Edward Kennedy War Quotations

There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud.

My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor stated, even a state of war is not a blank check for a president to do whatever he wants.

Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized – the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old....When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.

Historians will come to their own judgments about President Kennedy. Here is how I choose to remember him. He was an heir to wealth who felt the anguish of the poor. He was an orator of excellence who spoke for the voiceless. He was a son of Harvard who reached out to the sons and daughters of Appalachia. He was a man of special grace who had a special care for the retarded and handicapped. He was a hero of war who fought hardest for peace. He said and proved in word and deed that one man can make a difference.

Violence is an admission that one's ideas and goals cannot prevail on their own merits.

I have come here today to express my view that America should not go to war against Iraq unless and until other reasonable alternatives are exhausted,

Instead of providing open and honest answers about how we will achieve success in Iraq and allow our troops to begin to come home, ... the president reverted to the same manipulation of facts to justify a war we never should have fought.

I continue to be convinced that this is the wrong war at the wrong time, ... The threat from Iraq is not imminent and it will distract America from the two more immediate threats to our security: the clear and present danger of terrorism and the crisis with North Korea.