When it comes to terrorism, governments seem to suffer from a collective amnesia. All of our historical experience tells us that there can be no purely military solution to a political problem, and yet every time we confront a new terrorist group, we begin by insisting we will never talk to them.
Interpretation
Governments often ignore historical lessons about terrorism, believing military action alone can solve political issues.
In this quote, Jonathan Powell highlights the recurring cycle of governments addressing terrorist threats with military force rather than diplomatic solutions. He emphasizes that history shows us that military efforts alone do not resolve the underlying political issues that fuel terrorism, yet governments repeatedly approach new terrorist groups with the same ineffective mindset, avoiding dialogue and negotiation.
In practice
In a debate about foreign policy approaches to terrorism.
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country...but the profits...skyrocket.
I wish I had known when I was in the White House what I know now about the Third World.
Every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term a right to employ all the means requisite . . . to the attainment of the ends of such power.
Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don't need to imagine it. It's called the United States of America.
No man should have a political office because he wants a job.
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