Quotes & Sayings About War And Terrorism

We obviously don't live in a perfect world. If we did, then my dad would never have volunteered for Vietnam so he could use the GI Bill to pay for college, Uncle Google would have more important things to do than searching for eight hundred million reasons why our schools suck, and I wouldn't be at an education leadership conference in Jakarta because there'd be no need for it ... right? — Tucker Elliot

Success is the ability to meet worthy goals, but it's also the ability to love and have compassion and the ability to get in touch with your creative center, to transform yourself toward more peaceful and just pursuits. I hope we redefine success. Otherwise, we'll see more of what we're already seeing - more aggression, more burnout, more Wall Street scandals, more war, more terrorism, more eco-destruction. — Deepak Chopra

In '94, I started writing a novel about an enormous terrorist act that destroyed the United States. The novel takes place twenty years after this destruction, with all the stuff that we're dealing with now - a dirty war, the disappeared, the concept of terrorism. Anyway, 9/11 happened some years into the process, and I was like, OK, I don't have a novel. — Junot Diaz

In this era of non-judgmental mush, too many Americans have become incapable of facing the brutal reality of unprovoked hatred, based on envy, resentment and ultimately on a vicious urge to lash out against others for the pain of ones own insignificance. That has been a common thread in things as disparate as ghetto riots, two world wars, and now Islamic terrorism. — Thomas Sowell

Winning the war on terrorism will also require a level of moral clarity that can provide a vision for struggling people and nations everywhere. — Adam Schiff

Make war not on terrorism but on ignorance, on sickness and on environmental degradation. — Kurt Vonnegut

Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if we all got along. If there were no terrorism, Islamophobia, Western hypocrisy, corrupt government in African countries (especially Liberia), sexism, nativism, people like Donald Trump, stereotypes, war, Capitalism, Communism, Marxism and xenophobia. — Henry Johnson Jr

I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that 'issue' I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. — Christopher Hitchens

It's much different today than it was during the Cold War. The CIA is not the subject of many books anymore. But that might change, because of international terrorism and Red China. — Nelson DeMille

Images of burning Red Cross and UN buildings struck by US bombs contrasted with images of thousands of desperately poor Afghan women carrying sickly and starving children out of Afghanistan as they flee the might of the US military is tearing at international public confidence in our war against terrorism. — Cynthia McKinney

But Canada remains a crucial partner in this global war on terrorism, and we are grateful for that. Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and military personnel continue anti-terrorist operations in the Persian Gulf. — Paul Cellucci

I was against the Iraq war I was against the Afghan war I was against bombing Libya and Syria but to be quite honest and with a heavy heart because more innocent people are gonna be killed....We have to step in and help wipeout ISIS! — Cal Sarwar

I'm not an expert on the Middle East or terrorism or the use of military force or politics. It's all I can do to know a little bit about how to help people raise their kids and what to do when they get sick. When a war happens, I just hope it gets over with quickly so that how we take care of children becomes more important again. — Mark Vonnegut

The cost of an on-site inspection team would be minuscule compared to war, Saddam would have no choice except to comply, the results would be certain, military and civilian casualties would be avoided, there would be almost unanimous worldwide support, and the United States could regain its leadership in combating the real threat of international terrorism. — Jimmy Carter

Just as Hitler used the Reichstag burning, the U.S. government now uses the so-called two wars, the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism, to fuel fear in the population and establish a police security state. — Ralph Metzner

Geopolitical interests are behind the so-called war on drugs and terrorism. — Evo Morales

The Pakistani government under Musharraf is a strong and key player in the global war on terrorism, and their contribution has been second to none. — Cofer Black

The war and terrorism in the Middle East, the crisis of leadership in many of the oil-supply countries in the developing world, the crisis of global warming - all these are very clearly tied to energy. — Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Kofi Annan's kangaroo court ... a clear and present danger to the war on terrorism and Americans fighting it all over the world. — Tom DeLay

That's driven by any number of factors, the most prominent of which have been the combat experience of two major campaigns - one in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq - and the ongoing demands of the global war on terrorism. — Stephen Cambone

President Barack Obama and his family. (I was respectful, I believe, but I told him I did not like his drone strikes on Pakistan, that when they kill one bad person, innocent people are killed, too, and terrorism spreads more. I also told him that if America spent less money on weapons and war and more on education, the world would be a better place. If God has given you a voice, I decided, you must use it even if it is to disagree with the president of the United States.) — Malala Yousafzai

When we were invited to the White House we said we would accept the invitation on one condition. If it's just a photo session we would not go - but if Obama would listen to what was in our hearts, then we would. The message came back: you are free to say whatever you wish. And so we did! It was quite a serious meeting. We talked about the importance of education. We discussed the United States' role in supporting dictatorships and drone attacks in countries like Pakistan. I told him that instead of focusing on eradicating terrorism through war, he should focus on eradicating it through education. In — Malala Yousafzai

Should we freeze or postpone prospective tax cuts and avoid any new tax cuts until we are sure we have the money to pay for the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. — Tim Russert

The war we are fighting today against terrorism is a multifaceted fight. We have to use every tool in our toolkit to wage this war - diplomacy, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and of course, military power - and we are developing new tools as we go along. — Richard Armitage

My point was simply that the war on global terrorism is going to be a long one, and we need to adapt as our enemy adapts. — Richard Myers

There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons. — Tony Benn

No one has the right to ignite a war and lead an occupation and armies to conquer people, invading them and make them suffer all kinds of torture, murder, expulsion, displacement, bombing and terrorism by different lethal prohibited weapons and then come and speak as the savior of the people or a defender of their rights. — Muqtada Al Sadr

Most people bestow tremendous power onto those human beings we consider evil, who cause of threaten harm to others, even though we know they are acting from their own pain or fear. Would ignoring evil disarm it? Don't dismiss the idea. As we have declared War on Terror, a War on Drugs, a War on Poverty, a War on Crime, the problems only seem to have gotten bigger. We cling tthe notion of evil as detrimental, unpredictable force in our world and refuse any suggestion that it is not real. We argue for our fear about terrorism or climate change or economic instability, heatedly trying to prove that things are only getting worse. And in doing so, we reinforce the principle that what we focus on grows. We create our experience by where we place our attention. What we resist, persists. — Ellen Debenport

And if you look at all this academic work in the conferences and so on there's a constant theme that terrorism is extremely hard to define and we therefore have to have a deep thinking about it. And the reason it's hard to define is quite simple. It's hard to find a definition that includes what they do to us but excludes what we do to them. That's quite difficult. So it takes a global war on terrorism. — Noam Chomsky

I think, while it is true that the Hillary Clinton and I voted differently on the war in Iraq, what is important is that we learn the lesson of the war in Iraq. And that lesson is intrinsic to my foreign policy if elected president, is the United States cannot do it alone. We cannot be the policeman of the world. We are now spending more I believe than the next eight countries on defense. We have got to work in strong coalition with the major powers of the world and with those Muslim countries that are prepared to stand up and take on terrorism. — Bernie Sanders

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

The real lesson of 9/11 that I think we have still to learn is that this is a world of interdependence, in which all of the challenges of environment and climate change, of jobs, of disease, of war and terrorism, are cross-border problems that cannot be met one nation at a time. — Benjamin Barber

I opposed the war in Iraq because I did not believe it was in our national security interest, and I still don't. What we [America] did was akin to taking a baseball bat to a beehive. Our primary security threat right now is terrorism
and by doing what we did in Iraq, we've managed to alienate a good part of the world and most of the allies whose intelligence and other help we need to combat and defeat terrorism. — Jerry Springer

Part of this myth related to assertions about the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) - assertions promoted by liberal Zionists in both the US and Israel and shared with the rest of the political forces in Israel. The allegation is that the PLO - inside and outside of Palestine - was conducting a war of terror for the sake of terror. Unfortunately, this demonization is still very prevalent in the West and has been accentuated after 2001 by the attempt to equate Islam, terrorism, and Palestine. — Noam Chomsky

The link between intimate violence in the home and the international violence of terrorism and war is as tightly bound together as the fingers of a clenched fist. — Riane Eisler

Stocks in the United States plunged in 2002 amid fears of war and terrorism, a weak economy, rising oil prices and dozens of corporate scandals. It was the third consecutive annual decline, the first time that has happened in 60 years. — Alex Berenson

It's funny to see a film in Spain with a lot of violence because we don't have a lot of violence. Well, of course, we have violence, some murders, some terrorism and a lot of things. We have suffered a dictatorship, and we talk about the civil war constantly. — Javier Camara

We can only move to a long-term resolution regarding terrorism and war by planting seeds of peace. We have to start with ourselves. — Peter Yarrow

Afghanistan and Iraq were lumped together in what was called a 'global war on terrorism.' — Richard Engel

To win the war on terror, we must know who our friends are and where our enemies are hiding. We can't continue fighting terrorism using the same foreign policy blueprints that were in place before September 11th. — Evan Bayh

Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to. — Condoleezza Rice

The catch-all phrase "the war on terrorism", in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against "criminal gangsterism". Terrorism is a tactic. You can't have a war against a tactic. It's deliberately vague and non-definable in order to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere and under any circumstance. — Ron Paul

Actually, they (extremists) wanted to take this opportunity to mobilize the people for the religious unification and to divert the government's attention from other issues in the war against terrorism. So they are using this issue as a matter of unity. — Shahbaz Bhatti

Then we can help these failed states turn around and give their people a better life. This, too, is a critical part of this global war on terrorism, and Canada and the United States are together. — Paul Cellucci

And a strange, deadly war is raging around the world. Yet, each person who has lost a loved one surely knows secretly, deeply, that no war, no act of revenge, no daisy-cutters dropped on someone else's loved ones or someone else's children, will blunt the edges of their pain or bring their own loved ones back. War cannot avenge those who have died. War is only a brutal desecration of their memory. — Arundhati Roy

This is a victory against those who promote terrorism, against hypocrites who tout a supposed war on terror and in reality protect terrorists and jail young men who only acted to oppose terrorism in the United States. — Ricardo Alarcon

We are surrounded by evil forces in our daily lives. We must be wise enough to recognize them. Strong enough to resist them and resolute enough to destroy them. — J.E. Holling

A democratic and stable Iraq and Afghanistan are essential to our broader efforts to make no place safe for terrorists and to win the War on Terrorism. — Ben Nelson

As the war on terrorism spreads and prolongs, the fruits of ending the threat of terrorism around the world will be tempered with a whole new series of problems to be addressed and resolved. — Charles Bass

Bottom line is, you're not going to win the war against terrorism without the help of Muslims ... as well as Hindus and a lot of other groups. That's a no-brainer. Many attacks have been thwarted because of information coming from people of different faiths. — Andre Carson

Failure of government programs prompts more determined effort, while the loss of liberty is ignored or rationalized away ... whether is it is the war on poverty, drugs, terrorism ... or the current Hitler of the day, an appeal to patriotism is used to convince the people that a little sacrifice of liberty, here or there, is a small price to pay ... The results, though, are frightening and will soon become even more so. — Ron Paul

When I say that terrorism is war against civilization, I may be met by the objection that terrorists are often idealists pursuing worthy ultimate aims
national or regional independence, and so forth. I do not accept this argument. I cannot agree that a terrorist can ever be an idealist, or that the objects sought can ever justify terrorism. The impact of terrorism, not merely on individual nations, but on humanity as a whole, is intrinsically evil, necessarily evil and wholly evil. — Benjamin Netanyahu

I find it amusing that those who helped to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism. — Barack Obama

The core distortion of the War on Terror under both Bush and Obama is the Orwellian practice of equating government accusations of terrorism with proof of guilt. One constantly hears U.S. government defenders referring to 'terrorists' when what they actually mean is: those accused by the government of terrorism. — Glenn Greenwald

On average, around 500,000 people die on the planet every year as a result of intentional violence and homicide. These acts span domestic violence, war, terrorism, infanticide, gang violence, honor killings and state executions. Many of these deaths pass relatively unnoticed while some attract attention. — Chris Rhyss Edwards

If progressive deep frames had been articulated and present in the public mind, the idea of a "war on terror" never would have made sense. If we viewed our strength as our diplomatic ability to forge international consensus and coalitions, and if we recognized that killing and maiming civilians through military action creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terrorism, we wouldn't have looked to our military to solve the problem. Had progressive deep frames been prevalent at the time of 9/11, Americans would have taken "war on terror" as a powerful metaphor but not a literal guide to action, like the "war on poverty." They would have seen it as a major crime problem - like international organized crime - and sought to bring these criminals to justice by the means that work best, like tracing bank accounts, placing spies in their organizations, and so on. It — George Lakoff

I am sometimes asked, "How do you know there won't be a war tomorrow (or a genocide, or an act of terrorism) that will refute your whole thesis?" The question misses the point of this book. The point is not that we have entered an Age of Aquarius in which every last earthling has been pacified forever. It is that substantial reductions in violence have taken place, and it is important to understand them. Declines in violence are caused by political, economic, and ideological conditions that take hold in particular cultures at particular times. If the conditions reverse, violence could go right back up. — Steven Pinker

The war being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq is bringing about a fundamental change to the environment that has given rise and power to the extremists who export terrorism. — Craig L. Thomas

It is important to recognize the differences between the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. The treatment of those detained at Abu Ghraib is governed by the Geneva Conventions, which have been signed by both the U.S. and Iraq. — John Yoo

I'm as frustrated with the French, I think, as anyone, but look, there's going to be other challenges and there are going to be other issues. As long as there's a war on terrorism going on, we're all going to have to work together. — John McCain

We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attacks on the twin towers and the pentagon and the American struggle in Iraq. These events swung American public opinion in our favor — Benjamin Netanyahu

In our towns and cities they will continue to be born, in our communities they will go on to be nurtured & radicalised & from within our neighbourhoods they will terrorise & murder our citizens including women & children in their attempt to destroy the very fabric & order of our civilised society. They are influenced by our ignorance, our lack of knowledge is their power, martyrdom in the name of their God and prophet is their aspiration & so it is critical that we waste no time & learn more about them & this ideology they follow before we can even begin to eradicate this chilling & growing endemic Islamic faith based terrorism'. — Cal Sarwar

If the great Western experiment fails and we end up living in totalitarian war-on-terrorism states, one day someone's going to say, 'Well democracy doesn't work because they had to give it up'. — Martin Firrell

With all due respect to all philistines, the dictatorship of the proletariat does just consist in "giving a hiding" to the classes that were previously supreme, before forcing them to recognize the new order and to submit to it. — Leon Trotsky

Another part of the global war on terrorism that Canada and the United States are working on together is in helping failed states, states like Afghanistan, where people have no voice. — Paul Cellucci

Osama, baah!" Bashir roared.
"Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy's strength. In America's case, that's not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. That only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever. — Greg Mortenson

There is a proliferation of terrorism as a result of the war in Iraq. What America has created is a den for terrorists to breed in Iraq as a result of the war and to ship their ideologies and their fears and their capabilities around the world, not just in the Middle East, but in other continents. — David E. Bonior

The policies the US government is following are dangerous for its citizens. It's true that you can bomb or buy out anybody that you want to, but you can't control the rage that's building in the world. You just can't. And that rage will express itself in some way or the other. Condemning violence when a section of your economy is based on selling weapons and making bombs and piling up chemical and biological weapons? When the soul of your culture worships violence? On what grounds are you going to condemn terrorism, unless you change your attitude toward violence? — Arundhati Roy

Is killing a known terrorist wrong? I ask this, did the terrorist allow any of his victims quarter? No, then allow him no quarter, and hoist the black flag. — T.R. Wallace

The wars of today, the terrorism of today, are the result of injustice, and that injustice is the Outcome of our greedy, selfish, competitive way of working through commercialization and market forces. — Benjamin Creme

I have never once been persuaded as to the causal link between the Iraqi regime, al-Qaeda and September 11. I do believe the impact of war under these circumstances is bound to weaken the international coalition against terrorism itself ... — Charles Kennedy

Ukraine has been a strong partner to the United States on international initiatives and a committed ally in fighting the War on Terrorism. — Vito Fossella

The true credit for our safety and security goes to our men and women who are serving in places like Iraq and Afghanistan in the global war on terrorism. — Asa Hutchinson

I was an Army intelligence agent and a veteran during the Cold War, assigned to West Germany. I was the chairman of the National Commission on Homeland Security and Terrorism for the United States for five years. I was a person who has dealt extensively with these homeland security issues. I was a governor during the 9/11 attack. — Jim Gilmore

They were dealt with as in war, and they naturally employed the means that were used against them. — Leo Tolstoy

The Philippines and the U.S. have had a strong relationship with each other for a very long time now. We have a shared history. We have shared values, democracy, freedom, and we have been in all the wars together in modern history, the World War, Second World War, Cold War, Vietnam, Korea, now the war on terrorism. — Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

A common strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism, which was defined to refer only to the organized and politically motivated killing of civilians by killers not wearing the uniforms of soldiers. I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage. This, I reasoned, was why America felt justified in bringing so many deaths to Afghanistan and Iraq, and why America felt justified in risking so many more deaths by tacitly using India to pressure Pakistan. — Mohsin Hamid

I full well realize that politics is a rough and tumble business, but politics should not be reduced to lobbing partisan hand grenades. Politics is not war. Terrorism is. — Pat Roberts

I think the worst thing in the world is to have the courts decide who to target in the war on terrorism. And courts are not military commanders. — Lindsey Graham

The war against terrorism should not be used to interfere with an independent, sovereign state. We need to identify concrete terrorist targets and do no harm to civilians. — Nong Duc Manh

You think you're going to impress an American jury with [your] words? In the eyes of the Americans, you're doomed. Just looking at you in an orange suit, chains, and being Muslim and Arabic is enough to convict you. — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

All American and Israeli goods and products should be boycotted in a way that undermines American and Israeli interests so as to act as deterrence to their war against Muslims and Islam that is being waged under the pretense of fighting terrorism. This boycott should become an overwhelming trend that makes these two states feel that their economies are in a real and actual danger. — Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah

George Bush didn't campaign on, 'If you elect me, I'm going to be a great president to confront terrorism and launch a war in the Middle East' because nobody was thinking about it in the year 2000. But it became the defining issue of his presidency. — Mike Huckabee

Today I prayed for Boston, for America, my home away from home. Today, I realized how lucky we Sri Lankans are to have peace in our country. How I feel today, hearing of the bombs going off in the city brings back memories of how I used to feel four years ago in Sri Lanka when the LTTE was setting off bombs all around Colombo. That feeling I used to get when I hear about a bomb blast, the goosebumps, the school evacuation drills, the breaking news footage, and most of all, that fear we Sri Lankans used to feel, every second of everyday, it all came back to me today. Thank you God for bringing peace to my country, look after America the way you did Sri Lanka. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

There is no clear or meaningful difference between insurgency and civil war, or between national terrorism and civil war for that matter. — Anthony H. Cordesman

With a nation at war against terrorism and our men and women on the front line defending our homeland from abroad, resources need to be prioritized and allocated properly. — Jeff Miller

A single strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism... I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage. — Mohsin Hamid

So our own actions sometimes have undermined our safety, in our efforts to fight terrorism. The only way this can work is if we are aligned with liberals, with moderate Muslim forces. But if our war on terrorism is seen - as it is seen by many Muslims - as a war on Islam itself, it's very hard for us to have Muslim alliances, because America and the West have become so toxic. — Yaroslav Trofimov

The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is a matter of perspective: it all depends on the observer and the verdict of history. — Pentti Linkola

In addition to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which is crucial to U.S. interests both domestically and in the Middle East, the U.S. has had and will continue to need Egypt's collaboration in the war on terrorism. — Ahmed Zewail

It is a neglected but essential fact that we cannot appreciate the relationship between religion and violence unless we grasp the nature and meaning of the two partners in this relationship. Yet our understandings both of religion and of violence are inadequate. Further, we usually consider too few offspring of their troubled marriage: when we think of "religious violence," we tend to think only of holy war and (especially since September 11) religious terrorism. However, those are not the only types of religious violence. — Jack David Eller

Our relationship with the United States is not reduced to questions of fighting terrorism and the Iraq war. German-American relations were so good for so many years because they extended deeply into the normal lives of people. — Angela Merkel

In a world of inhumanity, war and terrorism, American citizenship is a very precious possession. — Phyllis Schlafly

Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus' - blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable. — Noam Chomsky

Playing a prisoner of war trapped in Pakistan for three years was a novelty for me. We made sure that we didn't talk about India versus Pakistan but about the emotions of people on both sides and how terrorism affects us all. — Akshay Kumar

Far to our left I could see a commercial airliner on final approach to Soekarno-Hatta. Far to our right I could see the outline of tall city buildings. The imagery was hard to ignore. In the midst was an impoverished world filled with dangerous radicals. Some believed it was God's will to crash airplanes into buildings. Some recruited children to self-detonate on buses and in coffee shops. It must be incredibly difficult to hold fast to hope when you live in such a world. It's also hard to keep faith with humanity when religious ideology is used as an impetus for war. But I also believe that for every war there is a hero ... and for me, Jakarta will always be Indira's city. — Tucker Elliot

Now, for the moment, we are safe. The only kind of international violence that worries most people in the developed countries is terrorism: from imminent heart attack to a bad case of hangnail in fifteen years flat. We are very lucky people
but we need to use the time we have been granted wisely, because total war is only sleeping. All the major states are still organized for war, and all that is needed for the world to slide back into a nuclear confrontation is a twist of the kaleidoscope that shifts international relations into a new pattern of rival alliances. — Gwynne Dyer

There was nothing wrong - and everything right - with analyzing a law that establishes boundaries on interrogation in the war on terrorism. — John Yoo

Most people are basically a victim of the circumstances of their life. They have things like 9/11, they have terrorism threats, they have new war threats, they have economy problems, and they think, 'What can I do? I'm basically a victim.' — Stephen Covey

If someone had told Allie that she would commit a premeditated act of murder, she would not have believed it. She would have spouted off all the reasons how she could never be capable of such a thing - that no matter how dire the circumstances, she would find a better way. She was so naive, so arrogant to think that the laws of necessity and unthinkable circumstance could not apply to her. She could tell herself that this was an act of mercy, but that would be a lie. This was an act of war. An act of terrorism. It was nothing less than an assassination.
If I do this, Allie told herself, I am no better than Mary. I will have sunk to the worst possible place a person can go. After this moment, I will be a cold-blooded killer and it can never be taken back.
So the question was, did Allie Johnson have the strength to sacrifice all that was left of her innocence if it meant she might save the world? — Neal Shusterman