Kosovo War Quotes

Fallujah was a Guernica with no Picasso. A city of 300,000 was deprived of water, electricity, and food, emptied of most of its inhabitants who ended up parked in camps. Then came the methodical bombing and recapture of the city block by block. When soldiers occupied the hospital, The New York Times managed to justify this act on grounds that the hospital served as an enemy propaganda center by exaggerating the number of casualties. And by the way, just how many casualties were there? Nobody knows, there is no body count for Iraqis. When estimates are published, even by reputable scientific reviews, they are denounced as exaggerated. Finally, the inhabitants were allowed to return to their devastated city, by way of military checkpoints, and start to sift through the rubble, under the watchful eye of soldiers and biometric controls. ~ Jean Bricmont

There was a time in my life when I did a fair bit of work for the tempestuous Lucretia Stewart, then editor of the American Express travel magazine, Departures. Together, we evolved a harmless satire of the slightly driveling style employed by the journalists of tourism. 'Land of Contrasts' was our shorthand for it. ('Jerusalem: an enthralling blend of old and new.' 'South Africa: a harmony in black and white.' 'Belfast, where ancient meets modern.') It was as you can see, no difficult task. I began to notice a few weeks ago that my enemies in the 'peace' movement had decided to borrow from this tattered style book. The mantra, especially in the letters to this newspaper, was: 'Afghanistan, where the world's richest country rains bombs on the world's poorest country.'

Poor fools. They should never have tried to beat me at this game. What about, 'Afghanistan, where the world's most open society confronts the world's most closed one'? 'Where American women pilots kill the men who enslave women.' 'Where the world's most indiscriminate bombers are bombed by the world's most accurate ones.' 'Where the largest number of poor people applaud the bombing of their own regime.' I could go on. (I think number four may need a little work.) But there are some suggested contrasts for the 'doves' to paste into their scrapbook. Incidentally, when they look at their scrapbooks they will be able to re-read themselves saying things like, 'The bombing of Kosovo is driving the Serbs int ~ Christopher Hitchens

Milosevic will never stop, because he is fighting for personal power in Serbia. The only way to stop him is cutting the functioning of his war machine. He is spending $1.7 million a day on his war machine in Kosovo. ~ Fatos Nano

They'd arranged to meet with an Omegan mole who worked in the Clinton administration. He was helping them with a new Omega Agency operation involving the Kosovo War, which had just broken out in Europe. Naylor and his cronies were seeking to use Kosovo as a transit route for Afghan heroin bound for EU countries. Despite the official news stories being circulated by mainstream media, Omega knew the extremely lucrative heroin trade was behind the war. ~ James Morcan

Once Understanding is unveiled, then victory is won and Peace established in the heart for ever and anon. An understanding heart is ever at peace even amid a war-dazed world. An ignorant heart is a dual heart. A dual heart makes for a dual world. A dual world breeds constant strife and war. Whereas an understanding heart is a single heart. A single heart makes for a single world. A single world is a world at peace. For it takes two to make a war. ~ Mikhail Naimy

Potential enemies make the best friends and lovers. Many a blessed union begins in adversity. ~ Randy Thornhorn

You don`t have to do anything. Why worry? It`s all god`s plan anyway. Just love everyone and believe. Be a limp-wristed wimp and recruit others to be the same. But, give unto Caesar that which is Caesar`s. When Caesar says drop bombs on christian babies in Berlin, or Muslim babies in Iraq, it`s okay. When Caesar says open your borders to tens of millions of dark immigrants, or to bus your children to jungle neighborhoods, or to accept legalized pornography an the abortion murder of babies, then it is Caesar`s responsibility, not the Christian`s. So don`t concern yourselves. ~ Frazier Glenn Miller

Being a powerful woman who also exhibits great warmth is an incredible feat because people think that to be powerful you have to be cold, and you don't. ~ Taylor Swift

Many people correctly make the point that our only hope is to turn to God. For example, Charles Lindbergh, who said that in his young manhood he thought "science was more important than either man or God," and that "without a highly developed science modern man lacks the power to survive," ... went to Germany after the war to see what Allied bombing had done to the Germans, who had been leaders in science. There, he says, "I learned that if his civilization is to continue, modern man must direct the material power of his science by the spiritual truths of his God." ~ Marion G. Romney

Since the handling of arms is a beautiful spectacle, it is delightful to young men. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

During the Cold War, we were interested because we were scared that Russia and the United States were going to go to war. We were scared that Russia was going to take over the world. Every country became a battleground. ~ Fareed Zakaria

To The Veterans of the United States of America
Thank you, for the cost you paid for our freedom, thank you for the freedom to live in safety and pursue happiness, for freedom of speech (thus my book), and for all the freedoms that we daily take for granted. ~ Sara Niles

War has a deeper and more ineffable relation to hidden grandeurs in man than has yet been deciphered. ~ Thomas De Quincey

No one made a decision to militarize the police in America. The change has come slowly, the result of a generation of politicians and public officials fanning and exploiting public fears by declaring war on abstractions like crime, drug use, and terrorism. The resulting policies have made those war metaphors increasingly real. ~ Radley Balko

War is in the eyes. ~ David Douglas Duncan

I was deeply disturbed by the meeting. If I couldn't do what I thought was necessary to take care of the troops, I didn't see how I could remain as secretary. I was in a quandary. I shared Obama's concerns about an open-ended conflict, and while I wanted to fulfill the troop requests of the commanders, I knew they always would want more - just like all their predecessors throughout history. How did you scale the size of the commitment to the goal? How did you measure risk? But I was deeply uneasy with the Obama White House's lack of appreciation - from the top down - of the uncertainties and inherent unpredictability of war. "They all seem to think it's a science," I wrote in a note to myself. I came closer to resigning that day than at any other time in my tenure, though no one knew it. During ~ Robert M. Gates

I saw some war heroes ... John Kerry is not a war hero. He couldn't tie the shoes of some of the people in Coastal Division 11. ~ John O'Neill

With regard to narrow passes, if you can occupy them first, let them be strongly garrisoned and await the advent of the enemy. ~ Sun Tzu

The Bible is a novel that's crazy ... it has murder, it has victory it has mayhem, it has disaster, it has war, sanctification. ~ Fred Hammond

Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots. ~ Sun Tzu

Dellosso's cleverly plotted second Jed Patrick novel (after 2015's Centralia) finds the Afghan war vet hiding with his wife, Karen, and their eight-year-old daughter, Lilly, in a cabin in the Idaho wilderness. Two months earlier, two CIA agents gave him a thumb drive containing "every damaging piece of information about the Centralia Project," the exposure of which threatens to cause a "scandal that would be talked and read about for decades to come." Then one day Jed returns to the cabin to find Karen in tears. She tells him that three armed men burst into the cabin asking for the thumb drive, but she didn't know where it was. The men took Lilly, and vowed they would return for Karen. More shocks follow. Meanwhile, CIA technician Tiffany Stockton discovers a plot to control Jed's mind in a sophisticated update of The Manchurian Candidate. Can she stop him from becomes an unwilling assassin? Dellosso expertly misdirects readers, but they should be prepared for only serviceable prose. ~ Publishers Weekly

The hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Only a modern army will be able to fight a modern war. ~ Howard W. Koch

In life, toughness and roughness go together. ~ Auliq Ice

We are in the process of trying to liberate that country. And at the moment where the war ends and the coalition forces occupy the areas where those capabilities - chemical and biological weapons - are likely to be, to the extent they haven't been moved out of the country, it obviously is important to find them. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

War with all its glorification of brute force is essentially a degrading thing. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

We ... our war began September the 3rd 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany, and thereafter the great state of danger in England at that time, with the bombings, necessitated the evacuation of children. ~ Peter Shaffer

Going home means going back in time. It's not a trip you care to take alone, and anyway, isn't that the main reason to take a mate? So you have an ally in the civil war against your parents? ~ Diana Joseph

Hitler derived several things from his experience and achievements in World War I, without which his rise to power in 1933 would have been at the least problematical, and at the most inconceivable. Hitler survived the war as a combat soldier - a rifle carrier - in a frontline infantry regiment. The achievement was an extraordinary one based on some combination of near-miraculous luck and combat skill. The interpretive fussing over whether or not Hitler was a combat soldier because he spent most of the war in the part of the regiment described as regimental headquarters can be laid to rest as follows: Any soldier in an infantry regiment on an active front in the west in World War I must be considered to have been a combat soldier. Hitler's authorized regimental weapon was the Mauser boltaction, magazine-fed rifle. This gives a basic idea of what Hitler could be called upon to do in his assignment at the front. As a regimental runner, he carried messages to the battalions and line companies of the regiment, and the more important ones had to be delivered under outrageously dangerous circumstances involving movement through artillery fire and, particularly later in the war, poison gas and the omnipresent rifle fire of the skilled British sniper detachments.
--Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 96 ~ Russel H.S. Stolfi

Who, for example, would have ever predicted that the high school student who uses too many verbs in her college admissions essay is likely to make lower grades in college? Or that the poet who overuses the word I in his poetry is at higher risk of suicide? Or that a certain world leader's use of pronouns could reliably presage whether he'd lead his country into war? By looking more carefully at the ways people convey their thoughts in language we can begin to get a sense of their personalities, emotions, and connections with others. ~ James W. Pennebaker

Jealousy is a kind of Civil War in the Soul, where Judgment and Imagination are at perpetual Jars. ~ Various

Soldiers seem so durable, resilient, and so heroic in war novels. On the television screen they're afraid of nothing. I wonder if I have that same courage. Basic training is supposed to teach us bravery and fortitude. ~ Ryan Smithson

For thousands of years priests, rabbis and muftis explained that humans cannot overcome famine, plague and war by their own efforts. Then along came the bankers, investors and industrialists, and within 200 years managed to do exactly that. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

My dad goes through war novels like I go through boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. ~ Mike Birbiglia

For the first time I realized that my life was just full of brokenness. I worked in a broken system of justice. My clients were broken by mental illness, poverty, and racism. They were torn apart by disease, drugs and alcohol, pride, fear, and anger. I thought of Joe Sullivan and of Trina, Antonio, Ian, and dozens of other broken children we worked with, struggling to survive in prison. I thought of people broken by war, like Herbert Richardson; people broken by poverty, like Marsha Colbey; people broken by disability, like Avery Jenkins. In their broken state, they were judged and condemned by people whose commitment to fairness had been broken by cynicism, hopelessness, and prejudice. ~ Bryan Stevenson

If John McCain were really a war hero he would've won Vietnam. ~ Zach Braff

If these precedents are to stand unimpeached, and to provide sanctions for the continued conduct of America affairs-the Constitution may be nullified by the President and officers who have taken the oath and are under moral obligation to uphold it ... they may substitute personal and arbitrary government-the first principle of the totalitarian system against which it has been alleged that World War II was waged-while giving lip service to the principle of constitutional government. ~ Charles A. Beard

And in a nasty war, where's the best place to be? Apart from on the moon, o' course? No one?"
Slowly, Jade raised a hand.
"Go on, then," said the sergeant.
"In the army, sarge," said the troll. "'cos ... " She began to count on her fingers. "One, you got weapons an' armour an' dat. Two, you are surrounded by other armed men. Er ... Many, youse gettin' paid and gettin' better grub than the people in Civilian Street. Er ... Lots, if'n you gives up, you getting taken pris'ner and dere's rules about that like Not Kicking Pris'ners Inna Head and stuff, 'cos if you kick their pris'ners inna head they'll kick your pris'ners inna head so dat's, like, you're kickin' your own head, but dere's no rule say you can't kick enemy civilians inna head. There's other stuff too, but I ran outa numbers. ~ Terry Pratchett

I firmly believe this ... that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest. ~ Benjamin Franklin

War never leaves where it found a nation. ~ Edmund Burke

US Vice President Joe Biden gave the US government's real view of its regional and Syrian allies with undiplomatic frankness when speaking at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard University's Institute of Politics on October 2. He told his audience that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and UAE were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war. What did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad, except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world. ~ Patrick Cockburn

It must be said in addition that the men with the most scrupulous respect for embryonic life are also those who are most zealous when it comes to condemning adults to death in war. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business & corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I don't have to come back politically, but I would like to do something that will help the people of Thailand. There must be a process under which I can come back. I want to come back to clear the chaos in Thailand, the civil war in Thailand. ~ Thaksin Shinawatra

A stab of pain always pierced him when he saw her eyes. Some people's eyes were so fucking intense, it was hard to look at them - those were often ones that had seen the hell of war and all its associated horrors. But hers were even worse. Hers had prayed for death and had been denied. ~ Elaine Levine

The Syrian civil war is a "crime initiated by the United States and the Zionist regime, Israel." ~ Ali Khamenei

To deal with the true causes of war one must begin by recognizing as of prime relevancy to the solution of the problem the familiar fact that civilization is a partial, incomplete, and, to a great extent, superficial modification of barbarism. ~ Elihu Root

I have never believed that war settled anything satisfactorily, but I am not entirely sure that some times there are certain situations in the world such as we have in actuality when a country is worse off when it does not go to war for its principles than if it went to war. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Mother's Day really was in its origin an antiwar day, an antiwar statement. Julia Ward Howe was sickened by what had happened during the Civil War, the loss of life, the carnage, and she created Mother's Day as a call for women all over the world to come together and create ways of protesting war, of making a kind of alternate government that could finally do away with war as an acceptable way of solving conflict. ~ Gloria Steinem

It has never happened in history that a nation that has won a war has been held accountable for atrocities committed in preparing for and waging that war. We intend to make this one different. What took place was the use of technological material to destroy a defenseless country. From 125,000 to 300,000 people were killed ... We recognize our role in history is to bring the transgressors to justice. ~ Ramsey Clark