Douglas Hurd Quotes

When a government goes to war, particularly a democracy, it is the most solemn and awesome responsibility of our leaders - to decide to send our kids to go off and kill and die for us.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.

I believe in war, if the people want war. They have to do the fighting. I believe, first, in a referendum to the people, and failing that, a decision by the people's representatives in Congress assembled.

I do not believe, given her past decisions and comments on the reasons to go to war in Iraq, that Dr. Rice will be able to represent the United States without a predetermined bias from the war.

I believe the military should be wary of diplomacy until war is declared; then the State Department should keep its nose out and let the military do whatever is necessary to win.

If your government had given me a thousandth of the sum it spent to depose me, I could have won that war.

Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.

I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptor. Most of my colleagues could not.

When people don't understand that the government doesn't have their interests in mind, they're more susceptible to go to war.

The decision to go to war is the most important decision that I can make as a representative in Congress. As a veteran, I see any potential military action first through the eyes of the young men and women who volunteered to wear the uniform and would carry out such a mission.

But do I think that our actions in anyway violate the War Powers Resolution, the answer is no.

There are two things that will always be difficult for a democratic people to do: to start a war and to finish it

Uncle Sam’s Latest Greatest Shortest War

War and democracy have never been happy bedfellows…. War has always threatened democracy.

If this phrase of “the balance of power” is to be always an argument for war, the pretext for war will never be wanting …

The military people don't like it; the government probably doesn't like it, but the people should know what they're sending their young people into when they permit their governments to declare war and engage in war.

This war is being played in the realm of public opinion and has dire consequences for our soldiers in Iraq, the future of our country, and freedom around the world.

Lightly armed nations can move toward war just as easily as those which are armed to the teeth, and they will do so if the usual causes of war are not removed.

The mobilisation which Bush has been able to perform since 11 September 2001 has to be fought - at least by Americans - in the name of a wise, honourable and democratic patriotism.

There seems to be a sense in the British media that prime ministers enjoy going to war. They do not. The decision to send British soldiers into battle is the worst and most stomach-churning senior politicians have to take. It makes them wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying if they have done the right thing.

The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.

We wanted this war and now we've got it, and I'm not sure that we know what to do with it.

War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world's first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions.

By Rice's own standards, the war was well underway by the time he took office. He was a war president the moment he took the oath. But did he act like one?

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.