Richard Perle quotes

Dictators must have enemies. They must have internal enemies to justify their secret police and external enemies to justify their military forces. (Richard Perle)
National sovereignty is an obligation as well as an entitlement. A government that will not perform the role of a government forfeits the rights of a government. View quote
Richard Perle
Sometimes the things we have to do are objectionable in the eyes of others. View quote
Richard Perle
Law-abiding citizens value privacy. Terrorists require invisibility. The two are not the same, and they should not be confused. View quote
Richard Perle
Right now, American law bars the admission of aliens suspected of terrorist activity - but not of terrorist sympathies. View quote
Richard Perle
I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing. View quote
Richard Perle
The programme of the British Labour Party under Neil Kinnock is so wildly irresponsible, so separate and apart from the historic NATO strategy, that I think a Labour government that stood by its present policies-and I rather doubt that they would-would, if it didn't destroy the Alliance, at least diminish its effective ability to do the task for which it was created. View quote
Richard Perle
About George W. Bush: "He came ill-equipped for the job and has failed to master it." View quote
Richard Perle
I think there is a potential civic culture in Arab countries that can lead to democratic institutions and I think Iraq is probably the best place to put that proposition to the test. View quote
Richard Perle
Well, you're going to find a disproportionate number of Jews in any sort of intellectual undertaking. View quote
Richard Perle
I've never thought much of Joe Nye's writings on soft power. (Richard Perle)
And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation. View quote
Richard Perle
Dictatorships start wars because they need external enemies to exert internal control over their own people. View quote
Richard Perle
If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now. View quote
Richard Perle
But if the UN cannot or will not revise its rules in ways that establish beyond question the legality of the measures the United States must take to protect the American people, then we should unashamedly and explicitly reject the jurisdiction of these rules. View quote
Richard Perle
Few governments in the world, for example, praise human rights more ardently than does the government of France, and few have a worse record of supporting tyrants and killers. View quote
Richard Perle
Non-citizen terrorist suspects are not members of the American national community, and they have no proper claim on the rights Americans accord one another. View quote
Richard Perle
In any event, the problem in Iran is much bigger than weapons. The problem is the terrorist regime that seeks the weapons. The regime must go. View quote
Richard Perle
We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington. View quote
Richard Perle
Acknowledge that a more closely integrated Europe is no longer an unqualified American interest. View quote
Richard Perle
We may be so eager to protect the right to dissent that we lose sight of the difference between dissent and subversion. (Richard Perle)
No operational commander should have to assign a soldier a task that could be done as well by a computer, a remote sensor, or an unmanned airplane. View quote
Richard Perle
The jealousy and resentment that animate the terrorists also affect many of our former cold war allies. View quote
Richard Perle
The same European governments that hesitated to confront terrorists were more than prepared to oppose us. View quote
Richard Perle
To stop terrorists before the strike, we must do three things: deny them entry into the country, curtail their freedom of action inside the country, and deprive them of material and moral support from within the country. View quote
Richard Perle