Quotes About Conflict

Each of these four coups was launched against a government that was reasonably democratic (with the arguable exception of South Vietnam), and each ultimately led to the installation of a repressive dictatorship.

They led to the fall of leaders who embraced American ideals, and the imposition of others who detested everything Americans hold dear.

modern Afghan history shows that "an ounce of nation-building prevention will be worth a pound of military-operation cure.

President Johnson soon Americanized the war that resulted in the death of a generation.

Some CIA officers thought of the FBI as a haven for dumb cops and ham-fisted thugs. FBI agents, returning the favor, considered CIA men amateurish prima donnas and, as one put it, "mostly rich boys, trust fund snobs who thought they were God's answer to all the world's ills.

For God's sake," one secular Afghan warned the Americans during this period, "you're financing your own assassins!

Diem complained about "all these soldiers I never asked to come here.

In the mid-1950s Winston Churchill advised his American friends to recognize that Ho Chi Minh was unbeatable, accept his victory, and try to make the best of it. This the Dulles brothers could not do—because they were Americans.

Countries that are defeated by their enemies often rebuild. But the countries that are destroyed from within—that's really the end of the line.

IN 1910, AFTER THEODORE ROOSEVELT met Kaiser Wilhelm II, the former American president (1901–9) confided in his wife, "I'm absolutely certain now, we're all in for it.

War, 46. 267. Bunyan, Intervention, 277

With his manifold instruments of personal power, he was mercilessly hounding all those who expressed differences of opinion with him, but he was always the victim.

Had Wilhelm II backed off and curbed his dependent Austro-Hungarian ally, Nicholas II would have backed down as well.

An estimated 14,000 Muslims were slaughtered, many of them machine-gunned; the city was looted, then burned.

Trotsky cut in: "'Collective leadership' is precisely when everyone hinders each other or everyone attacks each other.' (Laughter).

Arab terrorist, international hitman, it's all a bit Andy McNab, isn't it?

gunfight with a Yardie posse.' He

And after we've killed

It is a great art of living to be able to hear truth in the mouth of your enemies. Even those who hate you and mean to hurt you may still be right about what they see in your life. Though they shout their observations and probably intend them to wound you rather than help you, still they are giving you insight that can help you improve.

One of history's most dangerous games begins with dividing the world into the good guys and the bad guys and ends with using any means necessary to take the villains out.

Almost all religions provide opportunities for human beings to convince themselves of their own righteousness, to speak in the name of God, and even to go to war on God's behalf. This 'blasphemy of certainty' is also rife among secularists who in their case have not God but science or the proletariat on their side.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where religion seems as likely to detonate a bomb as to defuse one. So while we need idealism, we need realism even more. We need to understand religious people as they are—not just at their best but also their worst.

Is it logical that two people can disagree and that both can be right? It's not logical: it's psychological. And it's very real.

captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change