Noam Chomsky Quotes

Working with the UN's diplomacy and development arms, we can prevent minor differences from escalating into wars. When conflicts do break out, UN peacekeepers should play a role in defusing and settling them. Without giving up our sovereignty, we can help the UN with better training and better command and control in order to develop more effective peacekeeping forces.

Kofi Annan was the U.N. Under-Secretary General for peacekeeping operations. He had the responsibilities in regards to the mounting and operation of peacekeeping missions around the world.

I think that peacekeeping can do quite a lot, if they are given the right mandate with the commensurate resources to get the job done.

Let's be cautious about dreaming up extreme scenarios. The situation in Iraq is still salvageable.

However, I think, first of all, that what's happening in Sierra Leone is going to have the great influence on those governments who will be asked to provide forces to the Congo. Second, of course, the Security Council has no professional military advice organized in any way.

Each one of these treaties is a step for the maintenance of peace, an additional guarantee against war. It is through such machinery that the disputes between nations will be settled and war prevented.

The U.N.'s impartiality allows it to negotiate and operate in some of the toughest places in the world. And time and again, studies have shown that U.N. peacekeeping is far more effective and done with far less money than what any government can do on its own.

The most important thing that certainly the United States and other Asian and Pacific actors have done is to urge that whatever happens, however the dispute is resolved, that it be resolved peacefully.

We have to develop preventive diplomacy.

When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and conscience of the international community is defied, we will act; with peaceful diplomacy whenever possible, with force when necessary.

We have to deal with it diplomatically if we can, militarily if we must.

The great powers have got to find a way to end this war [the Syrian Revolution] because the refugee problem will not be solved without it.

Who is going to be in charge of security in a divided Jerusalem if it is put under a United Nations mandate? The UN forces that were in Rwanda?

What we have found is that we were the principal mediators in many cases between the Iraqis and their own security forces and their own government, and so you have to almost embrace that role.

The United Nations will spearhead our efforts to manage the new conflicts (that afflict our world)... Yes the principles of the United Nations Charter are worth our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

I thought it was important to speak about what I believe would be the right response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. I'm pleased to hear there is more sanctions maybe coming tomorrow. But the truth of the matter is I think we need less talk and more deeds.

On foreign affairs, we've already begun enormously productive talks with many foreign leaders, much of it you've covered, to move forward toward stability, security and peace in the most troubled regions of the world, which there are many.

The entire world has one goal, and that is the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, we want to achieve that peaceably, but all options are on the table.

I still think the world is better off and safer without Saddam Hussein.

I don't think that the United States has the bulk of the responsibility. I really put that on Bashar Assad and on the Iraqis and on the region itself.

The [George W.] Bush administration tripled its aid package to Afghanistan. [Hamid] Karzai finally (and courageously) announced that warlords will be forbidden from holding office in the future government. And finally, NATO agreed to expand the peacekeeping forces to troubled areas outside of Kabul.

The only reason I send a single young man or woman in uniform anywhere in the world is because I think it's necessary to keep us safe.

We cannot become the world's policeman, but where our values and our interests are at stake, and where we can make a difference, we must act and we must lead. That is our job and we are better, stronger and safer because we are doing it.

These aren't joyous times when we have war in Iraq. These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country. I understand that.

We got an international coalition [against Iran], and we imposed that. It was slow, patient diplomacy, nothing at all particularly headline-worthy. But then you got to the point where the negotiations - which I started and Secretary [John] Kerry completed - I think made the world safer.