Insurgents Quotes & Sayings

Insurgents have capitalized on popular resentment and anger towards the United States and the Iraqi government to build their own political, financial and military support, and the faith of Iraqi citizens in their new government has been severely undermined. — Tom Lantos

There is nothing puzzling ... about America's gratuitously aggressive foreign policy or about the oligarchs' successful efforts to drag the Republic into five wars. What an aggressive foreign policy accomplishes by slow degrees, a state of war accomplishes in a trice. Overnight [war] kills reform, overnight it transforms insurgents into traitors and the Republic into an imperiled realm. Overnight it strangles free politics, distracts and overawes the citizenry. Overnight it blasts public hope. — Walter Karp

People from the military have been inside that thing. If I went back in time, I wouldn't necessarily be thinking geopolitically, but maybe they would. That has to be half the reason why they're funding us in the first place. Maybe there were earlier versions of history where Republicans didn't vote to pulp all those Andrew Jackson twenties and replace them with bills that had portraits of Reagan. Maybe in the first version of post-Point Zero history, insurgents in North and South Dakota didn't attempt to secede; maybe we weren't fighting enemies both here and in the Middle East. Or maybe there was a full-on civil war going on in the United States and the current state of affairs is an improvement. We don't know. We can't know. And we can't know the extent to which any of us, sitting here at this table, is responsible. — Dexter Palmer

We were reminded first-hand of the work that still needs to be done in Iraq on the security front when insurgents fired five rounds into the base while we were still meeting with the nurses. — Jon Porter

At a time when the insurgents are saying that time is working against them, my Democratic colleagues are introducing a measure to set a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq that will undercut the momentum that the insurgents themselves say we have built in Iraq. — Kit Bond

That the Iraqi Government is considering a political deal granting amnesty to insurgents who have attacked or killed American service members is not just shocking - the idea of amnesty for insurgents is an outrage. — Ike Skelton

It is the fault of the United States that these terrible people, these insurgents and terrorists are out there. They are the ones that we ought to be focusing our energy on defeating and not just wring our hands about the fact that it's going to be difficult. — Colin Powell

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the revolution, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win. — Michael Moore

He had seen many criminals in his years in Division. Dangerous men and even more dangerous women. Small-time hucksters and savvy crime lords. Spies, gangsters, assassins, insurgents and wannabe-revolutionaries. True believers and soulless mercs willing to kill children for the right price. — G.S. Jennsen

In religion, it is not the sycophants or those who cling most faithfully to the status quo who are ultimately praised. It is the insurgents. — Rollo May

The American military generally counts on a kill ratio of 10 to 1 when fighting lightly armed insurgents: for every dead American, there are probably 10 dead enemy. — Sebastian Junger

The United States was seriously defeated in Iraq by Iraqi nationalism - mostly by nonviolent resistance. The United States could kill the insurgents, but they couldn't deal with half a million people demonstrating in the streets. — Noam Chomsky

In a country like Iraq with its culture of blood feuds - is that the more locals are killed, the more motivation there is for the insurgency, for the insurgents the more feelings of revenge there are, and in the end the more the operational security of the soldiers suffers, because any soldier who kills an infant today is grooming the killer of his mate tomorrow. — Yaroslav Trofimov

Four Months of War in Cuba
The Spanish-American War lasted less than four months for the United States; however for Cuba this was only a small part of their War of Independence from Spain, which went through many phases starting with the Ten Years' War and lasted almost 20 years. The United States government originally was neutral, but became involved when the Spanish Governor forced thousands of Cubans into concentration camps. Americans joined the Cubans in their fight against the Spaniards after the USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor. During those tumultuous years, 5,180 Cuban insurgents died in battle and over 40,000 died from various diseases such as Yellow Fever. Colon Cemetery in Havana is one of the great historical cemeteries of the world and was built just in time to receive the victims of the Cuban Wars of Independence. — Hank Bracker

We're moving in a single file now. Myself and one hundred 'senselessly violent,' bloodthirsty insurgents. I looked around at the camp before we left. There are no signs that almost a hundred people had camped here, except for some ash where the fires had been. I cannot believe this army. As far as consumption goes, it has a lighter carbon footprint than any climate change evangelist. — Arundhati Roy

Unusual financial activity: none, unless you count the fact that someone in the family is way too into Civil War biographies. (Can this be a possible indication of Confederate insurgents still living and working in Virginia? Must research further.) — Ally Carter

I will need to root out these insurgents before they can become a real threat. I will need to make a harsher example of their deaths. I will need to be more ruthless.
This is my life now. — Marie Lu

The insurgents are Baathists and Sunnis in Iraq who have as their goal a separate and distinct one of toppling the government that is there and creating their own. — Ike Skelton

One is wearing a uniform of green-and-gray camouflage, as if he were hunting deer in the woods. The other is wearing a uniform of brown-and-beige camouflage, as if he were hunting insurgents in the desert. These two clowns are standing in the driveway of a suburban home, about fifteen minutes from downtown, in a well-developed city of a million people, and they're wearing camouflage. The sad and scary thing about this image is that these guys have no idea how stupid they look. Instead, they're proud, arrogant. They're on display, tough guys fighting bad guys. One of their brethren has been hit, wounded, fallen in the line of duty, and they're pissed about it. They scowl at the neighbors across the street. One wrong word, and they might start shooting. Their fingers are on the triggers. — John Grisham

By not burning their poppy fields to the ground but instead maintaining a security umbrella that international development agencies could safely work under as they improved these ordinary people's lives, we would win their 'hearts and minds' in the classic manifestation of a successful counter-insutgency operation.
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Maybe our Western values world somebe instilled in these people. But in country where the average life expectancy was 42 and with the price of that life coming in contrasting cheap at $10 plus the bonus of martyrdom, or alien values might just as equally not be snapped up. — Jake Wood

Oh, the transition concerns me because as we move towards an important political event, it's clear to me that the terrorists and insurgents will move as hard as they can to disrupt this process. — John Abizaid

The overriding goal of counterinsurgency is to make friends: You make friends with the people; you isolate the insurgents. — Dexter Filkins

Be patient. Changes that alter the structure of power and widen opportunity require years of hard work, as those who toiled for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, or have been working for the rights of the disabled and gays, would tell you. It took thirty years of continuous fulmination for women to get the right to vote; fifty years of agitation before employers were required to bargain with unionized workers. Those who benefit from the prevailing allocation of power and wealth don't give up their privileged positions without a fight, and they usually have more resources at their disposal than the insurgents. Take satisfaction from small victories, but don't be discouraged or fall into cynicism. And don't allow yourself to burn out. I — Robert B. Reich

The Nazi invasion didn't happen by the end of 1939 after all. The German seizure of the Low Countries - Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg - didn't occur until May of 1940, and Jacob was grateful for the extra months of training and conditioning. Maurice, Avi, and Jacob used the time to recruit and assemble the rest of their team of young Jewish insurgents. — Joel C. Rosenberg

No matter how many troops we have in place or how long they stay, we cannot impose a parliamentary democracy there any more than the insurgents can impose a theocracy. — Nick Clooney

Most commonly revolt is born of material circumstances; but insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Revolt is Masaniello, who led the Neapolitan insurgents in 1647; but insurrection is Spartacus. Insurrection is a thing of the spirit, revolt is a thing of the stomach. — Victor Hugo

As the Libyan engagement has shown, "Western" air power can be a most appropriate and useful instrument in the context of so-called asymmetric conflicts. Yet it succeeded (and even then only after six months) only because NATO nations decided to arm the insurgents and sent in special forces to teach the untrained rebels how to become a skilled military force that could exploit favorable air situations on the ground. — John Andreas Olsen

The self may be royal, but it hungers like a pauper. [ ... ] And it is a king imperilled, a sovereign forever at the mercy of many insurgents, of fear, for example, and anxiety, of isolation and bewilderment, of a strange unspeakable pride and a wild, silent shame. The self is beset by secrets, secrets eat at it constantly, secrets will tear down its kingdom and leave its sceptre broken in the dust. — Salman Rushdie

[Insurgents] pose no strategic threat to the United States or to the Coalition Forces. — Paul Bremer

Many veterans feel guilty because they lived while others died. Some feel ashamed because they didn't bring all their men home and wonder what they could have done differently to save them. When they get home they wonder if there's something wrong with them because they find war repugnant but also thrilling. They hate it and miss it.Many of their self-judgments go to extremes. A comrade died because he stepped on an improvised explosive device and his commander feels unrelenting guilt because he didn't go down a different street. Insurgents used women and children as shields, and soldiers and Marines feel a totalistic black stain on themselves because of an innocent child's face, killed in the firefight. The self-condemnation can be crippling.
The Moral Injury, New York Times. Feb 17, 2015 — David Brooks

Interestingly, when they are on our side, we usually refer to them as guerrillas or partisans or freedom fighters. When they, the men in the hills, oppose a government we support, we call them insurgents. — Dick Couch

1. Most wars are asymmetrical or irregular.
2. In these wars, the guerrillas/irregulars/insurgents do not aim for military victory.
3. You can not defeat these groups by killing lots of their members. In fact, they want you to do that.
4. High-tech weaponry is mostly useless in these wars.
5. "Hearts and minds," meaning propaganda and morale, are more important than military superiority.
6. Most people are not rational; they are tribal: "My gang yeah, your gang boo!" It really is that simple. The rest is cosmetics. — Gary Brecher

Our country will not stand for any political plan that includes amnesty for insurgents. — Ike Skelton

We know that there are various activities important to the insurgents in Iraq that are occurring in Syria. — Douglas Feith

As a young cavalry officer out of St-Cyr, de Mun first became acquainted with the lives and problems of the poor through the charitable work of the Society of St-Vincent de Paul in his garrison town. During the Commune, as an aide to General Galliffet, who commanded the battalion that fired on the insurgent Communards, he saw a dying man brought in on a litter. The guard said he was an "insurgent," whereupon the man, raising himself up, cried with his last strength, "No, it is you who are the insurgents!" and died. In the force of that cry directed at himself, his uniform, his family, his Church, de Mun had recognized the reason for civil war and vowed himself to heal the cleavage. He blamed the Commune on "the apathy of the bourgeois class and the ferocious hatred for society of the working class." The responsible ones, he had been told by one of the St. Vincent brothers, were "you, the rich, the great, the happy ones of life who pass by the people without seeing them." To — Barbara W. Tuchman

Rejection would be a disaster for the U.S., but ratification alone will not end our problems in Iraq. Even if the constitution is ratified, the insurgents are not going to lay down their arms. — Andrew Bacevich

The reasoning for our civil-military plan is that lasting success will be when the Afghan government, security forces and people can resist the insurgents and terrorists themselves. — Bob Ainsworth

We're seeing the development of tactics in Iraq, such as suicide bombing. Insurgents have been driving cars with explosives into hotels and office buildings. The recruitment may be even more prolific outside Iraq. — Rand Beers

Insurgents throughout Iraq continue to threaten our efforts and pose a danger to stability in the region. They fight not for their country, but rather against ours. — Paul Gillmor

We've got to ensure that the quality and the capability of these forces will be good enough to withstand the challenges that the insurgents and the terrorists will present to the new Iraqi government. — John Abizaid

You can't succeed in beating the insurgents unless you can convince the people that they can be protected. — Rand Beers

In reality, the pioneers of this transformation of the indigenous Zapatista woman are a merit of the women insurgents. — Subcomandante Marcos

the Afghans were well aware of what happened in Iraq during the Gulf War, when the Shiites and Kurds believed the leaflets the Americans dropped urging them to rise up against Saddam Hussein. They did, and the Americans did not come. Saddam's forces had retaliated by massacring the insurgents. "The Afghans in the south fear the same fate - they need to be assured — Eric Blehm

If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners - they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals. — James Inhofe

Jeanine claims you're all dangerous Insurgents. — Evelyn Eaton

The tribal leaders saw that we were bad-asses, and they'd better get their act together, work together, and stop accommodating the insurgents. Force moved that battle. We killed the bad guys and brought the leaders to the peace table. That is how the world works. — Chris Kyle

I was kidnapped by Sunni insurgents near Fallujah, in Iraq, ambushed by the Taliban in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, and injured in a car accident that killed my driver while covering the Taliban occupation of the Swat Valley in Pakistan. — Lynsey Addario

(Carmine Crocco) A farm-labourer and cowherd, had joined the Bourbon army, killed a comrade in a brawl, deserted and lived as an outlaw for ten years. He joined the liberal insurgents in 1860 in the hope of an amnesty for his past offences, and subsequently became the most formidable guerilla chief and leader of men on the Bourbon side. — Eric Hobsbawm

History likewise shows that sometimes the 'monetary standard of the victors' can prove to be very bad. There have seldom been more brilliant victories than those eventually achieved by the American insurgents under Washington against the English troops. But the American 'continental dollar did not benefit from them. The more proudly the star-spangled banner rose on high, the lower did the exchange-rate fall, until, at the very moment when the victory of the rebels was secured, the dollar became entirely valueless. The course of events was no different not long afterwards in France. In spite of the victories of the revolutionary army, the metal premium rose. — Ludwig Von Mises

When you review the Central American wars or other Latin American wars, you find that there were dictators and there were insurgents. — Alvaro Uribe