Military Coups Quotes

In two years, there were 22 military coups d'etat, essentially in Africa and the third world. The coup d'etat of Algiers, in 1965, is what opened the path. ~ Ahmed Ben Bella

When Husni Zaim seized power from Shukri al-Quwatli on 30 March 1949, Syria's economy was a parlous state and its army had been beaten the previous November by the Israelis. Zaim knew that he needed to take action on both fronts fast. After overthrowing al-Quwatli bloodlessly, he set out to open peace talks with the Israelis and mend relations with the French via a currency agreement and an arms deal that would pave the way for renewed French influence in the former mandate. But Zaim's reign did not last long. One hundred and thirty-seven days after he had taken power, on 14 August he too was overthrown and executed. ~ James Barr

Before the military coup in Chile, we had the idea that military coups happen in Banana Republics, somewhere in Central America. It would never happen in Chile. Chile was such a solid democracy. And when it happened, it had brutal characteristics. ~ Isabel Allende

Developing a strategy, leading the world, funding it to make sure that we have a military that's second to none, and doing the job and making sure that we destroy ISIS there. That's how you keep America safe. ~ Jeb Bush

Poland, after the First World War, was beset by chaos, disorder, and a foolish incursion by the Red Army, which helped to produce the ultra-nationalist military dictatorship of General Pilsudski. ~ Tariq Ali

It's you and me, and all you have to do is breathe. I'm going to take care of everything else. ~ Melissa Cutler

Guys think that the military associations of camo are going to make them look tough, as if they might just break out a shotgun and take down a passing duck at any given moment. I'm not so sure. ~ Russell Smith

Under divine blessing, we must rely on the bayonet when firearms cannot be furnished ~ Stonewall Jackson

Although he paid attention to the effectiveness of the Roman military system, Polybius believed that Rome's success rested far more on its political system. For him the Republic's constitution, which was carefully balanced to prevent any one individual or section of society from gaining overwhelming control, granted Rome freedom from the frequent revolution and civil strife that had plagued most Greek city-states. Internally stable, the Roman Republic was able to devote itself to waging war on a scale and with a relentlessness unmatched by any rival. It is doubtful that any other contemporary state could have survived the catastrophic losses and devastation inflicted by Hannibal, and still gone on to win the war. ~ Adrian Goldsworthy

In Iraq and Syria, American leadership - including our military power - is stopping ISIL's advance, instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group. ~ Barack Obama

When you talk about the security and safety of average Americans it doesn't do average Americans a lot of good to expand America's military footprint if the daily lives of average Americans are being undermined by the fact that we're no longer able to compete in a global economy. I think that's the kind of human security we have to pay more attention to. ~ Peter Beinart

Under Saddam Hussein, the nation of Iraq possessed and used chemical weapons against both their own Kurdish population and Iranian military forces. ~ Charles B. Rangel

My father was career military. He was a veteran, he was a doctor of political science, he taught at West Point and Air Command Staff and lectured at the War College. ~ Suzanne Collins

Their skins were different colors but they all belonged to the same ethnic group: Military. ~ Neal Stephenson

The United States is not only number one in military power but also in the effectiveness of its propaganda system. ~ Edward S. Herman

If the Commander-in-Chief will look beyond the defence forces, he will discover that the real India is not military but peace-loving. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its director general. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which ensures that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the director general has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei

Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl Harbor that led to our prompt, official declaration of war, while they characterize as unwise wars of choice the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq. ~ William Safire

We all have appointments with the past. ~ W.G. Sebald

I'm sorry he won't talk to you. And I'm sorry that he keeps hurting you. I really am. I don't know how to fix things between you two, but I think a place to start would be for you to stop pointing out how flawed he is and start looking for the good in him. ~ Melissa Cutler

Yet the Narrator's quest is not only for his own identity and vocation. He seeks an understanding of art, sexuality and worldly and political affairs: he is a snoop and a voyeur; he comments and classifies; his taxonomic impulse makes the novel appear to be a vast compendium, replete with burrowing wasps and bedsteads, military strategies, stereoscopes, asparagus and aeroplanes. ~ Adam A. Watt

We need to distinguish between two contrasting narratives of Culture Talk. One thinks of premodern peoples as those who are not yet modern, who are either lagging behind or have yet to embark on the road to modernity. The other depicts the premodern as also the antimodern. Whereas the former conception encourages relations based on philanthropy, the latter notion is productive of fear and preemptive police or military action.
The difference is clear if we contrast earlier depictions of Africans with contemporary talk about Muslims. During the Cold War, Africans were stigmatized as the prime example of peoples not capable of modernity. With the end of the Cold War, Islam and the Middle East have displaced Africa as the hard premodern core in a rapidly globalizing world. The difference in the contemporary perception of black Africa and Middle Eastern Islam is this: whereas Africa is seen as incapable of modernity, hard-core Islam is seen as not only incapable of but also resistant to modernity. Whereas Africans are said to victimize themselves, hard-core Muslims are said to be prone to taking others along to the world beyond. ~ Mahmood Mamdani

The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand. ~ Richard Harding Davis

What we have to stop and think about is that we have weakened ourselves militarily to such an extent that it affects all of our military policies. ~ Ben Carson

Great advantage is drawn from knowledge of your adversary, and when you know the measure of his intelligence and character, you can use it to play on his weakness. ~ Frederick The Great

The military is the largest polluter in the country, and so you have a lot of military waste contaminating reservations - as, for example, on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, where 5,000 sheep died in some kind of experimental military nerve gas test 10 years ago. Many of our communities are dealing with that kind of waste, and an absence of political will to clean them up. ~ Winona LaDuke

This was not, of course, the first time that significant monies were spent on military programs. Kennedy knew, if only implicitly, that while bravery may win battles, science and technology provide security. Science and technology win wars. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The bad thing caught you.
I've never retreated in my life. I've never backed away from a fight and I've never cowered in fear. Ever. That's not who I am. But I've been in combat long enough to know that when something unbeatable chases you, you do the only thing you can do.
You run. - Gabe ~ Courtney Cole

I co-founded the DNC Veterans and Military Families Council in 2005. ~ Christine Pelosi

Many, Lorenzo, have held and still hold the opinion, that there is nothing which has less in common with another, and that is so dissimilar, as civilian life is from the military. Whence it is often observed, if anyone designs to avail himself of an enlistment in the army, that he soon changes, not only his clothes, but also his customs, his habits, his voice, and in the presence of any civilian custom, he goes to pieces; for I do not believe that any man can dress in civilian clothes who wants to be quick and ready for any violence; nor can that man have civilian customs and habits, who judges those customs to be effeminate and those habits not conducive to his actions; nor does it seem right to him to maintain his ordinary appearance and voice who, with his beard and cursing, wants to make other men afraid: which makes such an opinion in these times to be very true. But if they should consider the ancient institutions, they would not find matter more united, more in conformity, and which, of necessity, should be like to each other as much as these (civilian and military); for in all the arts that are established in a society for the sake of the common good of men, all those institutions created to (make people) live in fear of the laws and of God would be in vain, if their defense had not been provided for and which, if well arranged, will maintain not only these, but also those that are not well established. And so (on the contrary), good institutions without the help of t ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

A set of four Browning L9A1 automatic pistols complete with attachable silencers was perhaps the most important aspect of their gear for this mission. The weapons were standard issue in the British military, plus a few dozen other countries, and were basically just modified versions of a design that dated back to the 1930s. Old they might have been, but they were tried and true, and hopefully enough to see the group out of trouble if it came down to it ~ Will Jordan

The military gave me structure and process. That reflects on the way I believe we should handle legislative matters. If we do it that way in any field, the results are usually better. ~ Ralph Abraham

Since 1870 a commander has seldom if ever been able to survey a whole battlefield from a single spot; and in any case he has had little opportunity - although sometimes a considerable inclination - to try. For the modern commander is much more akin to the managing director of a large conglomerate enterprise than ever he is to the warrior chief of old. He has become the head of a complex military organization, whose many branches he must oversee and on whose cooperation, assistance, and support he depends for his success. As the size and complexity of military forces have increased, the business of war has developed an organizational dimension that can make a mighty contribution to triumph - or to tragedy. Hitherto, the role of this organizational dimension of war in explaining military performance has been strangely neglected. We shall return to it later - indeed, it will form one of the major themes of this book. For now we simply need to note its looming presence. ~ Eliot A. Cohen

War is to man what maternity is to a woman. From a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, I do not believe in perpetual peace. ~ Benito Mussolini

A riot is a spontaneous outburst. A war is subject to advance planning. ~ Richard M. Nixon

She gathered her belongings and headed for the makeshift entrance that led into the belly of the half-destroyed AT-AT walker. It might be an ancient, rotting, rusting example of now useless military might, but to Rey, it was home. ~ Alan Dean Foster

The freedoms which had been so hard won from colonial domination were being crushed by Soviet-inspired and funded military and political forces. Their clear intention was to deprive the people of their democratic freedoms. As history shows, this is what had happened in the Soviet Union and in Cuba, and continues to be the case in other parts of the world. ~ Augusto Pinochet

Astonishment: these women's military professions - medical assistant, sniper, machine gunner, commander of an antiaircraft gun, sapper - and now they are accountants, lab technicians, museum guides, teachers…Discrepancy of the roles - here and there. Their memories are as if not about themselves, but some other girls. Now they are surprised at themselves. Before my eyes history "humanizes" itself, becomes like ordinary life. Acquires a different lighting. I've happened upon extraordinary storytellers. There are pages in their lives that can rival the best pages of the classics. The person sees herself so clearly from above - from heaven, and from below - from the ground. Before her is the whole path - up and down - from angel to beast. Remembering is not a passionate or dispassionate retelling of a reality that is no more, but a new birth of the past, when time goes in reverse. Above all it is creativity. As they narrate, people create, they "write" their life. Sometimes they also "write up" or "rewrite." Here you have to be vigilant. On your guard. At the same time pain melts and destroys any falsehood. The temperature is too high! Simple people - nurses, cooks, laundresses - behave more sincerely, I became convinced of that…They, how shall I put it exactly, draw the words out of themselves and not from newspapers and books they have read - not from others. But only from their own sufferings and experiences. The feelings and language of educated people, strange as it may be, ~ Svetlana Alexievich

Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship. ~ Omar Nelson Bradley

Honor Lost

Ambulant sunshine pierced
the soot covered glass ~
the feeble man wandered by
in this ritual morning pass ... ~ Muse

Would that it were so! ... That the American military were targeting journalists. ~ Ann Coulter

Question the answers, I repeated every class. Reevaluate your conclusions when the evidence changes. ~ Craig M. Mullaney

The danger of having the military take over intelligence is that the military has a very different perspective on the world. ~ Pete Hoekstra

The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one's country ~ George S. Patton Jr.

I think one of the great disasters (in military history) is the way that the Second World War has become the defining reference point for every crisis and every conflict. ~ Antony Beevor

Along the borders to Ethiopia and Somalia, anarchy reigns, the police and military have retreated quite some distance. ~ Richard Leakey

Bush's war in Iraq has done untold damage to the United States. It has impaired our military power and undermined the morale of our armed forces. Our troops were trained to project overwhelming power. They were not trained for occupation duties. ~ George Soros

In no other type of warfare does the advantage lie so heavily with the aggressor. ~ James Franck

An authoritatrian regime, whether military or religious, doesn't want diversity. Having masses of people who think the same. talk the same, and hate the same is much easier for maintaining control. ~ Bassem Youssef