Jonathan Schell Quotes

During the Cold War, America undertook serious military cuts only once: after the election of Richard Nixon, during the Vietnam War. The result: Vietnam fell to the Communists, the Russians moved into Afghanistan, and American influence around the globe waned dramatically.

A generation ago, American war planners made the mistake of believing that short-term Communist sympathies would unite China and Vietnam. We were wrong, and it tragically misshaped our policy in Vietnam.

It's shades of Vietnam again, folks: body counts.

In such a climate, no one who held a position of responsibility in the Manhattan Project could doubt that we were trying to perfect a weapon that, however repugnant to us as human beings, could nonetheless save untold numbers of American lives.

I covered the Vietnam War. I remember the lies that were told, the lives that were lost - and the shock when, twenty years after the war ended, former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara admitted he knew it was a mistake all along.

Great way to fight a war - be prepared to defend yourself for winning.

If Donald Trump dismantles the agreement [the "Iran nuclear deal"] won by President Barack Obama with President Hassan Rouhani and the Iranian government and people: If he dismantles that, and puts greater sanctions on Iran, then we are leading to another war; another war inspired by Israel, another war that will bring China into war, Russia into war, Europe into war. And the Western world, in this war, will be taken completely down, and a whole new world is on the horizon.

And we will win the war, and there will be costs. But the military folks understand that, and so do I, and so does the Secretary of Defense.

I don't object to its being called "McNamara's war." I think it is a very important war and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it.

I think [Bush] would like to hand his father Saddam Hussein's head and win his approval for what happened after the Gulf War.

The idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong.

The U.S. directed the war against South Vietnam. There was a political settlement in 1954. But in the late '50's the United States organized an internal repression in South Vietnam, not using its troops, but using the local apparatus it was constructing. This was a very significant and very effective campaign of violence and terrorism against the Vietminh - which was the communist-led nationalist force that fought the French. And the Vietminh at that time was adhering to the Geneva Accords, hoping that the political settlement would work out in South Vietnam.

To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle and lose the war.

A singular fact about modern war is that it takes charge. Once begun it has to be carried to its conclusion, and carrying it there sets in motion events that may be beyond men's control. Doing what has to be done to win, men perform acts that alter the very soil in which society's roots are nourished.

To win a war is as disasterous as to lose one.

We don't call war hell because it is fought without restraint. It is more nearly right to say that, when certain restraints are passed, the hellishness of war drives us to break with every remaining restraint in order to win. Here is the ultimate tyranny: those who resist aggression are forced to imitate, and perhaps even to exceed, the brutality of the aggressor.

The only time Republicans will shake fists and point fingers is over a war delayed, one that isn't led by the US, or a war waged without the necessary conviction (read collateral damage).

There is no merit in putting off a war for a year if, when it comes, it is far worse or much harder to win.

The men in Vietnam weren't allowed to fight the war with any kind of concern to win by the government. It was like a war of attrition.

Kings play at war unfairly with republics; they can only lose some earth, and some creatures they value as little, while republics lose in every soldier a part of themselves.

President Bush said the other day the war is not about timetables. It's about winning. Hey, it worked in Florida.

Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror, and therefore any advance in Iraq is an advance forward in that.

It is a damned sight easier to start wars than to end them. This truth has been stated for as long and as often as it has been ignored. High time and thank God, we are at least moving toward de-escalation in Vietnam. The road to extrication will be long, painful, bitter. But it must be trod. We are so bogged down in Vietnam that we cannot respond effectively anywhere else in the world to a military power play except through atomic bombardment.

Most of us who were opposed to the war, especially in the early '60's - the war we were opposed to was the war on South Vietnam which destroyed South Vietnam's rural society. The South was devastated. But now anyone who opposed this atrocity is regarded as having defended North Vietnam. And that's part of the effort to present the war as if it were a war between South Vietnam and North Vietnam with the United States helping the South. Of course it's fabrication. But it's "official truth" now.

In a new interview, Secretary of State Colin Powell repeated that the U.S. has no plans to attack Syria or Iran. After hearing this Donald Rumsfeld responded, 'Like he'd know.'