Wilhelm II, German Emperor Quotes

The preemptive use of force has always been part of international law.

War itself is justifiable only on principles of self-preservation:

We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.

Could this country stand by and watch the [most] direct crime that ever stained the face of history, and thus become participators in the sin.

If there is no direct threat why are we invading?

The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.

… it was not necessary to make any definition of "aggressor" or "self-defense." I do not think it can be done, anyway, accurately. They have been trying to do it in Europe for six or eight years, and they never have been able to accurately define " aggressor " or " self-defense.

War, except in self-defense, is a failure of moral imagination.

Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl Harbor that led to our prompt, official declaration of war, while they characterize as unwise wars of choice the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq.

The only defensible war is a war of defense.

When one nation is agreed in the policy of fighting another, any pretext will answer.

The Senate is rushing to vote on whether to declare war on Iraq without pausing to ask why. Why is war being dealt with not as a last resort but as a first resort?

The conduct of Germany is almost unexampled in human history. The terrible responsibility which lies at her doors can be seen in the fact that not less than seven million dead lie buried in Europe, while more than twenty million others carry upon them the evidence of wounds and sufferings, because Germany saw fit to gratify her lust for tyranny by resort to war.

Pre-emptive war might fall within the framework of international law.

I think the whole policy of pre-emptive war is a serious, serious mistake.

You just don't, in the 21st century, behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text.

No right can come by conquest, unless there were a right of making that conquest.

The utterly fallacious idea at the heart of the pro-war argument is that it is the duty of the anti-war argument to provide an alternative to war. The onus is on them to explain just cause.

No one has the right to ignite a war and lead an occupation and armies to conquer people, invading them and make them suffer all kinds of torture, murder, expulsion, displacement, bombing and terrorism by different lethal prohibited weapons and then come and speak as the savior of the people or a defender of their rights.

Unless a nation's life faces peril, war is murder.

War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it.

Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.

The Liberals have been pressing for the brief on the basis of which he said there was authority for war.

What I've learned, and will try to remember from now on, is that defending your country's credibility is never sufficient reason to fight a war.

I feel like war should occur only for the most vital and necessary reasons, and only then.