Wesley Clark Quotes

War is the science of destruction.

Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know, what did Iraq do to us?

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.

If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

War - An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.

Sometimes there is no substitute for military action.

Wars: You know how you start, but you never know how you end.

Are we going to start a war, the end of which we cannot see?

Haven’t we learned that when you go to war, the outcome is unpredictable.

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I've been to war, and I know the consequences and sacrifice it takes. If we must fight, we fight to win.

The period of debate is closed. Arms, as a last resource, must decide the contest.

The firing on that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen…you will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountains to ocean. Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal.

If we have to go to war, we will.

War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit.

A serious pacifist approach can't win wars against enemies whose only program is violence. That doesn't mean I think the US has fought terrorists so wisely most of the time since 9/11. But there are some enemies that need to be destroyed by force lest they destroy much much more.

War should always be the absolute last resort.

War knows no law except that of might.

If we are willing to act violently in pursuit of a peripheral interest, everyone can be certain that, when a vital interest is at stake, we will be still more violent. 'Credibility' is defined as the willingness to kill a lot of people now for a not very good cause to assure the world that we'll kill a lot more people if we can find a better one.

It is always easy to begin a war, but very difficult to stop one.

You must come into the war if you are to survive.