Stephen Kinzer Quotes

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Stephen Kinzer

Profession : Author

Birth : August 4, 1951

One day, Mexico will have a leader who is nationalist not simply in rhetoric, but also in fact.

Stephen Kinzer

Mexico needs schools, rural development, and an independent judiciary, not high-tech weaponry.

Stephen Kinzer

Other places are also generators of far-flung violence beyond their own borders - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are obvious examples - but none has as long a history of war, resistance, and terror as Chechnya.

Stephen Kinzer

The history of Chechnya is one of imperialism gone terribly wrong. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Chechens were among the few peoples to fend off Mongol conquerors, but at a terrible cost. Turks, Persians, and Russians sought to seize Chechnya, and it was finally absorbed into the Russian Empire in 1859.

Stephen Kinzer

Chechens are not ethnically or culturally Russian, and have now been fighting for generations to free themselves from Russian rule.

Stephen Kinzer

Chechens are Muslim, and some share the belief that the West is engaged in a global campaign against Islam.

Stephen Kinzer

If women are being oppressed in Egypt or children are being forced to join armies in the Congo, for example, it is not only acceptable but wonderful for Americans to be concerned, outraged, and active.

Stephen Kinzer

It is truly vital for the United States to assure that it is not attacked with weapons of mass destruction; to prevent wars in other countries from spreading onto American soil; and to maintain access to global sea lanes on which our economy depends. Beyond that, there is little or nothing in the world that should draw the United States to war.

Stephen Kinzer

Nebraska was home to indigenous peoples for centuries. It became a state in 1867, and has produced an important literary figure, Willa Cather, as well as an investor said to be the world's second richest man, Warren Buffett.

Stephen Kinzer

Only one American has given his life for Iranian democracy. He was a young idealist from Nebraska named Howard Baskerville. In 1907, fresh out of Princeton, Baskerville went to Iran as a schoolteacher. He found himself in the midst of a revolution against tyranny, and was carried away with passion for the democratic cause.

Stephen Kinzer

Challenging orthodoxy is a death sentence in Washington.

Stephen Kinzer

Foreign interventions always end badly.

Stephen Kinzer

The dramatic rise of Turkey in the councils of world power was one of the main geopolitical developments of 2010.

Stephen Kinzer

One of the immutable patterns of history is the rise and fall of great powers. Those that survive are the ones that adapt as the world changes.

Stephen Kinzer

Adroit geo-strategists take new realities into account as they try to imagine how global politics will unfold. In the foreign policy business, however, inertia is a powerful force and 'adroit' a little-known concept.

Stephen Kinzer

Want to depose the government of a poor country with resources? Want to bash Muslims? Want to build support for American military interventions around the world? Want to undermine governments that are raising their people up from poverty because they don't conform to the tastes of Upper West Side intellectuals? Use human rights as your excuse!

Stephen Kinzer

For many years as a foreign correspondent, I not only worked alongside human rights advocates, but considered myself one of them. To defend the rights of those who have none was the reason I became a journalist in the first place. Now, I see the human rights movement as opposing human rights.

Stephen Kinzer

Rebels in Darfur have learned the value of mobilizing western human rights groups to prolong wars, and this lesson is working gloriously for them.

Stephen Kinzer

Human Rights Watch wants Rwandans to be able to speak freely about their ethnic hatreds, and to allow political parties connected with the defeated genocide army to campaign freely for power.

Stephen Kinzer

Successive American presidents have turned a blind eye to piles of evidence that Saudi money is being used to foment holy war against America.

Stephen Kinzer