“An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.”
War is the failure of every other option. These quotes do not glorify conflict — they examine its causes, costs, and consequences through the eyes of soldiers, leaders, pacifists, and survivors who understand what is really at stake.
“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.”
“An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.”
“Watergate enabled the Democrats to cut off all aid to South Vietnam and ensure American defeat in a war their party entered and had effectively lost, before Nixon salvaged a non-Communist South Vietnam while effecting a complete American withdrawal.”
“I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty.”
“War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.”
“The war on drugs is wrong, both tactically and morally. It assumes that people are too stupid, too reckless, and too irresponsible to decide whether and under what conditions to consume drugs. The war on drugs is morally bankrupt.”
“Secret operations are essential in war upon them the army relies to make its every move.”
“Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.”
“We managed to put together a compilation that had some creativity to it. In the meantime I was listening to the free radio stations and I noticed that during their war coverage they were playing these songs born out of the Vietnam War that were all critical of the soldiers.”
“The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads in the Civil War and justified it.”
“Let us not be deceived we are today in the midst of a cold war.”
“It is not only the living who are killed in war.”
“War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.”
“My grandfather was a general in the Nationalist Chinese Air Force during World War II, and I grew up hearing the pilot stories and seeing pictures of him in uniform.”
“Today we know that World War II began not in 1939 or 1941 but in the 1920's and 1930's when those who should have known better persuaded themselves that they were not their brother's keeper.”
“The Berlin Wall wasn't the only barrier to fall after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Traditional barriers to the flow of money, trade, people and ideas also fell.”