14 Quotes by William Shawcross

It is so basic as to be mundane, but in disaster relief, all the good will in the world can go to hell in a hand basket if the logistics don't work. In Ethiopia at the best of times, the logistics are difficult. It is a huge country - about the same size as Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma combined. It is also a transportation nightmare.

You cannot do justice to the dead. When we talk about doing justice to the dead we are talking about retribution for the harm done to them. But retribution and justice are two different things.

Together they [President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger] pursued ends that frequently had a tenuous link with reality, using means that were not merely disproportionate but counterproductive and untrue to those values they were meant to defend. In fact neither man demonstrated much faith in those values.

The important point was that whatever errors America had made [in Vietnam] "we are so powerful [according to Secretary Kissinger] that Hanoi is simply unable to defeat us militarily" and must therefore eventually be forced to compromise.

Cambodia was not a mistake; it was a crime. The world is diminished by the experience.