Insurgents Quotes

Imperialism is too expensive an option for the United States---whether it is beneficent imperialism … or selfish imperialism…. Any small group of insurgents can make our efforts too expensive.

Very unusual in an insurgency to have absolutely no political agenda other than to return to power. Most insurgents have a political side to them.

We know that there are various activities important to the insurgents in Iraq that are occurring in Syria.

The insurgent can sow disorder anywhere, whereas the counterinsurgent—fighting on behalf of the government—has to maintain order everywhere.

Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.

Oh, the transition concerns me because as we move towards an important political event, it's clear to me that the terrorists and insurgents will move as hard as they can to disrupt this process.

The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost.

The Pennsylvania line have been for some time much dissatisfied, on Monday last they turned out in number about 1200 declaring they would serve no longer unless their grievances were redressed, as they had not received either Pay, Clothing, or Provisions a Riot had ensued in which an Officer was killed and four wounded The Insurgents had five or six wounded. They collected the Artillery Stores, Wagons, provisions & Marched out of Camp…

When you review the Central American wars or other Latin American wars, you find that there were dictators and there were insurgents.

In any insurgency, the insurgents are in a win-win situation. Even though there is anger towards the insurgents as the result of violence, there is also anger towards the authorities for not protecting people.

Successfully pressuring armed militants to abandon violence and participate in democratic elections requires a favorable political climate. In Northern Ireland and South Africa, armed militants turned away from violence and entered mainstream politics only when the framework of an acceptable political deal was on the table, providing them with a product they could sell to their supporters. The sequence of events was of crucial importance.

That the Iraqi Government is considering a political deal granting amnesty to insurgents who have attacked or killed American service members is not just shocking - the idea of amnesty for insurgents is an outrage.

It is sometimes a very grave question when and how far one nation has a right to assist the subjects of another, who have revolted, and implored that assistance. It is said (a) that assistance may be afforded, consistently with the law of nations, in extreme cases, as when rulers have violated the principles of the social compact, and given just cause to their subjects to consider themselves discharged from their allegiance

[Insurgents] pose no strategic threat to the United States or to the Coalition Forces.

The easy and reliable way of defeating all insurgencies everywhere is to out terrorize the insurgents, so the fear of reprisals outweighs the desire to help the insurgents.

In religion, it is not the sycophants or those who cling most faithfully to the status quo who are ultimately praised. It is the insurgents.

Rebels seldom make good revolutionaries, because organized action, even union with other people, is not possible for them.

Governments and spy agencies, including those of democratic countries, have often enlisted criminals to smuggle weapons to allied insurgents abroad or even to assassinate enemies abroad.

Guerillas are cruel to the weak and cowardly in the face of the brave.

If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners - they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals.

The Taliban are terrible shots. At the end of some long patrols, we'd be walking through the fields and get shot at - and we'd just keep walking.

Undoubtedly, there are members of the former regime that are cooperating in some fashion and then there are extremists that are within Iraq that are cooperating with them.

The seditious Bolivar has occupied Santa Fe, and the fateful result of that battle has placed at his disposition the whole kingdom and the immense resources of a very populated country, rich and abundant from which he will plunder what he needs to continue the war in these provinces because the insurgents have no rules or inhibitions

The rebels did more in one night than my whole army would have done in one month.

When you’re fighting [private] militias, you have to quash them.