Christopher Hitchens Quotes

That's generally true of people who drop bombs from high altitudes. You don't know what's going on below. You don't see the human consequences of what you're doing.

Many of the points made by the antiwar movement have been consciously assimilated by the Pentagon and its lawyers and advisers. Precision weaponry is good in itself, but its ability to discriminate is improving and will continue to improve. Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect.

We attacked selected military targets of the P.L.O. Around, civilians were hurt, I don't want to deny it. Very regrettable, very regrettable. We regret it deeply.

All sensible Army people turned gas warfare down as being utterly insane since, in view of your superiority in the air, it would not be long before it would bring the most terrible catastrophe upon German cities, which were completely unprotected.

Once you start bombing in Syria, when you start looking for targets, there will be a lot.

If civilians are going to be killed, I would rather have them be their civilians than our civilians.

Sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented preemptive attack on a separate sovereign nation may well prove itself a most temporary medicine.

You can't bomb a people just in case.

To be a good reporter, writing about war, you have to write about the people. It's not about the tanks or the RPGs or military strategy. It's always about the effect war has on civilians, on society, and how it disrupts and destroys lives.

In general our officers are humane. But in some cases they have carried on your warfare with a mixture of American ingenuity and Castilian cruelty.

We seem bent on saving the Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh, even if we have to kill them and demolish their country to do it.

We now prepared authorize bombing specific targets in [Guatemala City] area since you and feel this now the most effective move to achieve success. Targets should be selected with a view to having desired effect on army and regime morale with minimum political cost to [the United States].

The bombing was of no military significance since not one soldier had been killed..

The American claim that the bombing of North Vietnam was directed against military targets does not withstand direct investigation.

We can rattle our sabers all we want but, realistically, we don't have troops for an invasion [Iran] and surgical strikes aren't going to work.

The American people and the American military will never get used to civilian casualties. And we will - we will fight against that every way we can possibly bring our intelligence and our tactics to bear. We're not the perfect guys, but we are the good guys.

When we talk about carpet bombing ISIL, that's what it looks like, creating huge numbers of civilian casualties, which increases the numbers of refugees flowing out of the region, which increases the misery of the Syrian people.

Every decision in government is so important, especially when it comes to the military where thousands of people can lose their lives.

Generals who save troops for the next day are always beaten.

The worse the troops the greater the need of artillery.

If you have really good intelligence, that truly does put the - I mean putting troops on the ground in some way.

I hear somebody saying we should carpet bomb Iraq or Syria. Not only is that inhumane, not only is that contrary to our values, but that would likely be an extraordinary mechanism for ISIL to recruit more people willing to die and explode bombs in an airport.

Secretary of state Colin Powell himself eloquently pointed out the many ways to get at the root of this problem... economic, diplomatic, legal and political, as well as military. A rush to launch precipitous military counterattacks runs too great a risk that more innocent men, women and children will be killed. I could not vote for a resolution that I believe will lead to such an outcome.

War is a nasty, dirty, rotten business. It's all right for the Navy to blockade a city, to starve the inhabitants to death. But there is something wrong, not nice, about bombing that city.

I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas... I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes... It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gases: gases can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.