Numbers

Fifth Column

How It's Used

“Darius not only intended, eventually, to conquer European Greece, but to soften up the city-states beforehand by fifth-column infiltration and, worse, by applying simple economic pressure where it would hurt most.”

"No president should ever claim the power to grab anyone, anywhere, at any time, and lock him up forever, with no semblance of due process, simply by labeling him an enemy combatant. And no court should uphold Bush's claim. The government does make mistakes. Lots of them. And it sometimes lies, as in 1942, when it grossly exaggerated the scanty evidence that Japanese-Americans would act as a fifth column to justify interning 110,000 of them."

“'This candidacy is not going to get many Democratic Party votes,' Nader admitted—or lamented, or promised (it was hard to tell which)—at a press conference the next day. He noted that he faces 'overwhelming opposition by the liberal intelligentsia,' and added, 'I think this may be the only candidacy in our memory that is opposed overwhelmingly by people who agree with us on the issues.' His strategy, therefore, is to get votes from people who disagree with him on the issues—i.e., Republicans who, he suggested, will support him because they don’t like the Bush deficits. Also, he argued, he will help Democrats win congressional seats. Also, his candidacy will constitute 'another front' against Bush. A fifth column is more like it."

"Mir Hussein Moussavi, the leading reformist presidential candidate, has advocated a more conciliatory approach to America. But his political legitimacy comes from his revolutionary credentials for helping overthrow an American-backed shah — a history that today helps protect protesters against accusations of being an American 'fifth column.'”

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