Antony Beevor Quotes
In the Iraq war, for instance, so much of the information is digitized and can easily be wiped out. That will make it very hard to write accurate histories. Also, there's a much greater opportunity for suppression of information before it can even be archived.
Beevor, Antony. Interview. The New York Times, 2012.
The “surge” was the short term injection of a large number of American combat troops into Iraq when the Iraq War was going badly. President George W. Bush, who at the urging of Vice President Cheney and the neoconservatives had invaded Iraq and while the invasion went well the administration botched the so-called peace and America was in the midst of a Iraqi civil war. Bush went ahead with the surge despite the advice of the Joint Chiefs. What makes the quotation particularly interesting, beyond the fact that the senior military advice was ignored, was that the President had always campaigned on the principle that the President should listen to the senior American Military officials on military tactics and strategy. He like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and other presidents found that the military leadership perspective was often very narrow and not even militarily infallible. The Iraq War turned in our favor after the surge albeit that there have been arguments since then as to whether or not the surge was the reason or was it due to other factors which occurred at the same time. Probably, all were factors.
The Wars continued over a decade, costing thousands of American (and Coalition) troops their lives, many more their limbs and mental well-being, with a monetary cost of over trillions of dollars, and the achievements have been few and meager.
At the time she was herself in exile in Jordan where she worked with the over 1 million Arab refugees (from both Syria and Iraq) in Jordanian refugee camps. The contrast between the two groups of refugees she found dramatic.
He was a viscious anti-Semite who attracted to his party extreme right wingers, Nazi Sympathers and apologists for the Vichey Franch government. The party was rejected by the majority of French voters, but when his daughter took over the party, she was not an anti Semite but foudn it hard to shake the party's image which was alaysa associated with her name even when she actually kicked her father out of the party.
He had been asked by a reporter if his Marines would be able to take Baghdad in the American invasion of Iraq, 2007. Kelly commanded the Marines charged with taking Baghdad. They did.
Sir Antony James Beevor, FRSL is a British military historian. He has published several popular historical works on the Second World War and other wars during the 20th century.
