Stephen Mansfield Quotes

War itself is justifiable only on principles of self-preservation:

As the war was just in its origin and necessary and noble in its objects, we can reflect with a proud satisfaction that in carrying it on no principle of justice or honor, no usage of civilized nations, no precept of courtesy or humanity, have been infringed.

No right can come by conquest, unless there were a right of making that conquest.

I feel like war should occur only for the most vital and necessary reasons, and only then.

There is such a thing as legitimate warfare: war has its laws; there are things which may fairly be done, and things which may not be done.

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.

You cannot be politically correct in a war.

Bloodshed and disorder are not necessarily evil in themselves, if resorted to in a noble cause.

I was ordered to go in there and destroy the enemy. That was my job that day. That was the mission I was given. I did not sit down and think in terms of men, women and children. They were all classified as the same, and that's the classification that we dealt with over there, just as the enemy. I felt then and I still do that I acted as I was directed, and I carried out the order that I was given and I do not feel wrong in doing so.

Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.

Not all violence is equally reprehensible; not all wars are equally unjust.

It was a sacred war. A good war.

If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful.

Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.

An aggressive war is the great crime against everything good in the world. A defensive war, which must necessarily turn to aggressive at the earliest moment, is the necessary great counter-crime. But never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.

The moral equation strongly tells everyone who understands freedom, who understands morality, that Israel is engaging in a just war in defense of its people and its freedom.

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.

There is no such thing as a politically correct war.

The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.

This war no longer has anything to do with knightly conduct or with the agreements of the Geneva Convention.

We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo - men, women and children. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

That soldiers do terrible things during wartime should not surprise us.

Are there really good wars and bad wars? We thought so during World War II, and in retrospect, we were right. But in Vietnam, and Iraq we were wrong.

War, in some instances, especially defensive, has been authorized by Heaven.

The only defensible war is a war of defense.