George F. Kennan Quotes
The use of U. S. regular armed forces to oppose the efforts of indigenous communist elements within foreign countries must generally be considered as a risky and profitless undertaking, apt to do more harm than good.
George F. Kennan, 1904-2005, Historian & U.S. Ambassador to Russia and Yugoslavia, National Security Council Memorandum
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Indeed, many of the countries went communist as Kennan predicted.
See {633152} for more of the reasoning for this point. “Neocon” is a shortened form of “neoconservative”. At the time the neoconservatives were advocating use of military intervention in the Middle East. Munich was the German city in which British Prime Minister notoriously tried to appease Hitler and the Nazis. This led to WWII and has become the historical icon for appeasement of a powerful tyrant and the cost of such.
The Russians, who had invaded Afghanistan successfully, then proceeded to lose Afghanistan.
This quotation illustrates the derogatory and disrespectful attitude that many high level American officials then had towards Arab leaders. No one objected to or reprimanded Symmes for his use of the word “mongrels”. And he was the State Departments leading expert on the Middle East and Arab Cultures. In the photo, Symmes is the gentlemen on the right.
George Frost Kennan was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly histories of the relations between the USSR and the United States. He was also one of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men".
