Michael Totten famous quotes

Iraq is a strange country. Where else can American civilians like me be protected by terrorist human shields?
-- Michael Totten

#Country #Iraq #Shields

If Israel sent the IDF three kilometers into Lebanon and started digging trenches and building bunkers it would make news all over the world. But Syria does it and everyone shrugs. Hardly anyone even knows it happened at all.
-- Michael Totten

#Israel #Doe #Digging

There is something very consistent about governance in the Arab world. Among the Arab countries today in which there is a modicum of internal stability, each is controlled by an Arafat-type figure - an anti-democratic strongman who is able to crush all challenges to his authority. Likewise, among those Arab countries that aren't ruled by a despot, the political dynamic is also consistent: In Lebanon, Iraq, and now Gaza, sectarian violence is the dominant form of political expression.
-- Michael Totten

#Crush #Country #Expression

I'm a moderate and a centrist. That means I get flak from both sides. The upside is that I can vote for either party whenever I feel like it without any sense of obligation or betrayal.
-- Michael Totten

#Betrayal #Party #Mean

Just a few thousand Hezbollah fighters set two countries on fire all by themselves. Don't discount what bloody mayhem and hell a few thousand armed Druze, Christians, and Sunni can do if they decide to go hunting Shia in revenge for destroying their country.
-- Michael Totten

#Christian #Country #Revenge

Some right-wingers, especially those who think of the entire Islamic religion as a totalitarian death cult, would likewise get a crash-course in reality if they ever bothered to hang out in Iraq and meet actual Muslims.
-- Michael Totten

#Islamic #Reality #Thinking

Iraqi Kurds, out of desperate necessity, have forged one of the most watchful and vigilant anti-terrorist communities in the world. Terrorists from elsewhere just can't operate in that kind of environment. Al Qaeda members who do manage to infiltrate are hunted down like rats. This conservative Muslim society did a better job protecting me from Islamist killers than the U.S. military could do in the Green Zone in Baghdad.
-- Michael Totten

#Jobs #Military #Community

A country scratching a lazy irritation at sagging doorjambs and late trains, whose greatest attribute is a collective, smelly tolerance, where a chap will put up with almost everything, which means he won't care about anything enough to get out of a chair.A country of public insouciance and private, grubby guilt, where you can believe anything as long as you don't believe it too fervently. A country where the highest aspiration is for a quiet life.

God requires no person to spend his or her life reiterating the gospel to people who will not receive it. He wants everyone to have an opportunity to hear. Then He would have us move on to other areas. The mistake of the church has been that she sits down to convert all the people in one country to the neglect of the great masses who have never had the chance to hear the gospel - not even once!

I am a big admirer of Sachin and his personality. He is a source of inspiration for the country and just looking at his photographs gives a lot of positive vibes.

Josh: So, Toby, it’s election night. What do you say about a country that goes out of its way to protect even those citizens that try to destroy it? Toby: God bless America.

The world [is] now seeing might is right.

Every organism requires an environment of friends, partly to shield it from violent changes, and partly to supply it with its wants.

Do not fear so, here is one who would be a blade at your back. A shield across your breast. Here is kin, here is strength to lean upon, to share as you share in need.

Good Humor is the best shield against the darts of satirical raillery

When thing are at it's worse you dig deep and finish your mission or be carried out on your shield.

Your humor is your compass and your shield. You can hone it into a weapon or you can pull its strands out to make your very own cotton-candy blanket. You can’t exist on a diet of humor alone, but you can’t exist on a diet without it, either.