Quoty: quotes tagged with 'foreignpolicy'

America should have minded her own business and...

America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn�t entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these �isms� wouldn�t to-day be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government, and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives.

Author: Winston Churchill, Source: Military History of the Western World by J.F.C. Fuller
Saved by cboyack in war history foreignpolicy worldwari worldwarii

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, pe...

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes..., known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Author: James Madison, Source: Political Observations, 1795
Saved by cboyack in liberty war foreignpolicy military standingarmy

What more than 95 per cent of all suicide terro...

What more than 95 per cent of all suicide terrorist attacks around the world have in common is not religion, but a specific political goal to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland or prize greatly. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, the central objective of every suicide terrorist campaign since 1980 has been to compel a democratic state with military forces on territory that the terrorists prize to take those forces out.
Author: Robert Pape, Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/why-the-bombers-are-so-a...
Saved by cboyack in foreignpolicy terrorism intervention suicide blowback

I have tried to offer [these desperate, rejecte...

I have tried to offer [these desperate, rejected, and angry young men] my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
Author: Martin Luther King, Jr., Source: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilenc...
Saved by cboyack in war foreignpolicy violence military vietnam iraq hegemony

The key to a solution of the problems in Vietna...

The key to a solution of the problems in Vietnam is an understanding that we have no business being there in the first place � at least not under the present conditions or authority. Nevertheless, we are there and we are involved, so what do we do now? Since we shouldn�t be there in the first place, we should now concentrate on doing whatever is necessary to bring our boys home.
Author: Ezra Taft Benson, Source: An Enemy Hath Done This
Saved by cboyack in war foreignpolicy military vietnam iraq

Already, I can hear the chorus chanting "Isolat...

Already, I can hear the chorus chanting "Isolationism, isolationism, he's turning back the clock to isolationism." How many use that word without having the slightest idea of what it really means! The so-called isolationism of the United States in past decades is a pure myth. What is isolationism? Long before the current trend of revoking our Declaration of Independence under the guise of international cooperation, American influence and trade was felt in every region of the globe. Individuals and private groups spread knowledge, business, prosperity, religion, good will and, above all, respect throughout every foreign continent. It was not necessary then for America to give up her independence to have contact and influence with other countries. It is not necessary now.

Yet, many Americans have been led to believe that our country is so strong that it can defend, feed and subsidize half the world, while at the same time believing that we are weak and "interdependent" that we cannot survive without pooling our resources and sovereignty with those we subsidize. If wanting no part of this kind of "logic" is isolationism, then it's time we brought it back into vogue.
Author: Ezra Taft Benson, Source: United States Foreign Policy, An Enemy Hath Done This, p. 155
Saved by cboyack in government foreignpolicy isolationism

The major obstacle to a sensible foreign policy...

The major obstacle to a sensible foreign policy is the fiction about what patriotism means. Today patriotism has come to mean blind support for the government and its policies. In earlier times patriotism meant having the willingness and courage to challenge government policies regardless of popular perceptions.
Author: Ron Paul, Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul331.html
Saved by cboyack in government patriotism opposition foreignpolicy popularity

When gold was used, and the rules protected hon...

When gold was used, and the rules protected honest commerce, productive nations thrived. Whenever wealthy nations � those with powerful armies and gold � strived only for empire and easy fortunes to support welfare at home, those nations failed.
Author: Ron Paul, Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul303.html
Saved by cboyack in welfare nation foreignpolicy wealth economy gold commerce fortune currency empire

And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise an...

And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
Author: John Quincy Adams, Source: Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 4, 1821
Saved by cboyack in liberty government freedom dictatorship foreignpolicy independence empire interventionism interference

There is one and only one legitimate goal of Un...

There is one and only one legitimate goal of United Stats foreign policy. It is a narrow goal, a nationalistic goal: the preservation of our national independence. Nothing in the Constitution grants that the president shall have the privilege of offering himself as a world leader. He is our executive; he is on our payroll; he is supposed to put our best interests in front of those of other nations. Nothing in the Constitution nor in logic grants to the president of the United States or Congress the power to influence the political life of other countries, to �uplift� their cultures, to bolster their economies, to feed their people, or even defend them against their enemies.
Author: Ezra Taft Benson, Source: The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 614
Saved by cboyack in politics government nation president foreignpolicy leader independence

How far can you go without destroying from with...

How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?
Author: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Source: Unknown
Saved by cboyack in defense war foreignpolicy destruction innervessel

Every gun that is made, every warship launched,...

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
...
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. . . .

This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace. It is a moment that calls upon the governments of the world to speak their intentions with simplicity and with honesty. It calls upon them to answer the question that stirs the hearts of all sane men: is there no other way the world may live?

Author: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Source: http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/chance.htm
Saved by cboyack in defense war foreignpolicy peace economy weapon military budget

We see that war is incompatible with Christ's t...

We see that war is incompatible with Christ's teachings. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel of peace. War is its antithesis and produces hate. It is vain to attempt to reconcile war with true Christianity. There are, however, two conditions which may justify a truly Christian man to enter, mind you, I say enter, not begin, a war: (1) an attempt to dominate and to deprive another of his free agency, and (2) loyalty to his country. Possibly there is a third, viz., defense of a weak nation that is being unjustly crushed by a strong ruthless one.
Author: David O. McKay, Source: Conference Report, April 1942
Saved by cboyack in defense war foreignpolicy gospel peace

We must face the fact that the United States is...

We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient -- that we are only 6 percent of the world's population -- that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind and therefore there cannot be an American solution for every world problem.
Author: John F. Kennedy, Source: http://www.learner.org/channel/workshops/primarysources/coldwa...
Saved by cboyack in government war patriotism foreignpolicy american usa

The greatest and most powerful fortification in...

The greatest and most powerful fortification in America is the 'Monroe Doctrine.'... It was the inspiration of the Almighty which rested upon John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson and other statesmen, and which finally found authoritative expression in the message of James Monroe to Congress in the year 1823.
Author: Joseph Fielding Smith, Source: The Progress Of Man, pp. 466-67
Saved by cboyack in america war foreignpolicy isolation monroe