Arab Proverb Quotes
If you are to strike, then make it painful, because you'll get the same blame either way.
Arab Proverb
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
See Robert Southey for the later version 400 years later which is more familiar to us.
The nation was in the midst of a major steel strike and the President felt that the steel companies had reneged on their promises:
While the idea is not new with Cianci, the particularly colorful expression has yet to be rivaled.
The Minister equates the unintended consequences of war and civilian casualties with a terrorist retaliation which has as its purpose the killing of as many civilians as possible. The proliferation of terrorism complicated the ethics of counter terrorism. In the case of Palestinian terrorists their tactics included using civilian facilities---schools, hospitals, homes---from which to launch rocket attacks or to store weapons or hide terrorists. Under international laws of war, a civilian facility and the civilians in it become legitimate military targets the minute that weapons are stored in or fired from that location or that location is used for planning, training, equipping or manufacturing of military material. Palestinian terrorists claim that even though civilians were harmed in legitimate, legal attacks on military targets, a proper response is to send suicide bombers into civilian areas and preparing the explosives with nails and rat poison to cause as much pain as possible.
In modern politics, knowledge of the wisdom of this proverb, tries to spin situations, and intimidate others from overt criticism. When a President is attacked by many, it encourages even more attacks.
