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" I'm a product of the Kennedy era. Kennedy's Inaugural plus the accident of Dean Rusk brought me into the government. Those were my values. "
Richard Holbrooke
Product
Those
Me
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" Diplomacy is like jazz: endless variations on a theme. "
Richard Holbrooke
Diplomacy
Jazz
Like
" By the way, if you do your job on behalf of your country, you have meetings where you put your position forward strongly, and the other side does the same thing. And I've had plenty of meetings in my career that really were heated, people yelling at each other. "
Richard Holbrooke
People
Meetings
Job
" United Nations peacekeepers are going all over the world spreading AIDS even while they're trying to bring peace. What a supreme irony. "
Richard Holbrooke
World
Peace
Irony
" I still believe in the possibility of the United States, with all its will and all its strength, and I don't just mean military, persevering against any challenge. I still believe in that. "
Richard Holbrooke
Military
Challenge
Strength
" In short, you can't let the deadline define the mission. The mission has to define the duration. "
Richard Holbrooke
Deadline
Short
You
" Our enemy is Al Qaeda and its allies, people who have publicly said they wish to attack the United States again, people who have publicly called on nuclear physicists and engineers to help them gain access to nuclear weapons, which, as the whole world knows, Pakistan has. "
Richard Holbrooke
Help
Enemy
World
" The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed organization. It is valuable to the United States, and the United States is invaluable to it. We need to reform it. "
Richard Holbrooke
Need
Organization
United Nations
" Pakistani politics is complicated, and I think it's not something a foreigner can easily assimilate and understand. "
Richard Holbrooke
Think
Complicated
Politics
" The World War II generation believed the United States could do anything - anything... And Vietnam was a shattering experience for everyone. "
Richard Holbrooke
Experience
Generation
War
" I have worked in every - every Democratic administration since the Kennedy administration, and I know dysfunctionality when I see it. "
Richard Holbrooke
I See
Democratic
Since
" The United States supports the reintegration of people who have fought with the Taliban into Afghan society provided they: one, renounce al Qaeda, two, lay down their arms and renounce violence, and three, participate in the public political life of the country in accordance with the constitution. "
Richard Holbrooke
Constitution
Two
Life
" I think Americans understand that in Afghanistan, unlike in Iraq and Vietnam, we are fighting an enemy allied with the people who attacked us on 9/11. "
Richard Holbrooke
People
Think
Enemy
" Nothing generates more heat in the government than the question of who is chosen to participate in important meetings. "
Richard Holbrooke
Important
Government
Meetings
" A peace deal requires agreements, and you don't make agreements with your friends, you make agreements with your enemies. "
Richard Holbrooke
Friends
Your
Peace
" We should not be surprised that democracy is imperfect even in Western countries. "
Richard Holbrooke
Democracy
Even
Imperfect
" You have to test your hypothesis against other theories. Certainty in the face of complex situations is very dangerous. "
Richard Holbrooke
Test
Certainty
Dangerous
" World War I was not inevitable, as many historians say. It could have been avoided, and it was a diplomatically botched negotiation. "
Richard Holbrooke
Inevitable
Negotiation
Say
" As countries grapple with modernization, people who are left behind tend to hold firmer and firmer to their view of the evil of modernity. "
Richard Holbrooke
View
People
Behind
" If a country denies it has AIDS, that country will inevitably become an even greater victim. "
Richard Holbrooke
AIDS
Will
Become
" The male elites that run most countries are exceedingly uncomfortable with the subject of AIDS because it's a sexually transmitted disease. "
Richard Holbrooke
Run
Uncomfortable
Most
" People in uniform are not sacrosanct. They don't have all the answers. The use of force is a political decision at its core, in terms of its objectives; then the military, as the experts, must be brought in to tell you how to do it. "
Richard Holbrooke
You
Tell
Political
" There's no question that the next generation of terrorists, rather than going for small, little dramas, will go for the big one. They now understand that the way to get the world's attention is not strapping bombs to themselves in a pizza parlour, but to do something so horrific it gets you into the Guinness Book of World Records for terrorism. "
Richard Holbrooke
World
Small
Pizza
" I think history is continuous. It doesn't begin or end on Pearl Harbor Day or the day Lyndon Johnson withdraws from the presidency or on 9/11. You have to learn from the past but not be imprisoned by it. You need to take counsel of history but never be imprisoned by it. "
Richard Holbrooke
End
Day
History
" I'm not a wide-eyed imperialist who wants to see Americans manning outposts all over the world. Not outposts to freedom in the cold war cliche, but islands of stability and seas of ethnic strife. That is not what anyone should feel comfortable seeing Americans doing. "
Richard Holbrooke
Seeing
Freedom
Feel