Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
The mercenaries devoted all their professional skill to eliminating hardship and anxiety for themselves and their own troops; they did not kill one another in battle, but rather took each other prisoner.
He was describing the Battle of Zagonara in 1424 and Molinella in 1427. Although major battles of the time the only casualties in the later were horses, and in the former, three armored men fell off their horses into the mud and drowned. Battle was almost like a capture the flag game with uniforms and weapons displayed.
Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527, Florentine statesman and political philosopher, The Prince, 1513
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Israel's Arab enemies do not simply want to control the territory and/or the economic resources. Their aim, overtly stated thousands of times since the formation of Israel, is to "drive the Jews into the sea", murder the population, obtain revenge for their percieved humiliation that "foreigners" to the region and their religion could build a society so far advanced compared to Arabs on the harsh land abd without any of the oil riches that some of the Arab states had. Israel has won all the wars that the Arabs have initiated, and never murdered the population, and provide the "occupied territiries" with better medicine and infrastructure than the Arabs achieve on their own.
Very few societies ever had the wealth accumulated so that they could afford prolonged military operations. In addition, long, prolonged conflicts erode morale, both civilian and military. The Afghanistan War that went on for over a decade caused both and put a great strain on the U. S. national budget.
1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. Though members of the same Conservative Party, Churchill was a major opponent of Baldwin’s peace and “appeasement” efforts and publicly castigated Prime Minister Baldwin. Yet Baldwin, if he could not stave off war, wanted his critic to serve as Prime Minister if war was inevitable. Churchill never had much respect for Baldwin. See {626930}.
The Senator was criticizing President George W. Bush, who made a show of flying onto an aircraft carrier in combat uniform and then announcing the end of the Iraq war with banners flying saying “Mission Accomplished.” His announcement and publicity stunt was very premature as American military casualties continued thereafter.
For various historical reasons the United States and Iran at that time had no diplomatic relations and there was no easy way for the countries to negotiate their differences. The United States public policy was that Iran would not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon which was backed up by severe economic sanctions and the threat of military force. Kucinich wanted face to face negotiations and discussions before we resorted to military action.
Later, when he ran for the Democratic Presidential Nomination had had changed his mind and was a major opponent of the Vietnam War. This was the pattern of so many Americans whose first instinct was to support the government’s decision to wage war, and over time grew disenchanted with the war and ended up opposing the war actively.
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian Renaissance diplomat, philosopher and writer, best known for The Prince (Il Principe), written in 1513. He has often been called the father of modern political philosophy and political science.
