Richard Stallman Quotes

I don't think you're going to be seeing the U.S. employing large army divisions to deal with small terrorist groups again. I don't think they're going to be occupying foreign nations in order to dry up terrorist groups within them. I think that lesson has been learned.

We had Iraq contained. They couldn’t hurt their neighbors; they couldn’t hurt us. They would fire at our planes now and then but they never hit anything. They were not involved in 9-11. I advised that a small force could take Iraq, but it would take a huge force to prevent the Sunnies and the Shiites from killing each other….I told that to the Joint Chiefs, but I don’t think they were consulted. The President made the decision.

Air power will not defeat ISIS. It has not been able to deny ISIS freedom of maneuver and the ability to attack at will.

More than a decade and half after 9/11, U.S. military actions in countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and several other Muslim nations are governed by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was passed in the days immediately after 9/11.

Afghanistan would have been difficult enough without Iraq. Iraq made it impossible. The argument that had we just focused on Afghanistan we'd now be okay is persuasive, but it omits the fact that we weren't supposed to get involved in nation-building in Afghanistan.

When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become, as it were, like rolling logs or stones... The energy developed by good fighting men is as the momentum of a round stone rolled down a mountain thousands of feet in height.

Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. To deny that their sacrifice didn't make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think does a great disservice...the progress has been immense.

In response to the escalating violence in Iraq, President Bush is delaying the return home of 25,000 troops and will actually add reinforcements to the south. Then in a symbolic gesture he pulled down the mission accomplished banner, put on a flight suit, walked backwards to a jet fighter and flew it in reverse off an aircraft carrier.

There has been a good deal of comment — some of it quite outlandish — about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post- Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army — hard to imagine.

When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become as it were like unto rolling logs or stones. For it is the nature of a log or stone to remain motionless on level ground, and to move when on a slope; if four-cornered, to come to a standstill, but if round-shaped to go rolling down.

One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.

Not for the first time, he wished he commanded a highly trained bunch of soldiers instead of a ragtag mob of rejects in varying stages of alcoholism.

Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards... Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.

No one is talking about occupying Iraq for five to ten years.

When was the last time the United States won a war? You know, it lost in Vietnam. It's lost in Afghanistan. It's lost in Iraq. And it will not be able to contain the situation. It is hemorrhaging. It is now - you know, of course you can continue with drone attacks, and you can continue these targeted killings, but on the ground, a situation is being created which no army - not America, not anybody - can control. And it's just, you know, a combination of such foolishness, such a lack of understanding of culture in the world.

Thus the skilful general conducts his army just as though he were leading a single man, willy-nilly, by the hand.

If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.

The only way that American troops could have stayed in Iraq is to get an agreement from the then-Iraqi government that would have protected our troops, and the Iraqi government would not give that.

Therefore the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision.

It is unacceptable to risk the lives of American soldiers and sailors merely to accommodate the sexual lifestyles of certain individuals.

If we know that our own men are in a condition to attack, but are unaware that the enemy is not open to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory. If we know that the enemy is open to attack, but are unaware that our own men are not in a condition to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory. If we know that the enemy is open to attack, and also know that our men are in a condition to attack, but are unaware that the nature of the ground makes fighting impracticable, we have still gone only halfway towards victory.

In the occupation in Afghanistan, there are tragedies as well. It's not as bad as in Iraq because there are fewer American troops. But, as I describe in the book, going out on patrol and coming into a village, the soldiers found a stash of documents and decided this was Taliban propaganda.

I tell you Wellington is a bad general, the English are bad soldiers; we will settle this matter by lunch time.

The biggest problem I have with the stupidity of our foreign policy, we have Mosul. They think a lot of the ISIS leaders are in Mosul. So we have announcements coming out of Washington and coming out of Iraq, we will be attacking Mosul in three weeks or four weeks. Well, all of these bad leaders from ISIS are leaving Mosul. Why can't they do it quietly?

With 300 Marines you could probably take over Iraq if you wanted to and get rid of ISIS completely.