Enemy Perception Quotes
The English were at War with Napoleon and Denmark was neutral. British leaders feared that Denmark might either ally themselves with Napoleon or provide him with ships from their well equipped fleet. The English decided on a preemptive attack on Denmark and military forces were ordered to Denmark. When they arrived, they were ordered to bombard Copenhagen and force the Danes to surrender. When this happened, the British seized the Danish ships and simply took them as war prizes. The issues of the morality and wisdom of preemptive attacks, as with the Americans in the Iraq war, was thoroughly debated but the government view prevailed to the shame of most Englishmen.
One difficulty of diplomacy with many Islamic leaders is that the culture produces very aggressive rhetoric and very aggressive actions like Islamic terrorism. This quotation is often cited to demonstrate that it is the Iranians that had decided that America is it’s enemy; that America is to be humbled; and that their weapons development are targeted at America. This along with the most frequent Iranian slogan, “Death to America,” for many argues for preemptive military action or maintenance of a high state of readiness. Given statements like this from the leading soldier of the theocracy, there is little doubt that Iranian nuclear weapons would be a great danger to America. Therefore when Iran complains that America did not object to the fact that other nations have the nuclear bomb, they do not take their own rhetoric into account. No other nation with possible nuclear capability has made America its major military adversity and claims as an objective to humble the United States.
