Harry S. Truman Quotes

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.

It seems like such a terrible shame that innocent civilians have to get hurt in wars, otherwise combat would be such a wonderfully healthy way to rid the human race of unneeded trash.

We can't stop a baby in Africa from starving to death... but we can afford enough technology and weaponry to blow the world up a million times over.

We are calling for a ban on weapons deliveries to countries listed as human rights violators, to governments that are engaged in wars of aggression, military occupation, and annexation and spend more money on weapons than on education and health care.

First of all, we have to say loud and clear to all those who are engaged in the fighting that attention to and respect for humanitarian needs is absolutely imperative. Anyone with any knowledge of Iraq, never mind any concern about the future, knows that the way in which the war is prosecuted has a big impact on what comes afterwards.

I dream ...of a world where we can commit our social resources to the development of human life and not to its destruction

If we could just stop building up armies and things like that, we would have all the money we need for wildlife and poverty.

If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.

It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends 500,000 for every enemy soldier killed, and only 53 annually on the victims of poverty.

Let's help people in this country with the resources we have.

[It is important] to have stability and to have security, which means humanitarian equals fighting terrorists. You cannot talk about humanitarian aid and supporting the terrorists at the same time. You cannot, you have to choose.

Who takes care of their people better? FEMA or Hezbollah?

I think the global community always has a ... has a responsibility to any humanitarian crisis. And I think it's in our best interest to address a humanitarian crisis on this scale because displacement can can lead to a lot of instability and aggression.

There are a great number of peoples who need more than just words of sympathy from the international community. They need a real and sustained commitment to help end their cycles of violence, and launch them on a safe passage to prosperity.

We have already provided a strong humanitarian response to the problems in the Middle East and that response will be stronger within coming days.

Seventy-five percent of our energy around the earth is being poured into war efforts. Are we servants of death and destruction? This 75 percent of energy could be poured into life, into the service of life-and there will be laughter, and there will be greater health, and there will be more wealth, more food. There will be no poverty. There is no need for poverty to exist at all.

The people who died in the Twin Towers in that terrible crime mattered. The people who were bombed to death in dusty villages in Afghanistan didn't matter, even though it now seems that their numbers were greater. The people who will die in Iraq don't matter.

What my bill would do would be only for refugees going forward. So I haven't taken a position on sending anyone home. But I have taken the position that we have a lot of problems here in our country. And that one of the things that we do - charity is about giving your own money. Charity isn't giving someone else's money.

Sweet Jesus, war does terrible things to people.

The number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear ultimately. And I don't think we want to speculate on the number of casualties. The effort now has to be to save as many people as possible.

The United States of America needs to begin to exercise strong leadership to protect the vulnerable citizens and over 100,000 children in Aleppo.

Republicans drove us into debt with two wars and the Bush tax cuts. Now they want to pay for that debt with cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This is not only immoral it is bad economics. Why do Republicans always have money for war but not for those in need?

I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds of energies in rehabilitation of its poor as long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.

Unfortunately, the greater the humanitarian outreach, the greater the violence required to achieve it.

Are wars... anything but the means whereby a nation's problems are set, where creation is stimulated - there you have adventure. But there is no adventure in heads-or-tails, in betting that the toss will come out of life or death. War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.