When I was in the Army, you didn't see me for years. Think of me that way now, like I'm away in the Army again, on an assignment for the military.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

To his mother (1997), as quoted in American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0060394072 (2001), by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, New York: ReganBooks (HarperCollins), p. 347. 1990s

Way, Thinking

“Everything depends on our succeeding in making the government firm and keeping it firm; whether it pleases us or not, there is nothing else and whoever can, should help. Who is unable to do so, or cannot bring himself to do it, should at least not disturb. But that is done by stupid newspaper articles which publicize the many weaknesses and ridiculous traits of the republic. That is also done by resolutions and speeches against the military decrees which emanate from the officers' side. It is very easy to say 'This is unheard of', and then to do nothing; it is very difficult to try to find usable timber among the ruins. Politics is the art of the possible, not what is desirable. My world looks different from that of to-day; but I will try and help that the two of us and another few Germans can live in the world of the future. To achieve this will be difficult enough, if it can be achieved.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Letter to Mrs Seeckt (12 February 1919), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 31-32.

Stupidity, World, Art, Future

“A few days ago in a Berlin theatre the audience burst into spontaneous applause merely because the orchestra began to play an old military march—not a German march, either, but an Austrian one, the Radetzky march. Do not think that this meant a demonstration in favour of a war of revenge—not a bit of it. But the army and all that goes with it has been in the tradition of the German people for a hundred years and it would betray a very poor knowledge of men to believe that such a tradition could be uprooted when people is bidden by the terms of a treaty to give up compulsory military service.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Remarks to representatives of the foreign press in Berlin (23 November 1923), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), p. 341
1920s

Men, War, People, Revenge

“Whenever you have a possibility of going in two ways, either for peace or for war, for peaceful methods of for military methods, in the present age there is a strong prejudice for the peaceful ones. War seldom ever leads to good results.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

As quoted in "George Kennan Speaks Out About Iraq" at History News Network (26 September 2002)

War, Age, Peace, Way

“The [Loyal] legion has taken the place of the club — the famous Cincinnati Literary Club — in my affections…. The military circles are interested in the same things with myself, and so we endure, if not enjoy, each other.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Letter to Fanny Hayes (1 November 1885)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

“I used to receive a hundred calls a year from people who wanted me to get into the Green Room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, because that's where the Air Force stored all the material gathered on UFOs. I once asked Curtis LeMay if I could get in that room, and he just gave me holy hell. He said, "Not only can't you get into it but don't you ever mention it to me again." Now, with the millions of planets that we know are up there, it's hard for me to believe that ours is the only goddam one that has things that can think walking around on it. So when people tell me they've seen UFOs, I don't say they haven't. In fifteen thousand hours of flying, I've never seen one, but I've talked to pilots who have. I talked to an airline crew that swore up and down that an object came alongside of them one night, and before they could do anything it vanished. We lost a military pilot who went up to intercept strange lights and never came back. His airplane disappeared, too. I won't argue for or against.”

Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) American politician

As quoted in The New Yorker (25 April 1988), p. 70

People, Hell, Thinking, Light

“The Turks have tried military operations in the last 23 years. Now, it's time for the Turkish people to ask their military what they did in the last 23 years, and why they didn't solve it.”

Massoud Barzani (1946) Iraqi Kurdish politician

Turkey and PKK
Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1680302,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics

People, Time

“My mother, who disliked me from the bottom of her heart, deliberately did everything, it seemed, that would strengthen and intensify my unbounded passion for freedom and a military life. She wouldn't let me walk in the garden. She wouldn't let me be away from her for even half an hour: I had to sit in her bedroom and make lace. She herself taught me to sew, to knit, and seeing that I had neither the desire nor the ability for this sort of work, that in my hands everything tore or broke, she became angry, lost control of herself, and beat me very painfully on the hands.”

Nadezhda Durova (1783–1866) Russian Army officer

Translated by Mary Fleming Zirin (1989). The Cavalry Maiden: Journals of a Russian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253205492.

Life, Freedom, Passion, Heart

“Russia is no longer a military threat. But I do think we have a responsibility to try to enhance stability and democracy. And only a democratic country can be stable … It's reasonable to allow time for the development of democracy … But Putin's Russia is moving in the wrong direction … many seem to think that one should tolerate some 'failures' since 'stability' has gained ground. I believe this kind of realpolitik is dangerous. Stability can only result from a genuine democracy, rule of law and respect of human rights.”

Heidi Hautala (1955) Finnish politician

As quoted in "Putin's shadow falls over Finland" by Simon Tisdall, in The Guardian (14 June 2006)

Law, Democracy, Failure, Thinking

“Those of us in the military may have even underestimated the degree of support the American people still afforded the military, for a recent public opinion survey revealed that the military services are among the public institutions that the people trust most. For one looking back on thirty-six years of service in the United States Army, that is a rewarding thought. So, too, I am struck, upon reflection, by the unprecedented changes that occurred during those thirty-six years. From the World War I Stokes mortar and the Model 1897 French 75 artillery piece to sophisticated guided missiles; from the model 1902 rifle to the M-16; from carrier pigeons and Morse code telegraphy to walkie-talkies, computers, and sensors; from a private's pay of $21 a month and a second lieutenant's of $125 to today's private's pay of $344 a month and today's second lieutenant's of $634; through three wars and a number of police actions; from volunteer army back to volunteer army; and from isolationism to multiple international commitments. As one in the middle of the changes at various levels of command responsibility, I have always been impressed by the loyalty, flexibility, durability, and overall effectiveness of the United States Army. The traumatic experience of Vietnam was no exception.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 424.

War, People, World, Support

“The trouble with creating military dictators, Locke reflected, was getting rid of them after the immediate crisis was past.”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies (2007), Chapter 1 “Little Games” section 5 (p. 35)

Past

“I found it peculiar that those who wanted to take military action could — with 100 per cent certainty — know that the weapons existed and turn out to have zero knowledge of where they were.”

Hans Blix (1928) Swedish politician

from an unnamed Swedish radio program, quoted in Mirror.co.uk, "Blix Blasts 'Illegal' US War on Iraq", August 7, 2003 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13263825_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-BLIX-BLASTS--ILLEGAL--US-WAR-ON-IRAQ-name_page.html

Knowledge

“Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations? Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilized for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether?”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Paragraph 20
2006, Letter to George W. Bush, 2006

Science

“Our government has a responsibility to defend our borders, but we must do so in a way that makes us safer and upholds all that is decent and exceptional about our nation.It is clear from the confusion at our airports across the nation that President Trump's executive order was not properly vetted. We are particularly concerned by reports that this order went into effect with little to no consultation with the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security.Such a hasty process risks harmful results. We should not stop green-card holders from returning to the country they call home. We should not stop those who have served as interpreters for our military and diplomats from seeking refuge in the country they risked their lives to help. And we should not turn our backs on those refugees who have been shown through extensive vetting to pose no demonstrable threat to our nation, and who have suffered unspeakable horrors, most of them women and children.Ultimately, we fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism. At this very moment, American troops are fighting side-by-side with our Iraqi partners to defeat ISIL. But this executive order bans Iraqi pilots from coming to military bases in Arizona to fight our common enemies. Our most important allies in the fight against ISIL are the vast majority of Muslims who reject its apocalyptic ideology of hatred. This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Statement by Senators McCain & Graham on Executive Order on Immigration (January 27, 2017) from the Office of Senator John McCain http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/1/statement-by-senators-mccain-graham-on-executive-order-on-immigration regarding [Donald J. Trump]'s Executive Order 13769 entitled "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States", as quoted by Jacob Sallum from Reason magazine in Here Is What Republican Critics of Trump's Immigration Order Are Saying on January 31, 2017 http://reason.com/blog/2017/01/31/here-is-what-republican-critics-of-trump 2010s, 2017

Women, Fear, Justice, Way

“The rapid establishment of Christianity must therefore have been from the conviction which those who embraced it, had of its "Truth and power unto salvation." Christianity at first spread itself amongst the most enlightened nations of the earth - in those places where human learning was in its greatest perfection; and, by the force of the evidence which attended it, amongst such men it gained an establishment. It has been justly observed, that "it happened very providentially to the honour of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were t their height, and when there were men who made it the business of their lives to search after truth and lift the several opinions of the philosophers and wise men, concerning the duty, the end, and chief happiness of reasonable creatures." Both the learned and the ignorant alike embraced its doctrines; the learned were not likely to be deceived in the proofs which were offered; and the same cause undoubtedly operated to produce the effect upon each. But an immediate conversion of the bulk of mankind, can arise only from some proofs of a ddivine authority offering themselves immediately to the senses; the preaching of any new doctrine, if lest to operate only by its own force, would go but a very little way towards the immediate conversion of the gnorant, who have no principle of action but what arises from habit, and whose powers of reasoning are insufficient to correct their errors. When Mahomet was required by his followers to work a miracle for their conviction, he always declined it; he was too cautious to trust to an experiment, the success of which was scarcely whithin the bounds of probablity; he amused his followers with prtended visions, which with the aid afterwards of the civil and military powr; and as the accomplishment of that event was by a few obscure persons, who founded their pretentions upon authority from heaven, we are next to consider, what kind of proofs of their divine commission they offered to the world; and whether they themselves could have been deceived, or mankind could have been deludded by them.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 20; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA261," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 261-262

Men, Truth, Age, World

“Decision theory can be pursued not only for the purposes of building foundations for political economy, or of understanding and explaining phenomena that are in themselves intrinsically interesting, but also for the purpose of offering direct advice to business and governmental decision makers. For reasons not clear to me, this territory was very sparsely settled prior to World War II. Such inhabitants as it had were mainly industrial engineers, students of public administration, and specialists in business functions, none of whom especially identified themselves with the economic sciences. Prominent pioneers included the mathematician, Charles Babbage, inventor of the digital computer, the engineer, Frederick Taylor and the administrator, Henri Fayol.
During World War II, this territory, almost abandoned, was rediscovered by scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians concerned with military management and logistics, and was renamed “operations research” or “operations analysis.””

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

So remote were the operations researchers from the social science community that economists wishing to enter the territory had to establish their own colony, which they called “management science”.
1960s-1970s, "Rational decision making in business organizations", Nobel Memorial Lecture 1978

War, World, Communication, Understanding

“Iraq hasn't suddenly 'slipped back into' this backward and benighted state. It was bombed there by a mulish military power which didn't know Shiite from Shinola. [translated from German]”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Irak: Von Tuten und Blasen keine Ahnung gehabt" http://jungefreiheit.de/kolumne/2014/irak-von-tuten-und-blasen-keine-ahnung-gehabt/, Junge Freiheit, June 27, 2014. 2010s, 2014

“Even two days after the Soviet Republic had been proclaimed, Hitler stood for election again, when the new regime conducted an election among Munich's soldier councils to ensure support for the Soviet Republic by Munich's military units. Hitler was now elected Deputy Battalion Representative and remained in the post for the entire lifespan of the Soviet Republic.”

Thomas Weber (historian) (1974) German historian

Source: Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War (2011), p. 251

Support

“I have often reflected that General Abrams, who had worked so hard to make the South Vietnamese armed forces capable of defending their country, at least had been spared the agony of seeing the death of the Republic of Vietnam. Westmoreland, on the other hand, was not spared that trauma, but seems over the years since the war to have become a national scapegoat, blamed for everything that went wrong in Vietnam, large or small, regardless of whether he had even a remote connection with the matter. It is a singularly fair and unsupported judgement. Many scores of senior American officials, civilian and military, including the author, contributed to our Vietnam mistakes, most of which have been so judged in hindsight. The real "blame", of course, must be laid squarely on the Hanoi regime and the North Vietnamese people, who demonstrated to the world that they had the will to prevail. Although it is a small comfort to Westmoreland, history is replete with the examples of one native son's being singled out, rightly or wrongly, as the person responsible for a national disaster.”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Source: The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. 133-134

Death, War, People, World

“Every democracy must involve civil society in the process of establishing budgets, and all sectors of society must be consulted to determine what the real priorities of the population are. Lobbies, including military contractors and other representatives of the military-industrial complex, must not be allowed to hijack these priorities to the detriment of the population’s real needs.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

United Nations expert urges states to cut military spending and invest more in human development http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/(httpNewsByYear_en)/D5D061E9891363C1C1257CB7003055E0?OpenDocument. 2014

Democracy

“I don't have to be nice to people who are causing great damage to the nation … I refuse to be nice to people who want to overthrow what the military and the security forces have been doing to maintain law and order in this country in the past five years since the illegal overthrow of the Labour Government … I refuse to be nice to people like Jioji Kotobalavu and Qoriniasi Bale. I don't have to be nice to anyone trying to destabilise what the army has built.”

Frank Bainimarama (1954) Prime Minister of Fiji

(30 May 2005).
2000, 2005

People, Law, Past, Country

“We need a robust but targeted military approach. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no war-monger. I opposed the Iraq war and worked for a decade as an Oxfam aid worker – but this isn’t Iraq. This is a humanitarian crisis.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Jo Cox: Syria is not Iraq – we must take action now http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/jo-cox-syria-is-not-iraq-we-must-take-action-now-1-7453039 (10 September 2015)

War

“The reality is we have to make sure that we have a military that’s prepared, but right now, we have more military spending than the next 10, 11, 12 countries combined, and we’ve got to start realizing that we can secure and protect ourselves, but also be responsible in the way that we do that," Booker said. And it’s not unpatriotic to say that we’re spending too much money. In fact, to me, that’s the patriotic thing to say.”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

From Real Time with Bill Maher, as quoted in [Wichert, Bill, Cory Booker says U.S. military spending is greater than the next 10-12 countries combined, https://www.politifact.com/new-jersey/statements/2013/feb/10/cory-booker/cory-booker-says-us-military-spending-greater-next/, PolitiFact, 21 August 2018, February 10th, 2013]
2013

Money, Way, Reality, Country

“[I take] full military responsibility for the actions of the army in the war against terrorism.”

Jorge Rafael Videla (1925–2013) Argentinian President

As quoted in anon (May 18, 2013) "Argentine 'Dirty War' leader Jorge Rafael Videla dies". ABC News.

War

“Upon assuming command, I received no special instructions or guidance from my military superiors in Washington other than an expression of strong interest on the part of General Eisenhower in the maintenance of the Honor System and in the improvement of the teaching of military leadership. Throughout my tour, I was allowed to conduct the affairs of the Academy with minimum official interference so that, if things went wrong, I had only myself to blame.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 112

Strong, Parting

“What I find unendurable is the sense of our country falling into the power, into the orbit and influence of Nazi Germany, and of our existence becoming dependent upon their good will or pleasure. It is to prevent that that I have tried my best to urge the maintenance of every bulwark of defence—first the timely creation of an Air Force superior to anything within striking distance of our shores; secondly, the gathering together of the collective strength of many nations; and thirdly, the making of alliances and military conventions, all within the Covenant, in order to gather together forces at any rate to restrain the onward movement of this Power. It has all been in vain. Every position has been successively undermined and abandoned on specious and plausible excuses.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government#column_370 in the House of Commons (5 October 1938) against the Munich Agreement The 1930s

Pleasure, Sense, Time, Success

“Anarchists generally make use if the word "State" to mean all the collection of institutions, political, legislative, judicial, military, financial, etc., by means of which management of their own affairs, the guidance of their personal conduct, and the care of ensuring their own safety are taken from the people and confided to certain individuals, and these, whether by usurpation or delegation, are invested with the right to make laws over and for all, and to constrain the public to respect them, making use of the collective force of the community to this end.”

Errico Malatesta book Anarchy

Anarchy (1891)

People, Law, Confidence, Communication

Quotes about military page 10

Quotes about military
page 10