“We have to make a choice. Either we open our doors to these people and take them in. Or we torpedo every one of their boats, at night, when it’s too dark to see their faces as we kill them. Then we get out as fast as we can, before we’re tempted to save the survivors, and we put a bullet through our brain. Quick and clean. Mission accomplished.”
“The pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima died quietly in his bed at eighty-three.”
“If you publicly and solemnly deny the refugees permission to land, then, the minute they set foot on our shores, unarmed or not, they’ll be committing an act of aggression. At least, that’s how the army will see it. The enemy will change from a hypothesis to a fact. On the water he’s on his own, we can’t touch him. But once he lands, he’ll have gone too far.”
