A Quote by Stephen Kinzer

The world has paid a heavy price for the lack of democracy in most of the Middle East. Operation Ajax [CIA code for the August 1953 coup] taught tyrants and aspiring tyrants there that the world's most powerful governments were willing to tolerate limitless oppression as long as oppressive regimes were friendly to the West and to Western oil companies. That helped tilt the political balance in a vast region away from freedom and toward dictatorship.

Stephen Kinzer

Quote Topics

Ajax Aspiring August Away Balance CIA Code Companies Coup Democracy Dictatorship East Freedom Friendly Governments Heavy Helped Lack Limitless Long Middle Middle East Most Most Powerful Oil Oil Companies Operation Oppression Oppressive Paid Political Powerful Powerful Government Price Regimes Region Taught Tilt Tolerate Toward Tyrants Vast Were West Western Willing World

Quote Author

Stephen Kinzer
American - Author
Born: August 4, 1951

History has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes stern judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who fought, suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human freedom, against political oppression and economic slavery.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

The cold war provided the perfect excuse for Western governments to plunder and exploit the Third World in the name of freedom; to rig its elections, bribe its politicians, appoint its tyrants and, by every sophisticated means of persuasion and interference, stunt the emergence of young democracies in the name of democracy.

John le Carre

Controlled Middle East oil, it would control the world. This oil represents 65 percent of world oil reserves. Therefore, America believes if it squashed Iraq, it would control the oil of the Middle East and consequently hold the oil in its hands [and] fix its price the way it likes.

Saddam Hussein

Those of us who lived under communism for most of our lives were looking toward the Western world because of its values, emphasis on democracy, individual liberties and freedom, and economic prosperity.

Vaclav Klaus

As long as the United States - and the world - gets its oil from the Middle East, we will be drawn into the endless crises that seem endemic to the region. American energy independence would not only liberate us, it would also drive down the worldwide price of oil.

Kathleen Troia McFarland

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. ... The global wave of democracy has barely reached the Arab states. For too long, many people in that region have been victims and subjects. They deserve to be active citizens.

George W. Bush

There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA.

Ron Paul

For too long, America tolerated a 'democratic exception' in the Muslim Middle East. As long as governments were friendly and backed regional stability, there was no need for outsiders to encourage representative government.

Richard N. Haass

Democratic governments are not delivering on their promises, which is partly due to the fact that governments are less powerful than they were after the Second World War. There were fewer governments then, but they actually had more political power.

Mary Robinson

Muslims have been subjected to so many tyrants and oppressive regimes. That's what the Arab Spring was about, but the problem comes in trying to direct a revolution.

Cat Stevens

If women were in charge of everything, there would be women tyrants. If black people were in charge, there would be black tyrants. If Hispanics were in charge, then Hispanic tyrants.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

One by one, these governments came undone, and were forced into IMF tutelage (and national illegitimacy) by the careening oil prices, the debt imbroglio, and falling terms of trade. The last of these governments to fall were the Communist regimes of eastern Europe, which have now gone the way of other Third World countries. The second in the cascade of bifurcations is thus symbolized by 1989.

Immanuel Wallerstein

In this most powerful nation in the world, lack of access to health care should not force local and state governments, companies and workers into bankruptcy, while causing unnecessary illness and hospitalization.

John Conyers

For a long time I felt that FDR had developed many thoughts and ideas that were his own to benefit this country, the United States. But, he didn't. Most of his thoughts, his political ammunition, as it were, were carefully manufactured for him in advance by the Council on Foreign Relations - One World Money group. Brilliantly, with great gusto, like a fine piece of artillery, he exploded that prepared "ammunition" in the middle of an unsuspecting target, the American people, and thus paid off and returned his internationalist political support.

Curtis Bean Dall

Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow.

Dick Cheney

Tyrants always condemn and seek to replace the market process with government coercion because tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrants think they should do.

Walter E. Williams

A Quote by Stephen Kinzer

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors