Terrorism Quotes

“The number of people killed by the sanctions in Iraq is greater than the total number of people killed by all weapons of mass destruction in all of history.”
― Noam Chomsky

“Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus'—blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable.”
― Noam Chomsky, Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians

“The violent subjugation of the Palestinians, Iraqis, and Afghans will only ensure that those who oppose us will increasingly speak to us in the language we speak to them—violence.”
― Chris Hedges

“It's our goddamed city! It's our goddamed country. No terrorist can take it from us for so long as we're free. Once we're not free, the terrorists win! Take it back! You're young enough and stupid enough not to know that you can't possibly win, so you're the only ones who can lead us to victory! Take it back!”
― Cory Doctorow, Little Brother

“I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”
― George W. Bush

“Just above our terror, the stars painted this story
in perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too often
abused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.”
― Aberjhani, I Made My Boy Out of Poetry

“The rain that fell on the city runs down the dark gutters and empties into the sea without even soaking the ground”
― Haruki Murakami, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

“My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.”
― Noam Chomsky

“Peace is not so much a political mandate as it is a shared state of consciousness that remains elevated and intact only to the degree that those who value it volunteer their existence as living examples of the same... Peace ends with the unraveling of individual hope and the emergence of the will to worship violence as a healer of private and social dis-ease.”
― Aberjhani, The American Poet Who Went Home Again

“Sometimes I think you rely too much on friendship, Reagan. For all of your cynicism, you tend to assume people have your sense of integrity, but I’m here to tell you they don’t.”
― Jeffrey S. Stephens, Enemies Among Us

“A true martyr is not an opportunist who dies to get a reward of eternal life.
A true martyr is a humanist who dies to save a life.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“Is killing a known terrorist wrong? I ask this, did the terrorist allow any of his victims quarter? No, then allow him no quarter, and hoist the black flag.”
― T.R. Wallace

“Now is as good a time as ever to revisit the history of the Crusades, or the sorry history of partition in Kashmir, or the woes of the Chechens and Kosovars. But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about 'the West,' to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. Loose talk about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the same intellectual content.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“We are living in an era in which billions of people are grappling to promote communication, tolerance, and understanding over the more destructive forces of war, terrorism, and political chaos that have characterized the beginning of the 21st Century.”
― Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

“Throughout our common HISTORY, the belief that there is only one way to Heaven has only led us to division, war and MISERY.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“Extremism manifests itself in different shapes and colors. 'The Absolute Truth' and 'the Only Way' beliefs are among them.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“If humans believe in love the way they believe in rival faiths, there will be peace on earth.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect."

[I Stand With Charlie Hebdo, as We All Must (Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2015)]”
― Salman Rushdie

“Since I speak and write about this a good deal, I am often asked at public meetings, in what sometimes seems to me a rather prurient way, whether I myself or my family have 'ever been threatened' by jihadists. My answer is that yes, I have, and so has everyone else in the audience, if they have paid enough attention to the relevant bin-Ladenist broadcasts to notice the fact.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“There are roughly 1,200 dogs trained to detect bombs and bomb making materials in the US - and over 40,000 trained to detect marijuana. Some of the bomb-dogs are also cross trained as drug-dogs which accounts for their ability to sleep well at night.”
― T. Rafael Cimino, Mid Ocean

“Isolating oneself into a narrowly defined victim group promotes a view of others as irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst, which eventually only leads to further alienation. Gangs, extremist political parties, and religious cults may provide solace, but they rarely foster the mental flexibility needed to be fully open to what life has to offer and as such cannot liberate their members from their traumas. Well-functioning people are able to accept individual differences and acknowledge the humanity of others.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“the flames are silent,
Peace is violent,
Tears are frozen
’cause massacre was chosen.

~~ 26/11– Mumbai terror attack memories”
― Ankita Singhal

“September 11, 2001: Citizens of the U.S., besieged by terror’s sting,
rose up, weeping glory, as if on eagles’ wings.--from the poem Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001”
― Author-Poet Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams

“The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The Government is making a fool of itself by attributing all terrorism and acts against the government only to one single patriot”
― Carlos Marighella, Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerilla

“لَيْسَ لِلْإِرْهَابِ عِرْقٌ، ولَا لَوْنٌ، وَلَا دِينٌ، ولَا لُغَةٌ،
وَإِنَّمَا أَيْدٍ آثِمَةٌ، وَقُلُوبٌ حَاقِدَةٌ، وَأَدْمِغَةٌ نَابِغَةٌ.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“A traitor to both sides, the ultimate asshole…”
― Mark M. Bello, Betrayal In Blue

“Your friends dress like your enemies, and your enemies dress like your friends.”
― Mark M. Bello, Betrayal In Blue

“Sarin in Dearborn? Are you shitting me? Jack pounded his desk; his morning coffee spilled all over the burglary file he had been studying.”
― Mark M. Bello, Betrayal In Blue

“If Jack Dylan was Captain Ahab, Bart Breitner was Moby Dick. Jack felt exhilarated, as Ahab must have felt when he finally encountered the great white. He would approach with caution and test the waters. He was alone, and he sensed extreme danger, but this was a tremendous opportunity that he could not pass up.”
― Mark M. Bello, Betrayal In Blue