Chris Hedges Quotes

The barbarian nation of the Huns, became so great that more than a hundred cities were captured. There were so many murders and blood-lettings that the dead could not be numbered.

Flags were given to my people, and they were told they were now the children of the Americans. We were told, if any white people mean to harm you, hold up these flags and you will then be safe from all danger. We did this in good faith. But what happened? Our beloved chief Moluntha stood with the American flag in front of him and that very peace treaty in his hand, but his head was chopped by a American officer, and that American officer was never punished. Brother, after such bitter events, can you blame me for placing little confidence in the promises of Americans?

Human history is full of predators known as conquerors, who carried out murder, persecution and abduction of women to satisfy their lust for power, plunder and prestige. They knew that their misdeeds were sheer acts of barbarity dictated by personal ambitions but Jehad, the behest of Allah to destroy non-Muslims, not only sanctified these atrocities, but also raised them to the apex of piety, purity and probity.

Dominion by land or sea will appear equally destitute of attraction, when it comes to be generally understood, that all its advantages rest with the rulers, and that the subjects at large derive no benefit whatever.

The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does not exist.

No chapter of history is steeped further in blood than the history of colonialism. Blood was shed uselessly and senselessly. Flourishing lands were laid waste; whole peoples destroyed and exterminated. All this can in no way be extenuated or justified.

It is well to remember that nations which submit to conquest or races which abandon their language in favor of that of an oppressor do so, not because of the altruistic motives, or because of a love of brotherhood of man, but from a slavish and cringing spirit.

To the Muslims in America…: How can your conscience allow you to live in peaceful coexistence with a nation that is responsible for the tyranny and crimes committed against your own brothers and sisters? I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad [holy war] against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding upon every other able Muslim.

There is not a nation on Earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.

I will let loose the dogs of hell, Ten thousand Indians, who shall yell And foam and tear, and grin and roar, And drench their moccasins in gore: To these I’ll give full scope and play From Ticonderoga to Florida

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find that far more, and far more hideous, crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.

If ... America is to become an empire, there is very little chance that it can avoid becoming a virtual dictatorship as well.

Existing colonial empires rest upon insecure foundations. There seems, indeed, something unnatural in the spectacle of seven million Dutch ruling over fifty million Malays.

...if our ancestors had cared for the rights of other people, the British empire would not have been made.

What did the Ottoman Empire bring to the peoples under its yoke other than massacres, oppression, and tyranny?

No news, save that Great Britain is hanging the Irish, hunting the Maroons [slaves], feeding the Vendée [counter-revolutionary district of France], and establishing the human flesh trade.

To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false pretenses, they call empire and where they make a desert they call it peace.

With nearly every great European empire today walks its dark colonial shadow …

These ministers will destroy the empire they were called upon to save, before the indignation of a great and suffering people can fall upon their heads, in the punishment which they deserve. I affirm the war to have been a most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical-war.

Belgium’s deplorable record of inhumanity as a colonial power in the Congo was surpassed only by that of Germany in South-West Africa.

The population of Belgium ... behaved in a diabolical not to say, bestial manner… They tormented the wounded, beat them to death, killed doctors and medical orderlies, fired secretly … on men harmlessly standing in the street… The King of Belgium has to be notified at once that since his people have placed themselves outside all observance of European custom … They will be treated accordingly

Crimes against human rights, never confessed and never publicly denounced, are a poison which destroys the possibility of a friendship between nations.

He’s [Bashar al-Assad, Syrian President] a different kind of bloodthirsty dictator, the kind who shops on line on his iPad. He’s sort of Arab Dictator 2.0

Indifference to Reality. All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.

The gulf between imperial ideals and empire on the ground has customarily proved disillusioning not only for colonial peoples but also for some in the occupying power.