Helen Thomas Quotes

We're not going to spread democracy at the business end of a M16 held by a 23 year old Marine.

Our country is being bled daily in an effort to create a democracy in a place where it never existed.

Anybody who believes that we can democratize Iran, Iraq and Syria by military force is living in a fantasy world.

Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.

You cannot impose democracy by force of arms.

Is military occupation likely to be the midwife of democracy?

If my goal were to spread democracy, Iraq would be the last country that I would use as a demonstration.

It is time to realize that neither socialism, nor friendship, nor good-neighborliness, nor respect can be produced by bayonets, tanks or blood

Preemption, democracy promoting and nation building have all been sullied by association by association with the War in Iraq.

Military intervention is never the answer.

Let's be clear: Neither Secretary Powell or I opposed the notion of removing Saddam Hussein by force, but we wanted to avoid the war if we could. But if we couldn't, the notion of removing Saddam Hussein from the scene seemed eminently sensible, given that you had, what, 16 or so U.N. Security Council resolutions basically saying the same thing.

Democracies are poor breeding grounds for terrorism and war.

I'm really interested in how conflicts arise and how they reach points of no return. I'm no pacifist. Sometimes force is necessary. But war is a choice.

The U.S. cannot impose freedom, security, and unity in Iraq by force.

A central claim of the Bush administration's foreign policy is that the spread of democracy in the Middle East is the cure for terrorism.

... even political opponents of evil governments show little gratitude for American invasion to modernize them..

I don't think it's the job of the United States to build democracies from whole cloth. That's Wilsonianism to me of the most crazy kind.

There is nothing democratic about war. It’s a straight dictatorship. The use of force to attain an end desired. We the armed forces of the USA have put a government in the position to dictate the peace. We did not come over here to acquire jurisdiction over either the people or their countries. We came to give them back the right to govern themselves.

All of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force.

Democracies do not commit aggression.

Be prudent in your use of military force to achieve any laudable objective.

It is overly optimistic to think that we can take a country that has emerged from under a totalitarian regime with its institutions of civil society and create a beacon of democracy within five years. If we try to transform Iraq into a democracy, we will need more and more troops over time because we will have to quell nationalistic revolts.

Military force is not the first option, but it is there if needed.

There appears to be almost no way in which the deployment of military force ... could be brought rationally to bear upon the decision of any of the political, economic, emotional or philosophical issues by which men still remain divided.

The next time some neocon, demanding whatever military intervention neocons are demanding that day, invokes Hitler or Munich or appeasement, lock up your silver.