killing

I hate it when they say, 'He gave his life for his country.' Nobody gives their life for anything. We steal the lives of these kids. We take it away from them. They don't die for the honor and glory of their country. We kill them."
~Admiral Gene LaRocque

the nationalist

  To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why? ~ W. H. Auden: "Epitaph for an Unknown Soldier"  

Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage-----torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians-----which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side. ...The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. ~ George Orwell  

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundnce of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

what is morally wrong can never be advantageous

We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.
~ George W. Bush UN Speech Sept 2004

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. If today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.'
~ Abraham Lincoln

So let us regard this as settled: what is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

the violence of war

The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded. It is a doctrine alike of the oldest and of the newest philosophy, that man is one, and that you cannot injure any member, without a sympathetic injury to all the members.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1844

I sat there in agony thinking about all that had led me to this private hell. My idealism, my patriotism, my ambition, my plans to be a good intelligence officer to help my country fight the communist scourge - what in the hell had happened? Why did we have to bomb the people we were trying to save? Why were we napalming young children? Why did the CIA, my employer for 16 years, report lies instead of the truth?

I hated my part in the charade of murder and horror. My efforts were contributing to the deaths, to the burning alive of children - especially the children. The photographs of young Vietnamese children burned by napalm destroyed me.
~ Ralph McGehee former CIA intelligence analyst
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher- ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
~ General Smedley Butler. USMC (Ret.)

Until we go through it ourselves, until our people cower in the shelters of New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere while the buildings collapse overhead and burst into flames, and dead bodies hurtle about and, when it is over for the day or the night, emerge in the rubble to find some of their dear ones mangled, their homes gone, their hospitals, churches, schools demolished - only after that gruesome experience will we realize what we are inflicting on the people of Indochina...
~ William Shirer author 1973

Nothing is enough for the person to whom enough is too little.
~ Max Lucado in Grace for the Moment

power

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.
~ James Baldwin Biography - Fiction Writer, Essayist, Social Critic, 1924-1987

... The greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism.
~ Emma Goldman Biography - Anarchist, Feminist, Labor Advocate, 1869-1940

It's amazing how people can get so excited about a rocket to the moon and not give a damn about smog, oil leaks, the devastation of the environment with pesticides, hunger, disease. When the poor share some of the power that the affluent now monopolize, we will give a damn.
~ Cesar Estrada Chavez Biography - Farm Workers' Union Founder, Human Rights Activist

militarism

A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one! ~ Alexander Hamilton

Many people today don’t want honest answers insofar as honest means unpleasant or disturbing, They want a soft answer that turneth away anxiety. ~Louis Kronenberger – (1904-1980)

For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.~ Niccolo Machiavelli – (1469-1527) Italian Statesman and Political Philosopher – Source: Discourses, 1513-1517

Today as never before in their history Americans are enthralled with military power. The global military supremacy that the United States presently enjoys–and is bent on perpetuating–has become central to our national identity. More than America’s matchless material abundance or even the effusions of its pop culture, the nation’s arsenal of high-tech weaponry and the soldiers who employ that arsenal have come to signify who we are and what we stand for.  ~Andrew Bacevich in The New American Militarism