Intervention Quotes

“We cannot be the world's fire brigade.”

“Regime change has been an unmitigated disaster for the United States.”

“The idea that we’re leaving it to the market is a fiction.”

“Each of the more than 50 governments that the United States has attempted to overthrow since the Second World War has been a government that has posed a challenge to the American Empire.”

“There is no such thing as a 'humanitarian intervention'.”

“Change coming from the outside is not change at all.”

“We're not the world's policeman.”

“If you look at suicides, most of them are connected to a mental illness. We have to get to people before they do that.”

“The idea that you can create a democracy in the Middle East from the outside is a fantasy.”

“The national government must step in and discriminate; but it must discriminate, not on behalf of liberty and the special individual, but on behalf of equality and the average man.”

“We've got to stop being the world's policeman. We've got to stop being the world's ATM.”

“There’s nothing that makes you so aware of the bonds of common humanity as interfering with it.”

“The basic bargain is that we are going to act to try to protect the system from a catastrophic failure.”

“Independence is all very well, but we animals never allow our friends to make fools of themselves beyond a certain limit.”

“We are not the world's policeman.”

“The moral case for military intervention is about saving lives.”

“We have to be smart about how we use our power. We can't be the world's policeman.”

“The jungle will grow back, if we let it.”

“Anarchy is a magnet for intervention.”

“We went to Afghanistan to protect our interests, not to nation-build.”