Non-combatants Quotes

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

When it comes to civilian deaths, violent hostilities play no favorites.

War in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.

No, the United States does not target civilians.

Indiscriminate attacks on civilians ought, under all circumstances, to be illegal in war as in peacetime.

You don't torture people. You don't indiscriminately attack civilians. You protect as good as you can the impact of your warfare on women and children.

Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God's entirely and God's word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought. As for those who cannot offer resistance or cannot fight, such as women, children, monks, old people, the blind, handicapped and their likes, they shall not be killed unless they actually fight with words and acts.

I will not wage war against women and children! I have instructed my air force to limit their attacks to military objectives. However, if the enemy should conclude from this that he might get away with waging war in a different manner he will receive an answer that he'll be knocked out of his wits!

Women, children, monks and other non-combatants are to be spared during war and no longer taken prisoner.

In every war, innocent people die.

It would be easy to define terrorism as attacks against human rights and international humanitarian law forbids attacks against innocent non-combatants which is often the definition used for terrorism.

An order to fire on people that do not fire on you is a completely illegal order.

My aunt and uncle are clearly civilians.

TO ALL THE ambulance drivers firewatchers air-raid wardens nurses canteen workers airplane spotters rescue workers mathematicians vicars vergers shopgirls chorus girls librarians debutantes spinsters fishermen retired sailors servants evacuees Shakespearean actors and mystery novelists WHO WON THE WAR.

Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," . "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men.

The fire bombing of the cities of Japan have been one of the most ruthless and barbaric killings of non-combatants in all history.

Kill not the old man who can not fight, nor young children nor women; and steal not the spoils of war

I find it amazing that the only group of people who are not fighting and not killing and not pillaging and not burning and not raping, and the group of people who are mostly — though not exclusively — who are keeping life going in the midst of war, are not included in the negotiating table.

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.

They were targeting those people I referred to as 'little Eichmanns.' These were legitimate targets.

The memories of the last War will grow dim. The world will get back into the old rut, familiar professions and piety about peace will again soothe us to sleep, and the various countries will once more base their security upon military preparation. So they will all, in the end, find themselves drifting hopelessly upon those currents that make for war...And remember what the next war will be like. The old lines which divide combatants from non-combatants, the weak and the diseased from the strong and the robust, men from women and children, will all be obliterated and civilization itself assailed, and from sea and sky will be brought to a heap of ruins.