Civilians Quotes - Page 12

• If the next time our governments propose to make war on a helpless civilian population we were to uncover our grief and guilt instead of our anger, how much difference might we make?

  Germaine Greer

  War, Grief, Differences

  Germaine Greer (2014). “The Whole Woman”, p.228, Random House

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• Civilians listened to officers, which said a lot about the intelligence of civilians.

  Tom Clancy

  Said, Officers

  Tom Clancy (1994). “Without Remorse”, p.53, Penguin

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• The landmine cannot tell the difference between a soldier or a civilian - a woman, a child, a grandmother going out to collect firewood to make the family meal... once peace is declared the landmine does not recognize that peace. The landmine is eternally prepared to take victims.

  Jody Williams

  Children, Grandmother, Differences

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• Almost 30 years before Rwanda, before Darfur, more than 2 million people - mothers, children, babies, civilians - lost their lives as a result of the blatantly callous and unnecessary policies enacted by the leaders of the federal government of Nigeria. It's this charge that's dominated the book's Nigerian press, so far as I can see, the accusation, on the one hand, that Awolowo hatched "a diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly through starvation - eliminating over two million people, mainly members of future generations.

  Chinua Achebe

  Mother, Baby, Children

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• Today's terrorists are pursuing a distinct route. They are increasingly attacking civilians in symbolic targets, such as those of economic importance, or venues of bustling life like public transportation or entertainment, like nightclubs.

  Cliff Stearns

  Today, Entertainment, Target

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• What's great about the Sundance Film Festival is the festival takes over that town as it's intended to do. But, it's very focused on a lot of other filmmakers and distributors so it almost feels like, while they're a lot of so-called civilians there, it's an opportunity that you have to see, to show your stuff to the other folks, your peers really, and to get that reaction.

  Alex Gibney

  Opportunity, Peers, Festivals

  Source: collider.com

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• The din of politicians speechifying about the war, the faux moral posturing of opinion-makers who claim to speak in the name of 'the troops,' everything that Iraq has come to represent in the American imagination - it all melts away in the 115-degree heat. What's left is the machinery of a war that, having been called into being by civilians, no longer bears a relation to anything they say.

  Lawrence Kaplan

  War, Names, Iraq

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• In Turkey also, for a long time, the military was the decisive force but in the past 10 years they have backed off somewhat and the civilian government has gained more independence and autonomy even to shake up the military command. In fact, it even arrested several high-ranking officers [for interfering in governmental affairs]. Maybe Pakistan can move in a similar direction.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Moving, Past

  Source: www.dawn.com

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• Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending in among women and children. I heard they were making statements that they were proud of losing fewer armed men than civilians. It's hard to see how they could be proud of such a situation.

  Jan Egeland

  Children, Men, Hezbollah

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• There is no effort to acknowledge some equivalent accountability by associating "terrorism" with all violence that is deliberately aimed at civilians, either directly or as foreseeable effects of violent acts, whether the actor is a non-state individual or group or the state.

  Richard A. Falk

  Violent Acts, Effort, Accountability

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions.

  Paul Yingling

  Military, Two, Iraq

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• Looked at objectively, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths resulting from political violence are produced by what should be understood as "state terror." Terrorism also serves as an excuse to avoid diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of conflict.

  Richard A. Falk

  Political, Peaceful, Majority

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• And there's this talk that we're asking soldiers to make the greatest sacrifice, but the reality is that civilians bear the burden of war more than the combatants. You're much more likely to get accidentally blown up or killed by a death squad than you are to die in a firefight.

  Michael Hastings

  War, Sacrifice, Reality

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Unlike previous wars, our enemy now is a stateless network of religious extremists. They do not obey the laws of war, they hide among peaceful populations and launch surprise attacks on civilians. They have no armed forces per se, no territory or citizens to defend and no fear of dying during their attacks. Information is our primary weapon against this enemy, and intelligence gathered from captured operatives is perhaps the most effective means of preventing future attacks.

  John Yoo

  Religious, War, Mean

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Al Qaeda is not a nation-state and it has not signed the Geneva Conventions. It shows no desire to obey the laws of war; if anything it directly violates them by disguising themselves as civilians and attacking purely civilian targets to cause massive casualties.

  John Yoo

  War, Law, Desire

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• More than ever before, crisis management, reconstruction and development demand a new level of cooperation between nations, and between nations and international organisations, where military and civilian instruments are applied in a coordinated way.

  Jaap de Hoop Scheffer

  Military, Development, Levels

  Speech at NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Madeira, www.nato.int. May 25, 2007.

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• I happen to believe that certain types of assault weapons, which are manufactured and designed for military purposes to kill people very quickly should not be used in civilian society.

  Bernie Sanders

  Military, Believe, Assault Weapons

  "Bernie Sanders on politics, Clinton and guns". Interview with Dan Roberts, www.theguardian.com. December 18, 2015.

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• With a civilian target, female bombers tend to be more successful and cause more damage.

  Mia Bloom

  Successful, Female, Bombers

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• 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

  Military, Real, War

  "Carter: Iraq threat does not justify war", www.cnn.com. January 31, 2003.

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• We as a human family are on this train that is taking us into more and more war and more and more abuse of human rights where a lot of civilians are being killed and where human rights and international law are being set aside by America and NATO.

  Mairead Corrigan

  War, Law, America

  Source: www.progressive.org

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• A large portion of American citizens, especially people of color, have lost confidence in our criminal justice system. Many have called for appointing special prosecutors when a police officer kills or injures a civilian. If you were elected president, would you publicly support special prosecutors in these cases and what is one other thing you would do to fix our broken justice system?

  Russell Simmons

  Color, Broken, Justice

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• Iraq has been successfully demonized as if everybody who lives there is Saddam Hussein. In the build-up to this attack on Iraq, journalists have almost universally excluded the prospect of civilian deaths, the numbers of people who would die, because those people don't matter.

  John Pilger

  Iraq, Numbers, People

  Source: progressive.org

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• Iraq is a strange country. Where else can American civilians like me be protected by terrorist human shields?

  Michael Totten

  Country, Iraq, Shields

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• I've read a lot of war writing, even World War I writing, the British war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves's memoir "Goodbye to All That," and a civilian memoir "Testament of Youth" by Vera Brittain .

  George Packer

  Goodbye, War, Writing

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• We got a commitment that 3 million nurses are going to be trained to better identify these signs [of PTSD], because, you know, when these troops come home and they become veterans and they go back into the civilian community, they're not always going through the VA system for medical care. They're going to show up at community hospitals and clinics.

  Michelle Obama

  Commitment, Home, Nurse

  Source: www.wbur.org

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