Pat Buchanan Quotes

Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.

In a world of inhumanity, war and terrorism, American citizenship is a very precious possession.

America has the largest nuclear capability in the world. All this power neither prevented 9/11 nor helped to avenge it. How could it? Who would America have attacked?

America responded to the 9-11 attacks by invading Iraq, only to discover that Saddam Hussein had palaces of mass luxury, not weapons of mass destruction.

From the very beginning, the American republic has never shrunk from foreign wars …. There has scarcely been a year since its founding that American soldiers haven’t been overseas … American foreign policy largely consists of doctrines about when and where to intervene in other people’s countries.

Is military occupation likely to be the midwife of democracy?

Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening.

Washington seems to think that they will be welcomed with open arms in Iraq, but that they shouldn’t count on it. It is foolish to think of creating a modern democracy in an artificial country with a divided society like Iraq. Do you realize that, by invading Iraq, they might yet precipitate a civil war.

The American people are not—I repeat—not going to tolerate intimidation, terror, and outright acts of war against this nation and its people. We are especially not going to tolerate these attacks from outlaw states run by the strangest collection of misfits, Looney Tunes, and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich.

… an act of dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards …. I would give anything if President McKinley would order the fleet to Havana tomorrow.

I don't think it's hypothetical whether or not it's a good idea to topple secular dictators in the Middle East and hope to get a good outcome and hope that stability comes thereafter.

I know I will be severely criticized by the interventionists in America when I say we should not enter a war unless we have a reasonable chance of winning.

Once we got hit by - on 9/11 and lost 3,000 people that day, we recognized, and it was one of the key decisions President Bush made, that this is not a law enforcement problem, it is a strategic threat to the United States. It's a war. And based on that, we then adopted a whole set of policies that flowed out of that proposition.

If the choice is go to war or end up with an American city hit by weapon of mass destruction, then the choice is easy.

I supported the war in Afghanistan because 3000 of our people were murdered and I thought we had a right to defend the people of the United States.

The world hates us, but the bottom line is we're gonna have to show the world why they hate us by bombing the hell out of some people that have been hurting us. That's all. That's the end of it.

Idealism that makes no distinction between areas where our national interest lies and those from which it is remote does no good for America. The weariness of the post-Versailles, post-Korea, post-Vietnam eras is never far from the national mood.

For a generation, terrorists learned they could make war on free nations without fear of war in return. On September 12, the terrorists got war in return.

We came to Iraq to liberate them and to make our world a safer place.

The United States armed forces and coalition troops deserve recognition and support for their work to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and ensure the safety and security of the American people, civilians abroad, and the people of Iraq.

I consider Bush's decision to call for a war against terrorism a serious mistake. He is elevating these criminals to the status of war enemies, and one cannot lead a war against a network if the term war is to retain any definite meaning.

The American people have no control over what the military does. We have no say in American foreign policy.

If there is no direct threat why are we invading?

Iraq is part of a legitimate American effort not to have democracy everywhere but to have democracy somewhere.

In the 66 years that I have been alive, there has not been one hour, of one day, of one month, of one year, when there has not been a threat aimed at us.