Civilian Government Quotes

Well my briefing was that Honduras was a small and vulnerable country just back on the path towards democracy it was about to have just before I arrived, the first elections for a civilian president in more than 9 years.

Military rule in Indonesia formally ended in 1998, but the army remains above the law.

The military in all these struggling democracies is an important player. They can take over the leadership or determine the leadership.

For a country that cherishes civilian democracy, we have a surprising affinity for strong men in uniform.

In Turkey also, for a long time, the military was the decisive force but in the past 10 years they have backed off somewhat and the civilian government has gained more independence and autonomy even to shake up the military command. In fact, it even arrested several high-ranking officers [for interfering in governmental affairs]. Maybe Pakistan can move in a similar direction.

After the death of the sadistic dictator Gen. Sanni Abacha in 1998, Nigeria underwent a one-year transitional military administration headed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who uncharacteristically bowed out precisely on the promised date for military disengagement. Did the military truly disengage, however? No.

We have been under military rule since 1952, when a group of army officers overthrew Egypt's monarchy and ended Britain's occupation of the country. But that only replaced an external occupation with an internal one, in which favored sons of the armed forces replaced their uniforms with suits, a move meant to create a semblance of civilian rule.

The Constitutional Convention debated whether America should even have a standing army. ... They worried that a powerful military could rival civilian government for power in our new country, and of course they worried that having a standing army around would create too much of a temptation to use it.

It is of first importance that the military be subordinate to civilian government

All civilian politicians in Pakistan are puppets of the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), military, and the Taliban.

You don't help a country by supporting a military regime that denies any sign of democracy, and what defeated Pakistan was its military regime.

Mubarak came to power as a hero who fought bravely in Egypt's wars and headed the nation's air force.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Latin America moved decisively away from military rule and toward civilian democracy.

The military belongs in its barracks, not our ballot boxes.

My mission is to lead the country out of a bad situation of corruption, depression and slavery. After I rid the country of these vices, I will then organize and supervise a general election of a genuinely democratic civilian government.