Richard Perle Quotes & Sayings

Acknowledge that a more closely integrated Europe is no longer an unqualified American interest. — Richard Perle

We may be so eager to protect the right to dissent that we lose sight of the difference between dissent and subversion. — Richard Perle

Non-citizen terrorist suspects are not members of the American national community, and they have no proper claim on the rights Americans accord one another. — Richard Perle

But even a nation of laws must understand the limits of legalism. — Richard Perle

The lax multiculturalism that urges Americans to accept the unacceptable from their fellow citizens is one of this nation's greatest vulnerabilities in the war on terror. — Richard Perle

There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. — Richard Perle

Law-abiding citizens value privacy. Terrorists require invisibility. The two are not the same, and they should not be confused. — Richard Perle

When you gaze into souls, it's something you should update periodically, because souls can change. — Richard Perle

I think there is a potential civic culture in Arab countries that can lead to democratic institutions and I think Iraq is probably the best place to put that proposition to the test Well, you're going to find a disproportionate number of Jews in any sort of intellectual undertaking. — Richard Perle

The programme of the British Labour Party under Neil Kinnock is so wildly irresponsible, so separate and apart from the historic NATO strategy, that I think a Labour government that stood by its present policies and I rather doubt that they would would, if it didn't destroy the Alliance, at least diminish its effective ability to do the task for which it was created. — Richard Perle

We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington. — Richard Perle

These are lies, there is not a word of truth in them. — Richard Perle

National sovereignty is an obligation as well as an entitlement. A government that will not perform the role of a government forfeits the rights of a government. — Richard Perle

Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance, the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will. — Richard Perle

Even now, the irony that so non-intellectual a man should choose to engage the Soviet Union on the battlefield of ideas has eluded most commentators and historians. — Richard Perle

Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse after the first whiff of gunpowder. — Richard Perle

The same European governments that hesitated to confront terrorists were more than prepared to oppose us. — Richard Perle

Few governments in the world, for example, praise human rights more ardently than does the government of France, and few have a worse record of supporting tyrants and killers. — Richard Perle

For us, terrorism remains the great evil of our time, and the war against this evil, our generation's great cause ... There is no middle way for Americans: it is victory or holocaust. — Richard Perle

No operational commander should have to assign a soldier a task that could be done as well by a computer, a remote sensor, or an unmanned airplane. — Richard Perle

But if the UN cannot or will not revise its rules in ways that establish beyond question the legality of the measures the United States must take to protect the American people, then we should unashamedly and explicitly reject the jurisdiction of these rules. — Richard Perle

Dictatorships start wars because they need external enemies to exert internal control over their own people. — Richard Perle

Dictators must have enemies. They must have internal enemies to justify their secret police and external enemies to justify their military forces. — Richard Perle

In any event, the problem in Iran is much bigger than weapons. The problem is the terrorist regime that seeks the weapons. The regime must go. — Richard Perle

Right now, American law bars the admission of aliens suspected of terrorist activity - but not of terrorist sympathies. — Richard Perle

No one is talking about occupying Iraq for five to ten years. — Richard Perle

In time, all of Korea will be united in liberty. — Richard Perle

The jealousy and resentment that animate the terrorists also affect many of our former cold war allies. — Richard Perle

If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now. — Richard Perle

To stop terrorists before the strike, we must do three things: deny them entry into the country, curtail their freedom of action inside the country, and deprive them of material and moral support from within the country. — Richard Perle

Nor should we exclude the possibility that Islamic terrorism may begin to make common cause with Western political extremists of the far Left and far Right. — Richard Perle

Sometimes the things we have to do are objectionable in the eyes of others. — Richard Perle

George Tenet has been the director of central intelligence since 1997, time enough to have changed the Agency's culture. He has failed. He should go. — Richard Perle

We must do our utmost to preserve our British ally's strategic independence from Europe. — Richard Perle

I think we have an administration today that is dysfunctional. And if it can't get itself together to organize a serious program for finding nuclear material on its way to the United States, then it ought to be replaced by an administration that can. — Richard Perle