Juan Cole Quotes

Perhaps we have already intervened too much in the affairs of other peoples.

This should be represented to the Austrian government, and you should impress upon how necessary it is that their decision to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina should be reconsidered.

Historically, we were always complaining about others interfering in our domestic and national issues.

The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.

You know, we do not want the militarization of Haiti. We do not see a Haitian as a protectorate where it relinquishes its own sovereignty.

I saw no reason why other nations should tell Central Americans how to solve their problems.

People make mistakes. And one of the mistakes that the United States consistently made was that it could intervene and somehow adjust people's governments, especially in the Middle East.

Part of what is wrong with the view of American imperialism is that it is antithetical to our interests. We are better off when people are governing themselves. I'm sure there is some guy that will tell you that philosophy is no different from the Roman Empire's. Well, it is fundamentally different.

I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. Those who want to come and help are welcome. Those who come to interfere and destroy are not.

The government should not present the anomaly which it now presents—a government the freest, perhaps the most democratic in the world with reference to local and domestic matters in which you rule yourselves as fully as any people in the world, while in your foreign affairs, your relations with other countries, whether peaceful or warlike, commercial, financial, or otherwise, you may have no more voice than the people of Japan.

We do not have the God-given right to intervene in any country in which we feel like intervening.

No nation is so lost to pride as to submit the conduct of its internal affairs to the arbitrament of foreign powers.

American interests dictate that we teach other peoples to govern themselves.

Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening.

To impose justice, stability, and cooperation on oppressed or ungoverned nations is usually a tall order. It is hardly ever done cheaply, especially against nationalist resistance

No country can decide for another county.

I am so angry with that infernal, little, Cuban republic that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth. All that we wanted from them is that they would behave themselves and be prosperous and happy so that we would not have to interfere.

Well, I think both Russia and China have a very strong aversion to interference in internal affairs.

Too close and unthinking an allegiance to Washington has sometimes got British governments into trouble.

I love living in Vermont and I love living in New York. Does my love for Vermont give us the right to rain bombs down on Tripoli? Of course not. There are exceptional qualities about the United States. But it doesn't give us the right to impose our will on other cultures when they often don't want it.

The United States supports a strong, united Ukraine with productive and peaceful relationships with both the East and the West, with both Russia and Europe.

Bush will keep up that policy that gives the United State the role of promoting freedom in the world.

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

Judge candidly what a wretched figure the American empire will exhibit in the eye of other nations, without a power to array and support a military force for its own protection.

Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.