quote needed

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:16 PM 11/1/00 -0500, you wrote:
>A (non-American) friend writes...
>
>>Can you think of a quote, by a United States President (rooseveldt, 
>>or someone)
>>that I can use to keep away the dogs. I am delivering a lecture on 
>>Globalisation
>>next week[...]
>>
>>However, my hosts and other speakers are pretty conservative and I am
cloaking
>>my opening argument in a kind of "well you might not like what I am about to
>>say, but I represent the right to voice
>>unconventional/unorthodox/South/left/dissident views" then I want to asy, as
>>XXXXXX said: something that will shut them up and get them to listen. I find
>>that mainstream USians are easily placated when you use one of theirs as
>>justification.
>
>Can anyone help out?
>
>Doug

My suggestion:  Try to tell that understanding an issue often requires
breaking the conventional wisdom and taking seriously the words of the
adversaries and critics, then follow with the following quote by 
General George Lee Butler, the former commander of the US Strategic
Command: "The United States abandoned the difficult intellectual work of
trying to understand the motivation of its enemies in favor of simple
demonization of them." (interview in The Nation, February 2/9, 1998, p. 54).

wojtek