Selected security quotes

1. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

2. Bolshevism is knocking at our gates, we can't afford to let it in...We must keep America whole and safe and unspoiled. We must keep the worker away from red literature and red ruses; we must see that his mind remains healthy.

3. The first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable.

4. Neither the Army nor the Navy is of any protection, or very little protection, against aerial raids.

5. How old are you? Sixteen? S-seventeen? [asks security guard] Is seventeen legal?

6. The Communist Party and the Soviet Government display constant concern to strengthen the country's defensive might and raise the combat readiness of the Armed Forces.

7. If you suspend the Geneva Conventions, give the green light to anything that will get intelligence, round up thousands all over the globe with reckless disregard for guilt or innocence, you are effectively and knowingly issuing orders to seize innocent people and torture them. Any president who decides to do that and then says it was not his intention to do that is a fraud or a fool.

8. Six imams removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix are calling on Muslims to boycott the airline. If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.

9. The man responsible for keeping Americans safe from another terrorist attack on American soil for nearly seven years now will go down in history as one of America's greatest presidents.

10. It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can't fly away.

11. Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

12. Effective security measures do not come cheap.

13. There is no doubt that our nation's security and defeating terrorism trump all other priorities.

14. When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - an avian flu pandemic.

15. The important thing isn't the house. It's the ability to make it. You carry that in your brains and in your hands, wherever you go... It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.

16. Such security is equal liberty. But it is not necessarily equality in the use of the earth.

17. Storm clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country... They must not be allowed to bring eternal night.

18. They used to be seen as insane or unthinkable acts of madmen. But if they take place they'll be called 'war' too. And there will still be no conventional war.

19. We might be on the brink of an apocalypse if, instead of poor people with suicide bombs killing middle class guys, middle-class people with suicide bombs started killing rich guys.

20. Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state.

21. My guiding star always is, Get hold of portable property.

22. The death toll is not nearly high enough... too many [jihadists] have escaped.

23. There is no reason at all why there aren't enough people to guard New Orleans and to help stabilise Baghdad.

24. But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.

25. In light of 50 years of bondage of Eastern Europe, [invading the Soviet Union in 1948 to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons] was probably a reasonable thing to do.

26. We are at war, and our security as a nation depends on winning that war.

27. I have no doubt that as the Iraqi security forces get better, and they are getting better and they are holding territory and they are doing these things with minimal help, that we are going to be able to bring down the levels of our forces. And I have no doubt that that's going to happen in a reasonable time frame.

28. How can Blair fight a war on terror? Terror is not an ideology or an army; terror is a technique.

29. Government is the thing. Law is the thing. Not brotherhood, not international cooperation, not security councils that can stop war only by waging it... Where does security lie, anyway - security against the thief, a bad man, the murderer? In brotherly love? Not at all. It lies in government.

30. Security, for me, took a tumble not when I read that there were Communists in Hollywood but when I read your editorial in praise of loyalty testing and thought control. If a man is in health, he doesn't need to take anybody else's temperature to know where he is going.

31. The fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication constitute a greater danger to the privacy of the individual.

32. By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

33. The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto.

34. The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.

35. There are also many instances where people hostile to the Soviet state are attempting by means of deceit and provocation to poison the minds of our citizens and compel them to believe in monstrous lies.

36. Mr Hitchens's policy has succeeded in making 10,000 new Bin Ladens.

37. Well, you know, I think the American people are sacrificing now. I think they're waiting in airport lines longer than they've ever had before.

38. After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time.

39. There's no bigger task than protecting the homeland of our country.

40. The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself.

41. Sovereignty belongs to the nation by all means.

42. It will keep the wolf out.

43. After the invasion, there was sophisticated massive looting of the installations that were constructed in the 1980s - that includes high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear and chemical weapons and missiles, and also toxins for biological weapons. Prior to the US-British invasion, these sites had been monitored by UN inspectors, but they were quickly kicked out of the country and have not been back since, while the occupation forces left the sites unguarded, and very sophisticated looting operations took place. Where this huge massive equipment has gone no one knows, and it's uncomfortable to guess. The ironies are almost inexpressible. The US and Britain invaded to prevent the use of WMDs that did not exist, and they succeeded in providing the terrorists that they had mobilized with the means to develop WMDs that the US and Britain had provided to Saddam Hussein.

44. If any of you have ever looked at your FBI file, you discover that intelligence agencies in general are extremely incompetent. That's one of the reasons why there are so many intelligence failures. They just never get anything straight, for all kinds of reasons. Part of it is because of the information they get. The information they get comes from ideological fanatics, typically, who always misunderstand things in their own crazy way. If you look at an FBI file, say, about yourself, where you know what the facts are, you'll see that the information has some kind of relation to the facts, you can figure out what they're talking about, but by the time it works its way through the ideological fanaticism of the intelligence agencies, there's always weird distortion.

45. Within the state we have made defense of the individual the obligation of the whole community, and by that fact have established such preponderance of power on the side of the law that it could never be good business to challenge it. And that fact has, in large measure, swept highwaymen from the roads and pirates from the seas.

46. So long as an individual, whether person or state, has only his own arms to depend upon in order to defend his rights by arms, then he must be stronger than anyone likely to challenge those rights. Which means that that other is deprived of similar defense. Within the frontiers man long ago made the discovery that the only way out of that dilemma is for the community, by putting its combined power behind a protective law, to assume the defense of the individual. Defense must be a communal, a collective function, or it cannot exist effectively at all.

47. The conception that we can only protect ourselves if we are prepared to protect others surely ought to belong to the nursery stage of social education. But such things as the mechanism of security through law, the place of force in society, are things not, it would seem, included usually in the common education of our peoples.

48. The final chapter of The Great Illusion presents a convincing plea for a change in foreign policy from that of a war policy to one of international cooperation and peace. If this is not made, war, he says, will be inevitable. The fact that we are living in a world of international interdependence makes it imperative that we organize the international community of nations accordingly, basing the community on the common interests which bind nations together, relinquishing the principle of isolated national defence, providing collective security through common effort by erecting an international authority which can replace the prevailing international anarchy.

49. You have accounted yourselves happy on being environed with a great ditch from all the world beside.

50. Qui finem quaeris amoris/Cedit amor rebus; res age, tutus eris.

51. A CIA officer's name was blown and there was a leak and we needed to figure out how that happened, who did it, why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it, whether we should prove it. Given national security was at stake, it was especially important that we find out accurate facts.

52. 'This word imminent keeps coming up. The President never said that there was an imminent threat.' --February 6, 2004 on the Roger Hedgecock Show [3]

53. 'The terrorists in Iraq believe their attacks on innocent people will weaken our resolve. They believe we will run from a challenge. They are mistaken. Americans are not the running kind.'

54. We have played at venues up and down the country on this tour, some of which had no security, and have encountered no problems or witnessed any aggression. I simply asked the bouncer last night to apologise for his behaviour, three times in fact, and he refused. I was very upset at his attitude and although I'm very sorry for letting everyone down last night, I refuse to play at venues where pumped up, 16 stone men feel the need to be aggressively rude and to bully teenage kids around.

55. American liberty has been tentatively saved for the last few decades not by the self-discipline of its citizens but by their instincts, which have not yet been blunted quite enough to prevent the people from realizing imminent dangers at the eleventh hour. Twice, now, we have turned at the last moment and armed ourselves to prevent the discipline of ruthlessness-the next most powerful discipline to responsible liberty-from overthrowing us. This second time, we came within months, and perhaps even weeks, as a body of common men, of a position from which not even our instincts could have extricated us. It is not yet utterly certain that we have escaped, but the presumption is that we shall.

56. C'est un crime d'Etat que d'en pouvoir commettre.

57. 'He (Saddam) had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt.' - BBC interview, 28 November 2005, about the torture and murder of 148 men and boys near the mainly Shiite town of Dujail, Iraq in 1982.

58. 'There is no conflict between liberty and safety. We will have both or neither.'

59. I won't mince words - I am profoundly worried that the President may have a hidden agenda for dealing with Iran and Syria, and I am equally worried that the Administration has no agenda to manage what appears to be a worsening nuclear crisis in North Korea.

60. The only people flying to the Middle East will be terrorists, so it will be, 'Will you be sitting in armed or unarmed?'

61. They're patting down a five year old kid 'What are you doing? You're not a priest, let go of me.'

62. Russia has the Bomb. We have many bombs. We don't know where they all are. Maybe you want a dirty bomb.

63. Homeland Security - they had to be careful with that name. They couldn't name it 'Fatherland Security' or else there would be old Germans going, 'Ja, thats a good one.' But, Homeland Security, it sounds like (with British accent) 'Homefront Security,' which was England during World War II, we would have a bunch of Englishmen going 'I did it! I captured Rudolph Hess personally, I threw my colostomy bag and covered him in shite and said 'get out of that fokker you fucker, get out!''

64. Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanistan are defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability.

65. Too much SALT isn't good for you.

66. It would be very dangerous to use the military option [against Iran]. It would not be a good thing. But it would be much more dangerous and much worse if they had nuclear weapons.

67. Iraq may get better; Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I don't know the answer to that. That's in the hands of other people. But what we do know for sure is the terrorists are going to be at war with us a year, a year and a half from now.

68. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist incidents, 'The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond. Bin Laden declared war on us. We didn't hear it.

69. Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists. But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.

70. Senator Feingold was right about the dangers when the Senate first passed the Patriot Act, and he has remained true to his cause. I stand with him today as I should have the first time.

71. I voted against it (the USA Patriot Act) because certain provisions of the Act represent a very dangerous infringement on our civil liberties.

72. Keep them separated and interrogate them.

73. We are safer, the region is safer, the world is safer without him.

74. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry?[2]

75. And in northern Iraq today, this very day, al Qaeda is operating camps there, and they are attacking the Kurds in the north, and this has been well-documented and well chronicled. Now, if you're going to go after al Qaeda in every aspect, and obviously they have the support of Saddam, or we're not.

76. [Flying into Baltimore after 9/11] I didn't want to see some pacifist, vegan, whole-wheat, free-range, organic, progressive, gray-ponytail, communist, liberal, draft-dodging, NPR-listening wimp! What are they going to do if somebody tries to hijack the plane? Throw a Birkenstock at him? Offer him some pot?...I was hoping for about twenty-five NRA-loving, gun-nut, serial-killing, psychopathic, Ollie North, Norman Schwarzkopf, right-wing, Agent Orange, post-traumatic-stress-disorder, CIA, FBI, automatic-weapon, smart-bomb, laser-sighting bastards!

77. There isn't a single person in Israel who wants to destroy or harm Egypt. In contrast, there's a whole country that openly wants to destroy Israel, and that's Iran. That is the difference between ours and Egypt's security problems. Egypt is not threatened by anyone. Israel is threatened by the second circle. Israel has never been and will never be a danger to Egypt. [...] Israel is not threatening Iran, Iran is threatening Israel. The situation is not similar.

78. The Arabs began to understand that it is not poverty creating terror, but terror creating poverty. They are the victims of their own errors.

79. Jared makes everything safe, everything happy. even houses. He still makes me feel safe, Melanie realized, feeling the warmth where his arm was just half an inch from mine. though he dosent even know I'm here.

80. For the stability and peace of Asia, it is essential to create peace zones to separate the continent's biggest powers and potential adversaries.

81. When compared with the suppression of anarchy every other question sinks into insignificance. The anarchist is the enemy of humanity, the enemy of all mankind, and his is a deeper degree of criminality than any other. No immigrant is allowed to come to our shores if he is an anarchist; and no paper published here or abroad should be permitted circulation in this country if it propagates anarchist opinions.

82. There can be no safer deposit on earth than the Treasury of the United States.

83. I've got someone who loves me tonight. I've got over a thousand dollars in the bank, and I'm all right.

84. The pioneer spirit is still vigorous within this nation. Science offers a largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools for his task. The rewards of such exploration both for the Nation and the individual are great. Scientific progress is one essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress.

85. I'm convinced that the Republic of Armenia will not allow anything to happen to Karabakh.

86. We cannot lose Poland. If this line is crossed, they will grab us, too.

87. Much of the obscurity of our effort so far against terrorism originates in the now official idea that the enemy is evil and that we are (therefore) good, which is the precise mirror image of the official idea of the terrorists.

88. One cannot reduce terror by holding over the world the threat of what it most fears.

89. If you know even as little history as I do, it is hard not to doubt the efficacy of modern war as a solution to any problem except that of retribution-the 'justice' of exchanging one damage for another.

90. National defense through war always involves some degree of national defeat. This paradox has been with us from the very beginning of our republic. Militarization in defense of freedom reduces the freedom of the defenders. There is a fundamental inconsistency between war and freedom.

91. We'll still need our armed forces and we'll take every necessary action to make America safe - but we'll gain that safety not by force of arms, but by who we are and what we represent. For we should be an America not puffed up by pride in our own power, but rather an America humbled by the recognition of our common humanity. We must make sure that globalization helps people around the world, raising living standards and improving the environment everywhere - rather than leading a race to the bottom.

92. You see, essentially, you cannot win the war on terror by military force. It is first and foremost a battle of ideas. It is secondly a law enforcement effort and a cooperative effort among nations. And only as a last resort do you use military force. This president has distorted the capabilities of the United States Armed Forces. He's used our men and women in uniform improperly in Guantanamo and engaged in actions that I think are totally against the Uniform Code of Military Justice and against what we stand for as the American people.

93. His skill in acting a part, his cunning, his imagination, the ease with which he affected naive stupidity and then emerged into the most subtle reasoning disarmed the security agents who interrogated him.

94. The present critical state of international human affairs requires security and safety from nuisance interferences with efforts toward full, honest, determined clarification of man's relationship to nature within and without himself; in other words, his relationship to the Law of Nature. It is not permissible, either morally, legally, or factually, to force a natural scientist to expose his scientific results and methods of basic research in court. This point is accentuated in a world crisis where biopathic men hold in their hands power over ruined, destitute multitudes.

95. I thought we were in the the trust tree, in the nest. Are we not?

96. On September 28 the fleet hove in sight, and all came safely to anchor in Pevensey Bay. There was no opposition to the landing. The local 'fyrd' had been called out this year four times already to watch the coast, and having, in true English style, come to the conclusion that the danger was past because it had not yet arrived had gone back to their homes.

97. Psychologist Margaret Singer, 69, an outspoken Scientology critic and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, now travels regularly under an assumed name to avoid harassment.

98. Over the decades, cult operatives have fished through Singer's trash, sent her death threats and picketed her lectures. They've released dozens of live rats at her house, put dead ones on her doorstep (hearts skewered with lollipop sticks) and hacked into her computer so many times she doesn't use one any more. Once a cultist talked her way into working in Singer's campus office, then stole a sheaf of term papers and sent bizarre notes to the students.

99. But not everyone agreed with her views on the subject, and Singer paid a price for her work. Cult 'operatives' dug through her trash, went through her mail, picketed her lectures and sent her death threats. They also hacked into her computer countless times, once released dozens of live rats in her house, and frequently left dead rats on her doorstep with threatening notes.

100. Never let it be said that any enemy of MacGregor ever saw him defenseless and unarmed.