David Hackworth Quotes

Since September 11 2001, editors in America have faced some excruciating choices, as the attempt to wage a war against a new kind of enemy sometimes strained the boundaries of our laws and values.

What would this country be like without the press prying to find out what the government is doing?

Democracies die in darkness.... I don't realluy think that President Trump really believes that the press is the "enemy of the people"

When I watch Dan Rather explaining how America is going to be attacking, where we're going to attack, what routes we're taking, what kind of planes we're using, how to stop them, how to stop us, it is a little bit disconcerting. I've never seen this, where newscasters are telling the enemy how we're going about it, we have just found out this and that. It is ridiculous.

No one ever said that fighting the war against terrorism and defending our homeland would be easy. So let's support our troops, law enforcement workers, and our mission to keep our nation and our children safe in the days and years to come.

Without the media, the American people won't have the type of information they need to hold their leaders to account. The relationship between government and media has always been strained, and I think most of the time that's a healthy strain.

I believe the war on terror is the vital discussion of this decade and of our generation, probably. To win the war on terror, you need a good offense and a good defense. On defense, I regret to say, basically, this administration has not come close to doing what is necessary.

Which suggests something about media and war: it's not just that events happen and the media documents and presents them. There is a third element: what the public is ready to accept, what the public wants to know.

After the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Obama administration steadfastly refused to say which element of the U.S. military had participated in the assault. Until Vice President Joe Biden decided to talk about it on national television, that is.

It was essentially for self defence that we went to war in Afghanistan and would go to war in Iraq.

One of the essential elements of government responsibility is to communicate effectively to the American people, especially in time of a potential terrorist attack or a natural disaster.

Well, we've faced very difficult decisions and challenges in our country, every one of us have, as we - since September 11th, as we fought the war on terror, all of those decisions that the President had to make to put young men and women in harm's way.

One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies.

We can fight the War on Terrorism in other places around the world or we can fight it here in America. The right choice is to fight those terrorists where they are.

I respect the press. The press and the media are a very useful watchdog to check the power of the government.

The people have a right to know—no, a duty to know—what the army is doing in our name.

The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

In order to have defense here at home, we have to have offense in Iraq and Iran.

Freedom of the press, printing, publication and mass media shall be guaranteed. Censorship on newspapers is forbidden as well as notifying, suspending or cancelling them by administrative methods. In a state of emergency or in time of war a limited censorship may be imposed on the newspapers, publications and mass media in matters related to public safety or purposes of national security in accordance with the law.

It may seem obvious. A government that cannot provide security for its citizens will soon find itself running a weak or failed state.

There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe. I don't subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially … a rough draft of history. Some days it's reassuring, some days it's absolutely destructive.

A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves.

The political system must listen to the military.

The military people don't like it; the government probably doesn't like it, but the people should know what they're sending their young people into when they permit their governments to declare war and engage in war.

The one thing that our nation is truly responsible for is securing the nation, make sure the citizens are safe.