Military Quotes - page 82
We inherit the warlike type; and for most of the capacities of heroism that the human race is full of we have to thank this cruel history. Dead men tell no tales, and if there were any tribes of other type than this they have left no survivors. Our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow, and thousands of years of peace won't breed it out of us. The popular imagination fairly fattens on the thought of wars. Let public opinion once reach a certain fighting pitch, and no ruler can withstand it. In the Boer war both governments began with bluff, but they couldn't stay there; the military tension was too much for them.
William James
The militarily-patriotic and the romantic-minded everywhere, and especially the professional military class, refuse to admit for a moment that war may be a transitory phenomenon in social evolution. The notion of a sheep's paradise like that revolts, they say, our higher imagination. Where then would be the steeps of life? If war had ever stopped, we should have to re-invent it, on this view, to redeem life from flat degeneration.
Reflective apologists for war at the present day all take it religiously. It is a sort of sacrament. It's profits are to the vanquished as well as to the victor; and quite apart from any question of profit, it is an absolute good, we are told, for it is human nature at its highest dynamic.
William James
Do not let us underrate the danger. It threatens everything we care for. For if it does succeed, it will not only bring us back to 1914 - in itself bad enough - but to something far worse even than that. For instance, it is now apparently part of the normal doctrine of those who advocate this system that no distinction can be made between combatants and non-combatants, and that a perfectly legitimate and indeed necessary method of warfare will be the wholesale destruction of unfortified cities and their inhabitants. No doubt there will be countervailing efforts to prevent such things happening; but there is, at any rate, one section of military thought which believes that the only way to stop the bombardment of the cities belonging to one belligerent will be the bombardment of the cities belonging to the other.
Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood
A good Prince ought to make his passions subservient to the interest of his country, for all things are either good or bad for him as they regard his people; but Francis had been bred up with different sentiments from these, flattery the bane of all princes had poisoned his mind; he instead of regarding the affairs of his country, totally gave himself to pleasure, which was the reason all his military operations met with such frequent delays.
George III of the United Kingdom
Whereas many of our subjects...in North-America, misled by dangerous and ill-designing men, and forgetting the allegiance which they owe to the power that has protected and sustained them... have at length proceeded to an open and avowed Rebellion... we do accordingly strictly charge and command all our officers, as well as civil and military, and all other our obedient and loyal subjects, to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such Rebellion, and to disclose and make known all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which they shall know to be against us, our Crown and dignity.
George III of the United Kingdom
Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blocks out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door.
Douglas MacArthur
Many years before Harry Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur, there was another prima donna general, the renowned John C. Frémont. For issuing orders authorizing the emancipation of slaves in Missouri without presidential permission, Lincoln fired him on the spot. As for MacArthur, he should have known better: the same thing had also happened to his own father. Back in the early 1900s, General Arthur MacArthur, military governor of the Philippines, made the stupid mistake of not recognizing the superior authority of the civilian governor, William Howard Taft, who later became president. Years later, when MacArthur's turn came to be promoted to Army Chief of Staff, Taft blackballed him.
Douglas MacArthur
We could hold in Korea by constant maneuver and in an approximate area where our supply line advantages were in balance with the supply line disadvantages of the enemy, but we could hope at best for only an indecisive campaign with its terrible and constant attrition upon our forces if the enemy utilized its full military potential. I have constantly called for the new political decisions essential to a solution.
Efforts have been made to distort my position. It has been said, in effect, that I was a warmonger. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes. ... But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end.
Douglas MacArthur
With his flamboyant headgear, his sunglasses and corn cob pipe, he looked like an actor playing the role of a great general. He also had the sort of press an actor likes; he arranged that, in part, by keeping his subordinates as anonymous as possible. But the truth was that Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific, was a great general. He had one of the most distinguished military careers on record (top of his class at West Point, a hero in the first war, Army Chief of Staff), and it is doubtful that anyone in any of the services knew more about the Pacific theater. Nonetheless, the war that would be waged to return him to the Philippines, as he had promised, would be a Navy war, and [three admirals] - Nimitz, King, and Halsey - would have every bit as much to do with the strategy and tactics of winning that war as he had.
Douglas MacArthur
![We call this (Impeachment of Donald Trump) a trial, this isn't a trial by any stretch of the imagination. It's political farce... It shows utter contempt for the rule of law which any democracy must be based... If we're going to have hearings, why don't we have hearings on the politicians and generals who've fed us 18 years of feudal endless war... the greatest strategic blunder in American history... nine illegal wars - wars are supposed to be declared by Congress...the wholesale surveillance begun by the Bush administration, exposed by Edward Snowden, in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment.. the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which makes it a crime for the government to surveil any U.S. citizens; the global programming of extraordinary rendition, kidnapping and torture; [and] the decision by the Obama administration to reinterpret the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force Act to give it the right to act as judge, jury and executioner and assassinate U.S. citizens. (Chris Hedges)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/54/chris-hedges-act-administration-1007654.webp)
Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism.
Umberto Eco
There was only one sanction that could be immediately effective, and that sanction was to deny to Italy the use of the Suez Canal. That sanction must inevitably have entailed military action; there is no doubt of it. That military action must, in my judgment, inevitably have led to war... The only additional sanction that could have been immediately effective would have been the closing of the Canal... There was, in fact, no immediately effective sanction that could have been taken but that. If the hon. Gentleman answers "Yes, he would have closed the Canal," how utterly illogical is the position of hon. Gentlemen opposite when they vote against all Estimates for the provision of armaments-[Interruption]-and when they denounce the Budget of my right hon. Friend as a war Budget. The truth is that while hon. Gentlemen opposite profess to support the League with horse, foot, and artillery, they really only mean to support it with threats, insults and perorations.
Anthony Eden
The soldiers of the State are necessarily recruited among the natives. They don't immediately shed habits blood thirsty handed down from generation to generation. The example of white officers, discipline military, will inspire them with the horror of human trophies of which they are ready to be proud. It's in their leaders that they must see the living demonstration of this higher principle that the exercise of authority is not to be confused with cruelty: the second ruins the first. I like to think that our agents, almost all volunteers from the ranks of the Belgian army, are always present atmind the rules of the honorary career in which they are engaged.
Leopold II of Belgium
He (Mujib) was just out of prison, he seemed full of bitterness, and this time we were almost able to talk quietly. He said how East Pakistan was exploited by West Pakistan, treated like a colony, sucked of its blood-and it was very true; I'd even written the same thing in a book. But he didn't draw any conclusions, he didn't explain that the fault was in the economic system and in the regime, he didn't speak of socialism and struggle. On the contrary, he declared that the people weren't prepared for struggle, that no one could oppose the military, that it was the military that had to resolve the injustices. He had no courage. He never has had. Does he really call himself, to journalists, the »Tiger of the Bengal«?
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
I was telling our new citizens, in the other room before we came in, that one of my most -- I don't know how to say it -- fulfilling moments was, as Vice President, when I went over to Saddam Hussein's god-awful, gaudy palace. And there were, I think, 167 men and women in uniform standing in that palace. As my wife who -- I think, I'm not sure of this -- may be the only First Lady or Second Lady to go into a warzone -- an active war zone. She was with me, and we both stood there as I was able to swear in every one of those military officers as U.S. citizens. And I thought to myself -- I thought to myself, "What incredible justification for all the things that Saddam didn't believe in." And they stood -- and there were a number there who had won Silver Stars -- not -- like you, not citizens when you join -- won Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, Conspicuous Service Medals, Purple Hearts. And I got to swear them in in the palace of a dictator.
Saddam Hussein
Always judge your fellow passengers to be the opposite of what they strive to appear to be.
For instance, a military man is not quarrelsome, for no man doubts his courage; but a snob is.
A clergyman is not over strait- laced, for his piety is not questioned; but a cheat is.
A lawyer is not apt to be argumentative; but an actor is.
A woman that is all smiles and graces is a vixen at heart : snakes fascinate.
A stranger that is obsequious and over-civil without apparent cause is treacherous: cats that purr are apt to bite and scratch.
Pride is one thing, assumption is another; the latter must always get the cold shoulder, for whoever shews it is no gentleman: men never affect to be what they are, but what they are not. The only man who really is what he appears to be is - a gentleman.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
It is, of course, a matter of history that our military advisers, in face of this appeal from me, still decided to adhere to their view as to the feasibility of the Flanders offensive. Could I have gone behind these exalted Commanders and conducted independent investigations on the spot into the facts and conditions? ... Profound though my own apprehensions of failure were, I was a layman and in matters of military strategy did not possess the knowledge and training that would justify me in overriding soldiers of such standing and experience. Accordingly, the soldiers had their way. And it is one of the bitter ironies of war that I, who have been ruthlessly assailed in books, in the Press and in speeches for "interfering with the soldiers" should carry with me as my most painful regret the memory that on this issue I did not justify that charge.
David Lloyd George
The Napoleonic war (1803–15) that followed the brief interval of the Peace of Amiens, was for us a war waged in self-defence, to prevent the systematic subordination of Europe to a vigorous military despotism sworn to our destruction. A few months at the Foreign Office in 1806 and an attempt to treat with our adversary for peace, made this clear even to Fox, who had been till then singularly blind to the real character of Bonaparte. But the Whigs were only enthusiastic for the war by fits and starts. The honour of beating Napoleon fell as clearly to the Tories, as the honour of beating Louis XIV had fallen to the Whigs.
G. M. Trevelyan
Colonel Perea, was early in the summer of the year 1865, renominated as a candidate to the Thirty-ninth Congress. He made a vigorous campaign and would have been triumphantly elected had he refused to support a few of his most intimate friends, among whom was General Carleton, then commander of the military department, with headquarters at Santa Fe. The opposition concentrated their efforts against General Carleton... His character as a soldier was assailed in all portions of New Mexico. ...Colonel Perea failed of reëlection, but his standing at Washington was such that he was able to control the Federal appointments for the Territory until the close of Johnson's administration in 1869.
Francisco Perea
