Richard Holbrooke Quotes

I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.

Grasping the realities of the Middle East is never easy. This is not primarily because they change quickly, but because so much time, effort, and money is spent to prevent reality from breaking through.

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.

Whoever attacks the popular falsehoods of his time will find that a lie defends itself by telling other lies. Nothing is so prolific, nothing can so multiply itself, nothing can lay and hatch as many eggs, as a good, healthy, lie.

No one expects a belligerent to tell the truth.

THIS WILL BE FINAL MESSAGE FROM SAIGON STATION…. IT HAS BEEN A LONG FLIGHT AND WE HAVE LOST…. THOSE WHO FAIL TO LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE FORCED TO REPEAT IT. LET US HOPE THAT WE WILL NOT HAVE ANOTHER VIETNAM EXPERIENCE AND THAT WE HAVE LEARNED A LESSON. SAIGON SIGNING OFF.

How do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists, then believe what they read.

If you start studying history closer, you'll find that most all wars are based on false flag operations to get people - to convince the people that they're under attack in some way so that they will support the wars.

It's part of the general global hypnotism to accept lies as the new truth.

Partial truths or half-truths are often more insidious than total falsehoods.

War is complicated and intense, and it takes time and thoughts to understand what it was.

All War Departments are now Defense Departments. This is all part of the doubletalk of our time. The aggressor is always on the other side.

It has been rumored that we have fired scud missiles into Kuwait. I am here now to tell you, we do not have any scud missiles and I don't know why they were fired into Kuwait.

What you get in the Cold War is 'the wilderness of mirrors' where you have to figure out what's good and what's evil. That's good for John le Carre, but not me.

Attempts to put pressure on Russia and to compel it to abandon its values, truth and justice have no prospects whatsoever.

The first casualty when war comes is truth.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

If truth is the first victim of war, then read on - I've got some great lies for you this month.

I was not able to stop or slow down the Vietnam War.

The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the U.S. and diminished our standing in the world and our national security.

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.

If there's one country that can be trusted to understand the complexity of history, it's Israel.

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

With Vietman, we found ourselves involved there before we really understood what was going on.

World War II was just as dirty and brutal as Vietnam, just as confusing.