Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Historical hypocrites have themselves carried out the very human rights abuses that they suddenly decide warrant intervention elsewhere.
The key to U.N. reform is giving Americans a clearer picture of what the U.N. is and what it isn't, what it can be and what it can't be.
Democracies are expense-averse and they think in terms of short-term, political interests rather than a long-term interest in stability.
We have an interest in combating tactics in war that are abhorrent and that only fuel terrorism because they incite people on the ground.
We know that often holding those who have carried out mass atrocities accountable is at times our best tool to prevent future atrocities.
I like to think that as I get older I'm getting better at spending time with people who have qualities that make them worth spending time with.
In general, my rule is find out where your heart is, then speak from the heart. People know the difference between that and something scripted.
American decision-makers must understand how damaging a foreign policy that privileges order and profit over justice really is in the long term.
In the '90s, there was scant presidential leadership and insufficient domestic political mobilization for foreign policy grounded in human rights.
My kids are my salvation.... It's a delight to walk in and get charged by a five-year-old and a two-year-old. That'll make you forget the darkness.
What is most needed in Darfur is an international peacekeeping and protection presence, and this is what the Sudanese government most wants to avoid.
I think I would like the sort of job where you can work away in obscurity to try and improve things, without being caught up in the political maelstrom.
Virtually all of Darfur's six million residents are Muslim, and, because of decades of intermarriage, almost everyone has dark skin and African features.
In the 2000 election, George W. Bush, who had shirked military service, succeeded in presenting himself as more reliable on national security than Al Gore.
I'm relieved that after all these years of doing atrocity work, I still cry my eyes out every time I read the paper in the morning. It's surprising, actually.
All we talk about is 'Islamic terrorism.' If the two words are associated for long enough it's obviously going to have an effect on how people think about Muslims.
There are young idealists all around the world falling in love with the Yankees now and realists who are gravitating to the Red Sox. I think the universe is on its head.
You know, there is a long tradition in the U.S. of, um, promoting elections up to the point that you get an outcome you don't like. Look at Latin America in the Cold War.
We are not accepting that countries just get to sit back and let the United States meet threats that are going to roost in their worlds just as easily as they are in ours.
When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause.
There is a fair amount of competition, obviously, with ISIL and the terrorist networks around the world, China also posing a different kind of threat to the rules-based order.
The story of U.S. policy during the genocide in Rwanda is not a story of willful complicity with evil. U.S. officials did not sit around and conspire to allow genocide to happen.
The inertia of the governed cannot be disentangled from the indifference of the government. American leaders have both a circular and a deliberate relationship to public opinion.
Russia holds a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. This is a privilege, and it is a responsibility. Yet in Syria and in Aleppo, Russia is abusing this historic privilege.
No more than a surgeon can operate while tweeting can you reach your potential with one ear in, one ear out. You actually have to reacquaint yourself with concentration. We all do.
In the absence of full-fledged Congressional investigations, American policymakers rarely look back. They are bound by continuity and fealty across administrations and generations.
America needs a sensible, sustainable Iran policy that can meet U.S. security and economic interests, command international support and withstand the shifting Middle Eastern sands.
I'm going to Washington on a fateful, even historic, mission. I feel that I am an emissary of all Israel's citizens, even those who do not agree with me, and of the entire Jewish people
The way governments treat their own citizens matters; it matters because it can have a direct impact on international peace and security - and on our respective national security interests.
While I knew that individuals had in history - and still could - make a difference, it seemed presumptuous - even pompous - to imagine that I could be part of it, that I could be one of them.
There's something beautiful about working in the one place in the world where the world is present, like United Nations. Otherwise, one would have to go to each of these countries to negotiate.
Zimbabweans are severely malnourished, and deaths from starvation occur even in the cities. The country has not yet suffered nationwide famine only because international donors have stepped in.
'Acting as if...' I decided, ridiculously in retrospect, that my experience covering women's volleyball for my college newspaper was sufficient for me to at least try to become a war correspondent.
In many college classes, laptops depict split screens - notes from a class, and then a range of parallel stimulants: NBA playoff statistics on ESPN.com, a flight home on Expedia, a new flirtation on Facebook.
History is laden with belligerent leaders using humanitarian rhetoric to mask geopolitical aims. History also shows how often ill-informed moralism has led to foreign entanglements that do more harm than good.
The performance of international institutions will be symptomatic of the domestic political priorities of influential member states. International institutions don't really have a life and a mind of their own.
Knowing one thing well empowers you and gives you a set of tricks to the trade that you can apply across the board. Go deep, and it will serve you when you make your choices about where you want to leave your mark.
Half of Syria's refugees are children, and we know what can happen to children who grow to adulthood without hope or opportunity in refugee camps. The camps become fertile recruiting grounds for violent extremists.
Throughout history, when societies face tough economic times, we have seen democratic reforms deferred, decreased trust in government, persecution of minority groups, and a general shrinking of the democratic space.
When it came to the Vietnam War, Mr. McNamara was an early advocate of escalation but came to realize the flaws in the American approach earlier than many of his colleagues. Yet in public, he continued to defend the war.
I got into journalism not to be a journalist but to try to change American foreign policy. I'm a corny person. I was a dreamer predating my journalistic life, so I got into journalism as a means to try to change the world.
It is a false choice to tell Israel that it has to choose between peace on the one hand and security on the other. The United Nations would not ask any other country to make that choice, and it should not ask it of Israel.
I worry about Zimbabweans. They bend, they bend, they bend, they bend - where do the people break? How long can they go on scrounging for food in garbage dumps and using the moisture from sewage drains to plant vegetables?
President Obama, like every other leader on Earth, is still going to be looking out for national and economic interests. States don't cease to be states overnight just because they get a great visionary as their new president.
As even a democracy like the United States has shown, waging war can benefit a leader in several ways: it can rally citizens around the flag, it can distract them from bleak economic times, and it can enrich a country's elites.
Some anti-Americanism derives simply from our being a colossus that bestrides the earth. But much anti-Americanism derives from the role U.S. political, economic and military power has played in denying such freedoms to others.
I think Obama is right when he talks about the rule of law as a cornerstone of what the United States should stand for. That can encompass our elected officials' adherence to law and our country's return to the Geneva Conventions.
When we blame all Muslims, all Syrians, or all members of any other group because of the actions of individuals, we fall into the trap of asserting collective guilt. We empower the narrow-minded ideology that we are trying to defeat.
Western governments have generally tried to contain genocide by appeasing its architects. But the sad record of the last century shows that the walls the United States tries to build around genocidal societies almost inevitably shatter.
The economic dynamic in Zimbabwe is perversely robust: while ordinary people suffer, black-market dealers and people with foreign bank accounts prosper, making them powerful stakeholders in the perpetuation of devastating economic policies.