#humanitarian

I refer to calls for humanitarian intervention in the affairs of another state - a new idea, this - even when they are made under the pretext of defending human rights and freedoms. ↗

— Boris Yeltsin

#another #calls #defending #even #freedoms

That war [Bosnian war] in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstiutution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent - or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought - destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position - leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that - like Chomsky - looked ridiculous. So now I was interested. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#bosnia-and-herzegovina #bosnian-war #ethnic-cleansing #genocide #humanitarian-intervention

The most wonderful study of mankind is man. Relieving human suffering and diffusing universal knowledge is humanitarian. ↗

— Daniel D. Palmer

#human suffering #humanitarian #knowledge #man #mankind

I'm not a do-gooder. It embarrassed me to be classified as a humanitarian. I simply take part in activities that I believe in. ↗

— Gregory Peck

#believe #classified #embarrassed #humanitarian #i

Bono is my inspiration - not only as a rock star but as a humanitarian. We aren't just put on this earth to sell records. Maybe it's because of my upbringing, but I do consider myself a moral guy. ↗

— Jesse McCartney

#consider #earth #guy #humanitarian #i

There is a humanitarian impulse that one aspires to and there are days when one doesn't do it very well. ↗

— Ralph Fiennes

#days #humanitarian #impulse #very #well

I will never be able to go back to Sweden without knowing inside myself that I'd done all a man could do to save as many Jews as possible ↗

— Raoul Wallenberg

#humanitarianism #the-holocaust #world-war-ii #courage

Camus and Henry waved to me from that muddy truck. They both wanted me to get over myself. So, this was me, getting over myself. And it was about time. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#dating #existentialism #glass-girl #henry-whitmire #humanitarian

Behind tranquillity lies conquered unhappiness. ↗

— J. William T. Youngs

#humanitarian #politics #women-s-rights #life

Life is short. Life is uncertain. But we know that we have today. And we have each other. I believe that for each of us, there is a place on the frontlines. ↗

— Eric Greitens

#humanitarianism #mantra #morals #peace #education