Foreign Conflict Quotes

Declarations of war have never been a constitutional requirement for military action abroad. The United States has used force abroad more than 130 times, but has only declared war five times - the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, and World Wars I and II.

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

No Vietnamese has ever come to make trouble in the United States.

Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.

Nothing in the constitutions of Western states requires them to get involved in every foreign conflict.

The congressional role in declaring war is especially important not when the United States is the victim of an attack, but when the United States is planning to wage war abroad.

Vietnam and Iraq are part of the same national trauma and delusion; we folded the war up when Reagan became president and unpacked it with Bush.

The fact is that Britain is the most warlike nation on earth. In the history of armed combat, we are the only democracy to have declared war on another democracy - England versus Finland in the second world war, in case you're interested - and we're always at the front of the queue when Johnny Foreigner gets a bit uppity. Who stood up to the Kaiser? Who stood up to Adolf? And let's not forget the Argies. What other country would have sent its fleet halfway round the world and lost 250 men to protect a flock of sheep and some oil that might or might not be there? We're still at it.

When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie.

Before we put an American in harm's way, tell us why. No one wants to see the region descend into further chaos. There's a lot of concern about getting embroiled in another Vietnam and ... about sending American troops once again to fight someone else's war.

A fundamental reason why Britain was not torn apart by civil war after 1688 was that its inhabitants' aggression was channelled so regularly and so remorsely into war and imperial expansion abroad.

Iran is a nation with American blood on its hands.

Tonight, savagery in the streets of Iraq. Ten Americans die in a single day, four of them civilians murdered, mutilated and dragged through the streets....What drives American civilians to risk death in Iraq? In this economy it may be, for some, the only job they can find.

The U.S. military cannot fight Iraq's war for them.

Except in case of attack by armed forces … the people shall have the sole power by a national referendum to declare war or to engage in warfare overseas.

John Walker Lindh, a twenty-year-old American studying in Pakistan, was captured in Northern Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban. Experts call it the worst semester abroad program ever.

If I were an Englishman, I should esteem the man who advised a war with China to be the greatest living enemy of my country. You would be beaten in the end, and perhaps a revolution in India would follow.

The annexation of Texas to this union is the blast of the trumpet for a foreign, civil, servile, and Indian war, of which the Government of your country, fallen into faithless hands, have already twice given the signal .… Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity!

The use of U. S. regular armed forces to oppose the efforts of indigenous communist elements within foreign countries must generally be considered as a risky and profitless undertaking, apt to do more harm than good.

I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq.

Angry men with pointy things sent to secure a foreign city are pretty much alike anywhere. That's what I've heard. So far nothing's convinced me different.

What I see as the greatest threat to America is that the American people will put political pressure on their leaders to pull out of Iraq before we should.

Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.

In the 1980s America reacted to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. We supported a war that left a nation torn to pieces. And as the last Soviet tank left the country, so did we.

Again and again, Americans have voted for a president to keep them out of a war, only to see the "peace" candidate elected who then brings the nation into war.