A Quote by Howard Zinn

Terrorism and war have something in common. They both involve the killing of innocent people to achieve what the killers believe is a good end.

Howard Zinn

Quote Topics

Achieve Believe Both Common End Good Innocent Innocent People Involve Killers Killing People Something Terrorism War

Quote Author

Howard Zinn
American - Historian
August 24, 1922 - January 27, 2010

Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.

Noam Chomsky

I don't believe in a perfect world. I don't believe it's achievable, and I believe the people who try to achieve it usually end up turning it into something like Cambodia or something very similar because purity tests set in. Are you ideologically pure enough to be allowed to live? Well, it turns out that very few people are, so you end up with a big powerful struggle and a mass killing scene.

Margaret Atwood

The one thing in my films, I only kill people who need to be killed, or killers killing killers. And I believe that the violence is very justifiable.

Sylvester Stallone

The war in Iraq, specifically America's role of leadership in this war, is a painful invitation to ask ourselves what, if anything, we've learned from previous wars. I am revolted by the brutal killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people during any war. And I'm saddened by the apparent inability of human beings to find less violent solutions to conflict and terrorism.

Wayne Dyer

It's a nonsense assumption that you can get rid of terrorism with war. Terrorism is taking the lives of innocent people to gain your objective. War is basically the same thing on a larger scale.

Gene Sharp

Beyond the futility of armed force, and ultimately more important, is the fact that war in our time inevitably results in the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of people. To put it more bluntly, war is terrorism. That is why a 'war on terrorism' is a contradiction in terms.

Howard Zinn

We're not going to cure terrorism and spread peace and goodwill in the Middle East by killing innocent people, or I'm not even saying our bullets and bombs are killing them. The occupation that they don't have food. They don't have clean water. They don't have electricity. They don't have medicine. They don't have doctors.

Cindy Sheehan

It's not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it's not going to help. Then you might say, "Yes, it's terrorizing people, but it's worth doing because it will end terrorism." But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?

Howard Zinn

The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong - and no argument or excuse, no matter how deeply believed, can ever make it right. No religion on earth condones the killing of innocent people; no faith tradition tolerates the random killing of our brothers and sisters on this earth.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

There is no possible negotiation with these killers. Our aim is to win over terrorism. Only by being firm we can stop terrorism. We must be firm fighting the terrorists and opposing the final aims they want to achieve.

Jose Maria Aznar

Perhaps this war will pass like the others which divided us leaving us dead, killing us along with the killers but the shame of this time puts its burning fingers to our faces. Who will erase the ruthlessness hidden in innocent blood?

Pablo Neruda

I've made it clear, Madam President, that the war against terrorism is not a war against Muslims, nor is it a war against Arabs. It's a war against evil people who conduct crimes against innocent people.

George W. Bush

In these surreal days, there is one truth. Nothing justified the killing of innocent people in America last week and nothing justifies the killing of innocent people anywhere else.

John Pilger

I have learned from first hand experience that war is the destroyer of everything that is good in the world, it turns our young into soulless killers and we tell them that they are heroes when they master the 'art' of killing.

Kevin Benderman

Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families. GEORGE HENRY LEWES, The Physiology of Common Life Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe.