Military Quotes

"If politics and business fail us, of course the military will be called in. In the developing world, the massive and repeated ecological disasters are quite commonly met by the military"

Bruce Sterling, Writer

"The use of military force against Iran would be very dangerous. It would be very provocative. The only thing worse would be Iran being a nuclear power"

Rudy Giuliani, Politician

"The war was declared over - the end of major combat operations - in May 2003. Release procedures got under way immediately; reducing the population from 8,000 to just over 300, of course, requires fewer military police soldiers"

Janis Karpinski, Soldier

"I knew how many MPs I had assigned to the brigade, how many military prison operations I would be running, but we needed to evaluate how many criminal prison operations we could support"

Janis Karpinski, Soldier

"This enemy of peace in the world today is unlike any we have seen in the past, and our military is learning from, and building on, previous successes while carrying peace and freedom into the future"

Mark Kennedy, Politician

"It is a grave matter to enter a war, without adequate military preparation; it may prove fatal to come into peace, without moral and religious preparation"

Louis Finkelstein, Clergyman

"In the light of the actual fighting that is now in progress, we have reached the point where the military considerations clearly outweigh the fiscal considerations"

Louis A. Johnson, Public Servant

"No candidate can win a presidential race advocating gay marriage and opposing the military action in Iraq"

Dick Morris, Author

"With freedom comes responsibility, and I can think of no responsibility greater than putting on a U.S military uniform and standing in the gap between an enemy threat and civilian life"

Zack Wamp

"I believe we can and should have it all. Lower deficits but higher spending. More peace with a bigger military that goes off and kills terrorists and whatnot. A cleaner environment without forcing SUVs off the road"

Craig Armstrong

"If public opinion still endorses military action that's one thing, but if they wait maybe it will not. So it's not only impatience, but there are several other factors"

Hans Blix, Diplomat

"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, Diplomat

"I went to Ft Bragg and learned that Delta was indeed gearing up for the rescue. Still I was concerned the Reagan staff would not be willing to take the risk of sending an official military force into Laos"

Bo Gritz, Soldier

"Fourth, we might have declared an embargo against the shipping from American ports of any merchandise to either one of these governments that persisted in maintaining its military zone"

George William Norris, Politician

"It doesn't matter that Bush scares the hell out of me. What matters is that he scares the hell out of a lot of very important people in Washington who can't speak out, in the military, in the intelligence community"

Seymour Hersh, Journalist

"If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe"

Lord Salisbury, Politician

"The attack and our response show just how vital Arizona's military bases are to the defense of our country. We need to do everything we can to protect them"

Jane D. Hull, Politician

"To the person that deals in visualizations, I suppose there is something rather exciting about a whole set of people - they all going symmetrically, up or down, in a military sort of precision"

Leo Ornstein, Composer

"I had been involved in U.S. intelligence in Berlin, Germany, while in the military and had worked with a contact with the Central Intelligence Agency office there"

George J. Mitchell, Politician

"The U.S. must renounce any U.S. interest in constructing permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq"

Peter DeFazio, Politician

"The military is trying very hard right now to put a better face on Guantanamo, and I think they actually have tried to rid some of the extreme versions of abuse that we have read about"

Jane Mayer, Journalist

"And the program was developed in large part by behavioral scientists who were working with the military, who do everything they possibly can to measure a soldier's stress levels to see how they're doing physically and emotionally, as they go through this program"

Jane Mayer, Journalist

"It's about time we all faced up to the truth. If we accept the radical homosexual agenda, be it in the military or in marriage or in other areas of our lives, we are utterly destroying the concept of family"

Alan Keyes, Politician

"We are not utilizing the Iraqi oil for U.S. purposes. We are not asking that the Iraqi oil be used to pay our military expenses. We are asking only that the Iraqi oil be used to rebuild Iraq - that is, to rebuild Iraq for the Iraqi people"

Arlen Specter, Politician

"I was never able to convince myself that there was a cost-free alternative course, as from 1961, or that any of the different strategies since proposed, especially those involving stronger military action, would have made sense"

William P. Bundy, Historian

"I give bird songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colors for those who see none"

Olivier Messiaen, Composer

"It is a major sin to break a contract, especially in military situations"

John Walker Lindh, Criminal

"People don't understand rural America. Sixteen percent of our population is rural, but 40 percent of our military is rural. I don't believe that's because of a lack of opportunity in rural America. I believe that's because if you grow up in rural America, you know you can't just keep taking from the land. You've got to give something back"

Tom Vilsack, Politician

"I'm optimistic because I'm pragmatic: Neither of the two sides, the military government nor the Islamic front, is capable of winning. If they continue to fight, they will both bleed to death"

Ahmed Ben Bella, Politician

"Not all the Americans in Iraq are those who torture and murder, or course they're not, I don't know how many are doing it, I know it is systematic throughout the United States military I think that's been revealed"

John Pilger, Journalist

"We're quickly moving to the point where we will have no military bases in the Northeast, and this undermines support for the military. We are a nation of citizen soldiers"

Rob Simmons, Politician

"This is still a man's profession, with a lot of men who intellectually and emotionally have not accepted that the military could be women's work"

Lawrence Korb

"Everywhere that the struggle for national freedom has triumphed, once the authorities agreed, there were military coups d'etat that overthrew their leaders. That is the result time and time again"

Ahmed Ben Bella, Politician

"It is vital that Iraq and the United States together send the clearest possible signal that those who commit acts of violence against American military forces and American civilians will not be rewarded with amnesty"

Ike Skelton, Politician

"The war we are fighting today against terrorism is a multifaceted fight. We have to use every tool in our toolkit to wage this war - diplomacy, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and of course, military power - and we are developing new tools as we go along"

Richard Armitage, Politician

"Were British protesters, armed with little more than a frisbee and a bag of plastic toy soldiers, really in danger of being shot by the US military in Gloucestershire?"

Mark Thomas, Comedian

"On Saturday afternoons, there was a film, of course, and then we did about four shows between the films. And I would do a tap dance, a little military tap"

Barbara Cook, Musician

"Blunders are an inescapable feature of war, because choice in military affairs lies generally between the bad and the worse"

Allan Massie

"We were in the Arabian Desert for nine months. And I was having the time of my life. It could have been an archeological expedition, a military expedition"

Peter O'Toole, Actor

"Having committed ourselves to Iraq, we must prevail, and to prevail, we must fund all of the requirements for our military. We must do it adequately and promptly, and the administration is doing neither"

Jack Reed, Politician

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