Disarmament Quotes - page 4

In my own country, and perhaps in some others, the workers for the League of Nations are sometimes reproached with attaching too much importance to collective security and the forcible prevention of war. That only shows how short people's memories are in political affairs. As a matter of fact, during the first ten years of the League very little was said about these subjects. We dwelt on the social and humanitarian sides of the League. We urged disarmament and treaty revision. Great reliance - particularly in England - was placed not upon forcible action but upon public opinion. We preached - and, I am glad to say, preached successfully - the enormous importance of publicity in the actions of the League, so that the world might know not only what was being done but why it was being done at Geneva. We attached perhaps even too great importance to the conception that no nation would be so rash or so wicked as to set itself against the public opinion of the world. (Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood)
Unilateral tolerance in a world of intolerance is like unilateral disarmament in a world of armed camps: it regards hope as a better basis for policy than reality. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
Disarmament is the ideal of socialism. There will be no wars in and the dictatorship of the proletariat is not a socialist. Dictatorship is state power based directly on violence. And in the twentieth century - as in the age of civilisation generally - violence means neither a fist nor a club, but troops. To put "disarmament” in the programme is tantamount to making the general declaration: We are opposed to the use of arms. There is as little Marxism in this as there would be if we were to say: We are opposed to violence! View quote
Vladimir Lenin
World peace is continually threatened by the paranoia of power, as internal and international conflicts plague humanity. Confronted by the danger of weapons of mass destruction, humanity must take effective measures towards disarmament. Albert Einstein warned us: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”. View quote
Alfred de Zayas
Lip service to disarmament is insufficient; the goal is to find ways to redirect the resources used for the military and reduce the danger of war while liberating funds to finance development and all-inclusive growth. View quote
Alfred de Zayas
Disarmament is not just an idle promise; it is also a commitment under article 26 of the Charter of the United Nations. View quote
Alfred de Zayas
Since a democratic and equitable international order requires peace, States must engage in good faith negotiations for disarmament and significantly reduce military expenditure and the arms trade. View quote
Alfred de Zayas
Disarmament for Development is a win-win strategy for States and Peoples. It is time to reduce the spiral of military expenditures and to invest in research into the root causes of conflicts and in the development of strategies of conflict-prevention and resolution. View quote
Alfred de Zayas
The way of disarmament and of mutual aid and of international cooperation is a highly dangerous way. It is not safe. But it is safer, safer than the race of armaments and the third world war. View quote
Kirby Page
What kind of mind would sacrifice millions for the sake of a few thousands, especially when it's been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that victim disarmament can't save even those thousands? What kind of mind wants a return to mean streets and ever-soaring crime rates? What kind of mind collaborates with agents of mass murder and genocide? Make no mistake: you victim disarmament types are sick, sick people, in the words of T. D. Melrose, who'd rather see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose than see her with a gun in her hand. View quote
L. Neil Smith
Gun ownership is a problem, not because it represents any physical danger to [the IRS]. Americans have proven dismayingly forbearing in that regard. But people who own guns often look at the world differently than those who don't. That's the real danger to social and political parasites. Roughly 25% of Americans own guns. The number increases each time there's widespread discussion of more gun control - call it what it is: 'victim disarmament'. If the figure ever rises to 50%, I suspect the widespread discussion will be about repealing the 16th Amendment. (L. Neil Smith)
Any politico who's afraid of his constituents being armed, should be. Leaders of the anti-gun movement (for the most part, politicians who enthusiastically advocate confiscatory taxation and government control of everything) realize that a populace is much easier to herd, loot - and dispose of - if it has been stripped of its weapons. The naked fraud and transparent fascism of victim disarmament must be eradicated through the repeal of all gun laws at every level of government. View quote
L. Neil Smith
Inspectors do not have the duty or the ability to uncover terrible weapons hidden in a vast country. The responsibility of inspectors is simply to confirm evidence of voluntary and total disarmament. Saddam Hussein has the responsibility to provide that evidence, as directed, and in full. View quote
Donald Rumsfeld
The notion that disarmament can put a stop to war is contradicted by the nearest dogfight. View quote
George Bernard Shaw
Auto-destructive art is conceived as a desperate last-minute subversive political weapon used by artists. It is an attack on the Capitalist system and the production of war materials. It is committed to nuclear disarmament and people's struggle. View quote
Gustav Metzger
I don't think the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has much chance of actually affecting the government. It's one of the first things you have to face up to. But we do it to keep our self-respect to show to ourselves, each one to himself or herself, that we care. View quote
John Fowles
I want to move to a world of no nuclear weapons but I want to do that through multilateral disarmament so that we all disarm together. View quote
Ed Miliband
As for total disarmament, there are almost 50,000 nuclear weapons in the world today even if they were banned, not all would be destroyed. View quote
Herman Kahn
An act of unilateral nuclear disarmament by a European power would have a much more lasting impact than all the sanctions under consideration. Sanctions, as we know from the example of Iraq, always affect the least powerful citizens the most. View quote
Tariq Ali
I've also gotten to play in front of a million people in Central Park when there was a grass roots movement calling for nuclear disarmament - it was about 1982 - they called it Peace Sunday. View quote
Jackson Browne
Disarmament has become the urgent imperative of our time. I do not say this because I equate the absence of arms to peace, or because I believe that bringing an end to the nuclear arms race automatically guarantees the peace, or because the elimination of nuclear warheads from the arsenals of the world will bring in its wake that change in attitude requisite to the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations. Disarmament is vital today, quite simply, because of the immense destructive capacity of which men dispose. (Haile Selassie)
Were a real and effective disarmament achieved and the funds now spent in the arms race devoted to the amelioration of man's state; were we to concentrate only on the peaceful uses of nuclear knowledge, how vastly and in how short a time might we change the conditions of mankind. This should be our goal. View quote
Haile Selassie
Well, this is an unfortunate part of the UN institution. It's the - the theater of the absurd. It doesn't only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi's Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam's Iraq headed the UN Committee on Disarmament. View quote
Benjamin Netanyahu
Imagine if World War II had ended with a European Nazi Empire, from the Urals to the Channel, soon armed with nuclear weapons, in mortal contest with the United States, in a peace kept only by deterrence. Imagine an evolution from a Hitler to an Albert Speer Nazi. Would the children of the Left have led songs of "All We Are Saying Is Give Peace a Chance" beneath symbols of unilateral disarmament? Would American opposition to Nazi influence anywhere, let alone to Nazi securing of bases in the western hemisphere, have led to domestic charges of our being the imperialist world policeman? Would our intellectuals have mocked or cheered a president who used the phrase "The evil empire"? But what were the differences between that totalitarianism and the other? Deaths? Camps? The desolation of the flesh and spirit? The bodies will not be buried without an answer to that. View quote
Alan Charles Kors
The best approach is one that maintains the good will of the Iranian people, rather than theatening them with attacks by the U. S. or by Israel as a U. S. surrogate. Any effort to dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear power will seem utterly hypocritical if the Bush Administration continues to violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty, ignore Israel's nuclear capability, and aid the nuclear ambitions of India in violation of the treaty. Our Iran policy must be part of a greater policy that seeks global nuclear disarmament and an end to dependence on fossil and nuclear energy. View quote
Carl Romanelli