Daniel Ellsberg Quotes

The Mubarak regime is adamantly opposed, and resorts to extra-judicial means, such as emergency courts and national security and military courts, which do not observe international standards …. despite the Emergency Law, 89 people were killed and 236 wounded in terrorist attacks in Egypt during the previous 12 months. In neighboring Israel, which is still in the midst of a struggle with the Palestinians, only 18 were killed and 25 wounded in similar attacks during the same period. Yet Israelis do not live under an Emergency Law.

Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror.

I consider Bush's decision to call for a war against terrorism a serious mistake. He is elevating these criminals to the status of war enemies, and one cannot lead a war against a network if the term war is to retain any definite meaning.

Can any of us even imagine, after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt suggesting we negotiate a resolution or that we could simply prosecute those involved? Of course it is unimaginable. We are right to be in the Middle East, and we are right to treat this as the war it is.

In July of 2004, I came out strongly against the war with Iraq because it was going to destabilize the Middle East.

This has been the new normal since September 11. Everyone knows, but nobody says, that if something happens again, the elite consensus in this country, and the overwhelming consensus of the citizenry, will be to pitch the Bill of Rights out the window and start rounding folks up.

The war in Iraq, the abuse of detainees, electronic eavesdropping, Guantanamo Bay - these things were all done on our behalf and they may turn out in the end to have created more terrorists.

I think the War on Terror is really absurd, especially coming from a country that is founded on terrorism.

There isn’t any doubt that in fighting the War on Terrorism you increase the power and scope of government, and it becomes more intrusive.

No one will question that this power [the war power] is the most dangerous one to free government in the whole catalogue of powers.

… the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Terrorists can endanger some of us, but the war on terror endangers us all. How much more can the Constitution be diminished before it is completely replaced by arbitrary government power?

We know we must win the war on terror to protect innocent people and the freedoms that define our way of life.

I cannot think of any circumstances in which a government can go to war without the support of parliament.

When terrorists blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon, Reagan was frustrated and furious, as Bush was after 9/11. But he didn't stick us in a war in the Middle East with no exit.

Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did. I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have. We've blunted the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014, our longest war will be over. A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead.

The war on terror, I believe, will be waged by effective intelligence and police work and cruise missiles.

So a truthful assessment of how America is doing in the war on terror as a result of President Bush's war on Iraq is that we have been set back by decades.

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.

Today, we are now deciding how do we treat those who are choosing to carry out a war against us, non-U.S. citizens who are choosing to take us to task for what we believe and who we are. In this conflict, we have to decide how we are going to try to find these terrorists.

I think the War on Terror has succeeded in creating more terror, more terrorists, a less safe America, and a less safe world.

The worst thing for an effective war on terror is the suspicion of states about the objectives.

It is all too evident that our nation, and the governments of other countries, require all the help they can get in order to fight the War on Terrorism against people who have no qualms about taking the lives of innocent men, women, and children.

The War on Terror is one of the most critical national security efforts in our history.

Since January 2002, when the United States began detaining at Guantanamo Bay enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other fronts in the war on terror, critics have complained of human rights abuses.