Michael Franti Quotes

Sure we won the war, but the peace we’re losing badly.

I do not want to criticize while my soldiers are still bleeding and dying in Iraq

I think when war becomes your life, I think it's very difficult to have the proper perspective to be able to create a fully balanced policy.

We were in opposition to the decision to go to war. But after the war happened, it was clear that you could not sit and look-there would be a breeding ground for terrorism or a new collapsed or failed state named Iraq!

When I first arrived in Baghdad in January 2003, I thought I would soon rent a house and envisioned myself swimming in the Tigris to cool off after reporting in the city the caliphs called Madinit al-Salam, the City of Peace. A year later, I realized I wouldn't be taking any midnight dips - Madinat al-Salam no more.

I beg Osama to stop warring. He is a Muslim, and Islam means peace. Nobody wins in a war... I wish I were tapped in the problem about Iraq. I knew Saddam enough that I could have talked him into surrendering. But it's too late.

It would be immoral to walk away from the consequences of our actions, leaving behind anarchy and civil war in Iraq.

We wanted this war and now we've got it, and I'm not sure that we know what to do with it.

I think, unfortunately, we live in a world where people attack other people and I think a legitimate rationale for war is the saving of human life, the saving of lives of people who cannot defend themselves.

We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.

We were so shocked by how fast that war went that President Bush did not have a plan, a peace plan.

I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth.

It was essentially for self defence that we went to war in Afghanistan and would go to war in Iraq.

We have to bring stability to Iraq, otherwise we will be faced with a future dilemma of sending our loved ones into harms way to stop a civil war or the rise of a new tyrant born from the instability that we created.

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

The real peril of war lies not in military defeat. It lies in war itself, whether we win or lose.

Wars such as those which have occurred in Iraq only allow hatred, violence and terror to proliferate.

If today is anything like the typical day of the past 3 years, three American soldiers will die in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Taliban will get a little stronger in Afghanistan and the civil war will continue to be enhanced in Iraq.

Doves oppose war on the grounds that the risks exceed the gains. War with Iraq could be very costly, possibly degenerating into urban warfare.

Let's see if we can't get this war behind us now. Certainly, the man in the street, the common person there, wants to have this war behind him. I think a lot of the soldiers are very war-weary too.

In case of war, a treaty would have to be made at the end of the war.

War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man.

Don't worry about the war. It's all over but the shooting.

I care about politics just like any other citizen. I'm against the war in Iraq, or any type of war.

First of all, war is a very, very difficult thing to deal with, even on the good days.