Joe Wilson Quotes

I may be wrong in that, but not I think in putting the questions. In our modern democracy the government needs not a unanimous but a general support for war before it orders our forces to fight.

There seems to be a sense in the British media that prime ministers enjoy going to war. They do not. The decision to send British soldiers into battle is the worst and most stomach-churning senior politicians have to take. It makes them wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying if they have done the right thing.

I can tell you this: If I'm ever in a position to call the shots, I'm not going to rush to send somebody else's kids into a war.

I want young people to be hesitant to glorify war and to demand of their leaders justification for the sacrifices they ask of our citizens.

We are at war and, like it or not, that is a fact. It is not Bush's war, and it is not Obama's war. It is our war, and we can't run away from it.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

You know what I had a problem with? The war - the war in Afghanistan.

Among all the upheavals of war with al Qaeda, the surest indicator of the historic stakes is the ongoing rotation of top U.S. government managers - scores at a time - into a bunker deep underground and far from Washington.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.

It is often noted that it can be hard for democracies to fight wars because of changing public opinion.

The most difficult idea to reconcile in war is the notion that anything is going to be solved by killing a stranger, or in risking your life for a cause anchored in some distant political arena.

Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.

War is often about making the least-worst decision. The same could be said about politics. But the stakes are higher in war, when the commander-in-chief is called upon to defend the nation.

The decision to go to war is the most important decision that I can make as a representative in Congress. As a veteran, I see any potential military action first through the eyes of the young men and women who volunteered to wear the uniform and would carry out such a mission.

Woe to the statesman whose reason for entering a war do not appear so plausible at its end as at its beginning.

Uncle Sam’s Latest Greatest Shortest War

It’s very easy to advocate going to war if you’re not one of the people who is going.

I believe in war, if the people want war. They have to do the fighting. I believe, first, in a referendum to the people, and failing that, a decision by the people's representatives in Congress assembled.

We in America should see that no man is ever given, no matter how gradually or how noble and excellent the man, the power to put this country into a war

When the state does go to war ... so too should the nation.

The decision to put American lives at risk is a decision that has a very high hurdle to pass.

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 purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force.

You don't go to war with the President you want, you go to war with the President you have.

I cannot think of any circumstances in which a government can go to war without the support of parliament.