Michael Ignatieff Quotes

I am against preventive war because it means measures by the UN against us.

The utterly fallacious idea at the heart of the pro-war argument is that it is the duty of the anti-war argument to provide an alternative to war. The onus is on them to explain just cause.

As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a 'war of choice' whose costs we are still paying.

The Liberals have been pressing for the brief on the basis of which he said there was authority for war.

One of the extraordinary features of the Blair government has been its slavish support for the central tenets of Bush's foreign policy - above all, the war in Iraq. During the Cold War, the Wilson government resisted the suggestion that it should send troops to Vietnam.

We all say no to war, we are all for justice and peace. But sometimes in order to maintain peace, armed action is necessary. But we hope it won't be the case.

What I've learned, and will try to remember from now on, is that defending your country's credibility is never sufficient reason to fight a war.

The Second World War is and was constantly being drudged up by Blair and Bush to rationalize the invasion of Iraq.

Some in my party threaten to send a message that they don't know a just war when they see it, and more broadly that they're not prepared to use our military strength to protect our security and the cause of freedom.

Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl Harbor that led to our prompt, official declaration of war, while they characterize as unwise wars of choice the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq.

Instead of the international police action we had hoped for during the war in Kosovo, there are wars again - conducted with state-of-the-art technology, but still in the old style.

What is the 'noble cause' for which you sent our country to war?

It will no longer be war that is the continuation of politics by other means, it will be what I have dubbed 'the integral accident' that is the continuation of politics by other means.

We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to, quote, 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States.

We believe in peace, but we are not pacifists. Sometimes we have to use force

It is not every cause of war that should lead to war.

[The Kosovo intervention] would set a dangerous precedent to commit our troops to fighting civil wars for independence in every corner of the world.

We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.

… the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Why our elected leaders continue to believe that such genocidal weapons are legitimate and moral in our hands but illegitimate and immoral in the hands of our enemies…

We don't want any Vietnamese in Cambodia.... We will be very glad if you solve our problem. We are not opposed to hot pursuit in uninhabited areas. You would be liberating us from the Viet Cong. For me only Cambodia counts. I want you to force the Viet Cong to leave Cambodia

Mobilization is not aggression.… The aggressor is the one who renders inevitable the first shot, in other words the nation who first declares war.

It is quite probable that Germany will rearm and I do not believe this will be stopped by intervention of other powers within the next years. Therefore it is likely in a few years to have two heavily armed antagonistic groups in Europe, and the consequence is that we shall get war …

There is going to be no involvement of America in war unless it is the result of the Constitutional process that is placed upon Congress to declare it.

The United States will never take part in an aggressive war.