Richard Nixon Quotes

During the American Revolution, the Iroquois sided with the British, aiding them militarily and other ways. The revolutionaries responded by attacking and destroying most of the Iroquois who retreated to British Canada.

The threat was if Pakistan did not cooperate with the United States after the September 11 attack. Pakistan was full of Islamic fundamentalists with strong ties to the Taliban and other terroristsw. Pakistan did cooperate as a government but the Musharraf government itself was under attack by the Islamic Fundamentalists who tried to assassinate Musharraf a number of times. Armitage has denied that he said such a thing, but he does admit a conversation where he told them that “they were with us or against us.”

14 Arab Armies in a coordinated attack on the 1 day old Israeli state, intended to massacre all the Israelis as demonstrated by this quote. Note that this kind of extermnination intent was advertised with pride. To everyone's surprised, the Jewish defenders not only beat back the viscious attacks but enlssarged their terroitory by capturing strategic sites from which the attacks had been launched. Many people credit to the Israely victory to the fact that they were litterally fighting for their lives. Defeat would have meant death for them and their families. The Arab armies, in contrast, were fighting for land that other Arabs claimed that should have been theirs. The willingness to stand and fight for this goal did not match the self preservation that motivated the Israelis--especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust killing 6 million Jews in WWII.

There are some who argue that the quotation was made earlier and was not meant as an incendary call for massacre of Israelis. It well may be that in his original thinking, he was predicting what would happen if the State of Israel was created, basing his thoughts on historical artrocieties of the past. And many think he was concerned about that possible outcome and was trying to avoid it. The import of the quotation was not necessaruly to hisltorically blame Assam for the point of view but to simply establish that there were many Arab voices calling for victories of history where there were massacres in the Middle East. And there were those who took Azzam's quotation and broadcasted it on Arab radio, calling for the very massacre that Assam may have been warning about. Note that this notion of Jewish massacre and extermination was also picked up 60 years later and called for by the President of Iran.

The President was also getting ominous news from England. See {41111}

There was much political Japanese opposition to attacking the United States. Most military judgments were that Japan could not win such a war. The militarist hawks in the Japanese leadership argued that while Japan might not be able to defeat the U. S., Japan could not be defeated in the Pacific. And the U. S. would not spend the money to rebuild their navy of the Japanese could destroy most of the capital ships with surprise attack. Therefore starting a war might provide the opportunity to negotiate for more favorable terms and less pressure, boycotting, and castigation of Japan by the United States and they could come out with control of a number of lands of the Pacific. However, the Naval Chief of Staff told the Emperor that war ight be inevitable as America or Great Britain might attack one of the Japanese held territories and force Japan into war. Later, the Japanese conservatives and Militarist hawks, were able to purge opponents of war from the Cabinet, and when they had control of the government, convinced the Emperor to flip flop, and started WWII with the Attack on Pearl Harbor.