Paul Virilio Quotes

Nations want the United States to fight their wars, until they go bad.

The war in Afghanistan, the first war of the twenty-first century, shows the United States doing what it wants to do, not caring about who it antagonizes, not caring about the effects on neighboring regions.

What would be the difference if we retreated and let the French and Germans make decisions for the world? We tried that twice in the last century. Isolationsim, refusing to accept our role in the world, and delaying our response to evildoers ultimately cost fifty-three million lives in World War 2 alone. The preemption policy of the Bush administration, taking the war to the enemy and exporting democracy and freedom, has liberated fifty million.

After going to war against the U.N.'s expressed wishes, the U.S. is now admitting it needs the U.N.'s help. It's the geopolitical equivalent of the 2 a.m. phone call ever parent dreads: 'Mom, I'm not saying I wrecked the car, but I need a ride home.'

America is always fighting. We're the one that wants to go to World War III with Russia over Ukraine. So we're the ones always fighting. We're the ones putting up a lot of the money for NATO disproportionately - a lot.

One hundred years after the entry of American forces into World War I, the transatlantic bond between the United States and Europe is as strong as ever and maybe, in many ways, even stronger.

It's true that the question of Iraq divided Europe.

The war in Iraq has been extremely divisive here at home, and has also divided the world community.

I believe that transatlantic relations are very important and that President Bush's visit to Brussels, in a few days, will have a major impact on that.

War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world's first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions.

As the criminal, sinful war in Iraq enters its third year, the president goes to Europe to heal the wounds between the United States and its former allies, on his own terms of course.

Saddam Hussein played a terrible game of trying to deceive the world that he had weapons of mass destruction. Everyone bought it. The United States called him on his braggadocio, and we are all paying for the results - especially the American taxpayer.

American power in the Middle East is collapsing. It doesn't need much more than a shove, and it will - and that's not going to be a good thing.

We have a substantial number of countries that have pledged and provided all kinds of support for the United States in the event that war becomes necessary in Iraq.

the avowed pretension of the United States, to put themselves at the head of the confederacy of all the Americas, and to sway that confederacy against Europe (Great Britain included), is not a pretension identified with our interests, or one that we can countenance or tolerate. It is, however, a pretension which there is no use in contesting in the abstract; but we must not say anything that seems to admit this principle.

Right now, I have nothing against America, except for the fact that it opposes the Palestinian people, and is destroying Iraq. Apart from this, America and I agree on everything.

The United States is proud of her remoteness from the old world, her freedom from entanglement in its quarrels, her isolation. Yet in her relatively very short history as an independent state she has fought at least six foreign wars while her troops have landed on foreign soil on nearly a hundred occasions. Not one of those wars was for the purpose of defending American soil.

Our inaction created the opportunity for the Russians to reenter the Middle East in a powerful way for the first time since 1973.

The historic quarrels between Japan and Korea pale in importance to the bigger question of extent of U.S. commitment to the defense of the region.

A great country can have no such thing as a little war.

I don't worry about superpower confrontation. You know, I lived through the Cold War days, and where everybody was worried about a Soviet Union armed to the teeth. I think we're going to get along fine with Russia, and I don't see them as internationally ambitious.

President Bush admitted that the United States went to war in Iraq based on bad intelligence. But he says knowing what we know now he would still do it again. So at least we're learning from our mistakes.

I think the war in the Mideast, how we got into it and how we're going to address the current problems, are issues that every American should be concerned about.

We saw the president of the United States engage American troops in a fourth conflict in a foreign land. This is historic.

One cannot discuss Europe without understanding US imperial hegemony, both globally and certainly in Europe as it stands.