Noam Chomsky Quotes

Throughout history states have also used force to reform, restructure, or rebuild the domestic institutions of other countries

Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.

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

Is military occupation likely to be the midwife of democracy?

This notion that we're going to prop up foreign governments, that we're going to invade other countries for some kind of perceived benefit where we're going to install somebody who's going to be supportive of American interests or American corporate private interests needs to stop.

If there is no direct threat why are we invading?

Iraq is a country that has been invaded. It's not a failing state that you want to help. It's a country that was functioning good or bad, with a horrible dictator, but you have invaded.

The Iraqi war has transformed the Middle East.

... even political opponents of evil governments show little gratitude for American invasion to modernize them..

Anybody who believes that we can democratize Iran, Iraq and Syria by military force is living in a fantasy world.

Washington seems to think that they will be welcomed with open arms in Iraq, but that they shouldn’t count on it. It is foolish to think of creating a modern democracy in an artificial country with a divided society like Iraq. Do you realize that, by invading Iraq, they might yet precipitate a civil war.

The mistakes of the Iraq war are not only tactical and strategic, but historical. It is essentially a war of colonialism, attempted in the post-colonial age.

Countries such as the U.S. and Britain have taken it upon themselves to decide for us in the developing world, even to interfere in our domestic affairs and to bring about what they call regime change.

But, if you believe we should go around the world overturning regimes to make little United States, I don't agree with that, because I don't think we're capable of doing that.

The U.S. and Britain are incapable of controlling all of Iraq.

The situation in Iraq will be long, it will be expensive and it will be difficult. But in the end, Iraq will very much be worth it.

It was not in our interest to enter Iraq in the first place.

The United States is not for democracy in Iraq, it's for setting up a puppet government.

We go in to liberate Cuba, but Cuba still isn't free; we don't really think through what we'll do after the initial treaty is signed, but we're still occupying. There's chaos and torture and finally an outcry.

We can't stay in Afghanistan forever.

Some have called Afghanistan 'the graveyard of empires,' and it probably is the graveyard of empires.

I also argued before the war that the administration was underestimating Arab nationalism and Iraqi nationalism, that it was not going to be as easy to rule Iraq as they thought.

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

What would happen if we withdrew? Anarchy and confusion.

The U.S. military will be stepping into a morass. Iraq presents as unpromising a breeding ground for democracy as any in the world. It has never really known democracy or even legitimate, centralized rule for any great duration.