Military Significant Other Quotes

In fact, this figure [five million "murdered" Gentiles] is too high if one is counting victims who were targeted exclusively for racial reasons, but too low if one counts the total number of victims the Nazi regime killed outside military operations.
(...)
Wiesenthal's aggrandizement of his role in the Eichmann capture is far less disturbing and historiographically significant than another of his inventions. In an attempt to elicit non-Jewish interest in the Holocaust, Wiesenthal decided to broaden the population of victims - even though it meant falsifying history. He began to speak of eleven million victims: six million Jews and five million non-Jews. Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer immediately recognized that this number made no historical sense. Who, Bauer wondered, constituted Wiesenthal's five million.

--The Eichmann Trial, page 8 ~ Deborah E. Lipstadt

The Egyptian military plays positive and negative roles in Egypt, but the most significant single thing it did under Mubarak was to guarantee an Islamist victory once he left the scene. ~ Elliott Abrams

You study the Path of Peace. I practice the Art of War. There are some congruities between these different approaches but there are many more differences, and they are significant. The Art of War is carried out on the battlefield with deadly weaponry and sometimes, more importantly, in other places and in other ways that you would find distasteful. If I speak little about my plans it's because the Art of War teaches that it is the business of a general to ensure secrecy. You might want to mollify or change my tactics or strategies to fit the morals of your peacetime world and I'd be shackled and hampered in seeing the victory won as it should be, as quickly as possible, with as little fighting as possible, and at the lowest cost possible. You cannot bear the consequences of battle and you don't know the resources required. I do. ~ Aleksandra Layland

Israel has legitimate concerns about its security relative to Iran. I mean, you have a large country with a significant military that has proclaimed that Israel shouldn't exist, that has denied the Holocaust, that has financed Hezbollah, and as a consequence, there are missiles that are pointed towards Tel Aviv. There are very good reasons why Israelis are nervous about Iran's position in the world generally. ~ Barack Obama

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

I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to stand up for those citizens of the world who cannot stand up for themselves, and I am proud to have authored the bill signed into law today that continues to put significant pressure on the brutal Burmese military junta. ~ Joseph Crowley

I'm so thankful a significant majority of Americans are saying no to military intervention. We've got to find a solution that will in the end be one that makes Syria a better country, a better people. We can be human only together. ~ Desmond Tutu

Our nation must manage significant national security challenges over the next several years. We are already facing a potential conflict with Iraq, new challenges on the Korean peninsula, and key decisions in the president's plans to transform the military. ~ Duncan Hunter

(Note: The following was written in 2003, before the full implication of US military commitment in Afghanistan and Iraq could be fully appreciated. The passage also predates US drone attacks against targets in Pakistan and Yemen - to say nothing of Israeli affairs since 2003. It is unknown if and how the author's comments would change if he were writing the same today.)

The value of Israel to the United States as a strategic asset has been much disputed. There have been some in the United States who view Israel as a major strategic ally in the region and the one sure bastion against both external and regional enemies. Others have argued that Israel, far from being a strategic asset, has been a strategic liability, by embittering U.S. relations with the Arab world and causing the failure of U.S. policies in the region.

But if one compares the record of American policy in the Middle East with that of other regions, one is struck not by its failure but by its success. There is, after all, no Vietnam in the Middle East, no Cuba or Nicaragua or El Salvador, not even an Angola. On the contrary, throughout the successive crises that have shaken the region, there has always been an imposing political, economic, and cultural American presence, usually in several countries - and this, until the Gulf War of 1991, without the need for any significant military intervention. And even then, their presence was needed to rescue the victims of an inter-Arab aggression, un ~ Bernard Lewis

It is significant that Muslim leaders punished their own if they suspected a lack of Islamic zeal. Muslim warriors could be punished with death for apostasy, which contributed to the fervor of the invaders. According to al-Qutiyya, when Musa Ibn Nusayr's son was named governor, he married the wife of King Rodrigo and began adopting Christian ways - and military leaders cut his head off in the mihrab of a mosque and sent his head to the caliph. ~ Darío Fernández-Morera

I find it significant that most military veterans become pacifists. ~ Michel Templet

Al-Qa'ida does not follow a traditional command structure, wear uniforms, carry its arms openly, or mass its troops at the borders of the nations it attacks. Nonetheless, it possesses the demonstrated capability to strike with little notice and cause significant civilian or military casualties. ~ John O. Brennan