George S. Patton Quotes

O’Neil was one of the great ironies of the War on Terror. For years before 9-11 he had determined that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden where major threats to America. However, the then Director of the FBI Louis Freeh had repeatedly told the White House and the national Security Council that they were not a major threat. O’Neil kept insisting that more attention be paid to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and was a very aggressive personality so much that his supervisors drove him out of the FBI. He then took the job of the Director of Security of the World Trade Center where he continued to warn about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. He was killed in the 9-11 attack when his predictions came true. The O’Neil case is yet another example of the people who were the most right in our intelligence apparatus were isolated or pushed out if they tried to command the attention of the nation’s policy makers.

1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor

He was a zealous monarchist who used all means necessary to defend the monarchy of Queen Isabel II.

He controlled a Shiite political party with its own armed militia.

Cunningham was part of an American Diplomatic Delegation negotiating with the Vietnamese. He had been an Naval Ace Fighter Pilot during the Vietnam War. He was notorious for his lack of tact.

The general was expressing a principle that is believed to this day by many policy makers, military people and civilians: Once a war has begun, one must not stop it until victory has been attained. It is unacceptable to negotiate an end to hostilities unless the enemy has been badly beaten on the battlefield. There is this view that “honor” would be lost and that enemies and even allies will not respect you and think the nation is weak and fearful. So there would always be extensive pressure to keep on fighting and not negotiate until there is a military dominant position.

This quotation illustrates degree of hatred that the French had for the English for the hundreds of years of their European superpower rivalry.

During her adult life, she was the de facto ruler of China. Officials then did little or nothing to curb the attacks on the various foreigners and foreign power that occupied and exercised some control over parts of China. The Government itself could do little as it was too weak militarily with many key officials bribed by the foreign powers. The Boxers were a grass roots xenophobic movement devoted to getting the foreign powers out of China by violence.

He was leading the Gordon Highlanders of the British Army against the Boers during the Boer War. He was seriously wounded and could not go on himself with a charge he had ordered, However, waifing his sword he made this famous qutation. Particualrly noteorthy is the derrogatory terms which he used to describe the enemy--the Boers of South Africa. In many wars and cultures, one or more of the combatants, in order to overcome the avarage soldier's reluctance to kill an enemy, characterizes them as less than human. In this case, vermin, who were to be exterminated. There were two predominant groups of whites who came to South Africa, the English who were generally well-educated and were interested in trading with the exhisting inhabitants and investing in businesses using mostly native labot and the Boers. The latter were of Dutch and German origin, poor farmers with little or no land in the home country and little education. Their interest was to create a nation where they could own land to farm. And the lest expensive way for them to increase their farmland was to sieze it from the native Blacks and who were the major forces behind the racial discrimination which became apartheid. The British contolled the government and sought stability and as in most of the British Empire, they wanted English law to prevail including the rights of the Black natives. The Boers had left Europe for good and would thrive or not in Southern Africa. Proportiopnately, the English might have a career in South Africa or serve there for a few years. They were Englishmen in a foreign country. The Boers saw themselves as citizens of Southern Africa who were fighting the native Blacks for control of the land. The English legal system would not allow any of the land seizures and political discrimination that the Boers saw as existential for their survival in Africa. Soon, the Boers took more and more of the law into their own hands and saw English rule and dmination as inimical to their interests in Africa and they tried to create their own independent states in Southern Africa. That was the essense of the Boer Wars. Dick-Cunyngham was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration of Great Britain, for his exploits in the Afghan War.