Andrew J. Bacevich Quotes

We're not going to spread democracy at the business end of a M16 held by a 23 year old Marine.

The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.

The invasion of Iraq will surely go down in history as one of the most cowardly wars ever fought. It was a war in which a band of rich nations, armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, rounded on a poor nation, falsely accused it of having nuclear weapons, used the United Nations to force it to disarm, then invaded it, occupied it, and are now in the process of selling it.

The government has decided that the same force would be employed in America as if the inhabitants were French or Spanish enemies

The war in Iraq was unwinnable.

Americans ... have wrought a country that has after more than two centuries yet to evidence a single year during which it was not making war upon someone, somewhere, for some reason.

I supported the Iraq resolution, but that was not an approval of war in Iraq and certainly was not approval for an occupation of Iraq.

No one has the right to ignite a war and lead an occupation and armies to conquer people, invading them and make them suffer all kinds of torture, murder, expulsion, displacement, bombing and terrorism by different lethal prohibited weapons and then come and speak as the savior of the people or a defender of their rights.

The ambiguous orientation of Japan drove the country into the position of an invader in Asia.

By linking these countries together in his 'axis of evil' speech, President Bush implied an identity between them not only in terms of their threat, but also in terms of the action necessary to deal with the threat. A lot of work will now need to be done to delink the three, and to show why military action against Iraq is so much more justified than against Iran and North Korea.

You can’t undo a thousand years of history by sending military troops into a country.

We say we are in Mesopotamia to develop it for the benefit of the world… How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on the behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administration?

You help us pay for the war we’ll fight; we’ll launch it while you’re asleep at night. We don’t need friends all around the world; We’ll buy our friends with our flag unfurled, And spread our arms on a global scale To show the world that we still prevail. Oh, we’re not leaders inspiring peace, But we’re in power as the world’s police. So pay your tax for our little war, And we’ll not ask for any more. This year!

If you go into a country, then you’re going to have to do something about it, and that is hard–harder than invading.

We have to go in and win this war quickly, and then be prepared to help stabilize Iraq over an indefinite period, five to ten years, at a minimum, I believe, using a large fraction of American forces. This is a major undertaking that likely would require a total of 150,000 troops and could stay above 100,000 for several years

I regret that on my arrival in Mesopotamia I was too much occupied with military matters, and too ill-informed regarding the political problem….[We had] a scratch and somewhat incongruous team of administrators with the majority possessing little exact knowledge of the people they were called upon to monitor

I will assemble a mighty host, and, invading the country of the great Ming, I will fill with the hoar frost from my sword the whole sky over the four hundred provinces

The next time some neocon, demanding whatever military intervention neocons are demanding that day, invokes Hitler or Munich or appeasement, lock up your silver.

We cannot lose Afghanistan

Every Army of liberation has a half-life beyond which it turns into an Army of occupation.

The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government

In 2001, we were told that the war in Afghanistan was a feminist mission. The marines were liberating Afghan women from the Taliban. Can you really bomb feminism into a country? And now, after 25 years of brutal war - 10 years against the Soviet occupation, 15 years of US occupation - the Taliban is riding back to Kabul and will soon be back to doing business with the United States.

People say the war in Iraq is a bad war, and the war in Afghanistan is a good war, but what's the difference between them? Democratic people around the world cannot accept that this is a good war. This is just endless war.

We have forgotten that Vietnam, and Iraq resent being invaded and know the ground better than we do.

My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . [in] weeks rather than months.