Richard Francis Burton Quotes

Referring to Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, who was a forceful administrator constantly telling all others what to do:

Plan Orange was the code name of the united states plan for possible war with Japan. In this ironic quotation, American military planners realized five years before Pearl Harbor that surprise attack was the major vulnerability. We were surprised and had no help from our intelligence service which despite the recommendations was almost nonexistent.

In 1913 New York Governor Sulzer decided to try and reform the political corruption and control of Tammany Hall over New York State's political system. In response, the Tammany-dominated legislature impeached Sulzer for campaign fund irregularities. After he was removed from office, the only governor in New York State history to suffer such a fate, a disappointed, angry crowd gathered outside the governor's mansion, calling for a speech. The ex governor was presented with a loving cup with the following inscription engraved: “Presented to Hon. William Sulzer by citizens of Albany in Loving Remembrance of Duties Well Performed. A Martyr to the Cause of Honest Government.” The phrase that "no question is ever settled until it is settled right" seems to have originated in another poem. See Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

The Egyptians had received the latest Russian radar and missiles. It’s planes outnumbered the Israeli Air Force 3 to 1. Within a year, the entire Egyptian Air Force was virtually destroyed. See {605729}

This document was used at the trials of the Japanese War Criminal at the end of WWII. However, MacArthur would not allow the prosecution of all who were guilty of murdering helpless crews of Allied ships after they were disabled. He just wanted a few examples and even would not try the Emperor whom he felt was more useful in his position than as a criminal.

This has been true in just about every conflict. In WWII however, there were a highly disproportionate ration of atrocities with those of the axis forces dwarfing those of the U. S. and its allies. Further, after the war, those allied atrocities that did take place were published. In addition, one basic difference is in the policies of the fighting forces and their governments as opposed to individual actions by soldiers. In WWII, the allied atrocities were of the latter type, but the axis atrocities involved both.

One difficulty of diplomacy with many Islamic leaders is that the culture produces very aggressive rhetoric and very aggressive actions like Islamic terrorism. This quotation is often cited to demonstrate that it is the Iranians that had decided that America is it’s enemy; that America is to be humbled; and that their weapons development are targeted at America. This along with the most frequent Iranian slogan, “Death to America,” for many argues for preemptive military action or maintenance of a high state of readiness. Given statements like this from the leading soldier of the theocracy, there is little doubt that Iranian nuclear weapons would be a great danger to America. Therefore when Iran complains that America did not object to the fact that other nations have the nuclear bomb, they do not take their own rhetoric into account. No other nation with possible nuclear capability has made America its major military adversity and claims as an objective to humble the United States.

We face that situation now. Tesla was one of the great American immigrant scientists. He found in America the kind of intellectual and operational freedom that did not exist in the rigid, monarch-controlled, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He developed patents and techniques that formed the technological bases of radio, telephone long distance, TV, cell phones, Wi Fi, just to name a few. Most important he was Thomas Edison’s great nemesis. Edison invented DC electric generators that could power factories or entire streets in a neighborhood. Tesler invented and developed AC electrical technology which could power entire cities and he could move electricity over long distances which Edison could not. Tesler was one of the first scientists to conceive of and try to implement “Big Science” where there were huge capital investments to develop machines and systems to do what had never been done before—philosophically like the CERN Hadron Collider. Tesler even convinced a large corporation to finance the construction of a massive building and tower so he could experiment with the wireless transmission of electricity. However, as the industrial democracies have learned, Big Science can only be funded by governments and it often takes sever working in consort to afford the huge investment that is required. In Tesler’s era, the federal and state governments did not fund scientific research so his work was not only technically ahead of his time but also conceptually. He anticipated most of the problems and need for a national power grid that was challenging America even at the beginning of the 21st century.

The Christian Crusaders were considered particularly cruel and barbarous by the Muslims who themselves were quite barbarous. To this day, Middle Eastern Muslim parents who want to frighten little children threaten them that the “Crusaders” will come—“Crusader” has the connotation of “monster”.