A Quote by Robert A. Heinlein
"Peace" is a condition in which no civilian pays any attention to military casualties which do not achieve page-one, lead-story prominence-unless that civilian is a close relative of one of the casualties. But, if there ever was a time in history when "peace" meant that there was no fighting going on, I have been unable to find out about it.
Related Quotes
But, if there ever was a time in history when "peace" meant that there was no fighting going on, I have been unable to find out about it.
I don't know of any army that does more than an Israeli army does to avoid civilian casualties. But incidental and unintended casualties accompany every war.
I wanted people who wouldn't become too worried about casualties. One always should be concerned about casualties, but the risk of incurring casualties can't be allowed to affect decisions, unless it's evident casualties will be prohibitively heavy. There may be no safe way to write this.
When we talk about carpet bombing ISIL, that's what it looks like, creating huge numbers of civilian casualties, which increases the numbers of refugees flowing out of the region, which increases the misery of the Syrian people.
I'm saying this as a Republican: In the White House, the effort that goes in and wherever these decisions are made, as to limit civilian casualties, is more probably than any in the history of the world, especially when you consider the history of warfare.
WikiLeaks exposed corruption, war crimes, torture and cover-ups. It showed that we were lied to about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; that the U.S. military had deliberately hidden information about systematic torture and civilian casualties, which were much higher than reported.
We do everything humanly possible, consistent with military necessity, taking many chances to avoid civilian casualties, at all costs.
What is and isn't justified by military necessity is, naturally, open to interpretation. One of the key concepts, though, is the law of proportionality. A military attack that results in civilian casualties - 'collateral damage' - is acceptable as long as the military benefits outweigh the price that is paid by humanity.
Throughout history civilian populations and political rulers have talked of peace. We have never been free of war. The soldier, whose profession is war, understands that peace must be enforced by superior military might. The certainty of defeat is the only effective deterrent we can use to maintain peace. Furthermore, we can be strong without being aggressive.
I refused to adopt civilian way of life and slowly influenced my civilian surroundings to do things the military way. My civilian career as an entrepreneur and founder of a defense contracting company has been an extension of my military service.
I try to express with the camera what the story is, to get to the heart of the story with picture. In battle I look at things first in terms of people, second in terms of strategies or casualties... To tell a story, you don't photograph one hundred dead civilians to prove there were one hundred dead civilians. You photograph one dead civilian with an expression on his face that says, This is what it's like if you're a dead civilian in Vietnam.
As in any war, there have been dreadful mistakes and civilian casualties. The difference is when Israelis kill innocents they apologize; when Hezbollah kills innocents they celebrate.
Our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.
The history of warfare has not yet enabled any army, any civilized army, the army of a democracy like Israel, to be able to deal with a ruthless terrorist enemy that uses civilians as a human shield without having some incidental civilian casualties.
Unfortunately, in war, there are casualties, including among the civilian population.
The misunderstandings - or, what really bothers me are the intentional misrepresentations of the facts, which take place on a fairly regular basis. To think that we, people who are involved in counterterrorism, do not care about civilian casualties or deaths or injuries, is just totally, totally wrong.
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