---

---

“Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one”

John Lennon, Imagine

---

“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt.

He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord

would surely suffice.

This disgrace to civilization

should be done away with at once.

Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is;

I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action!

It is my conviction that killing

under the cloak of war is nothing

but an act of murder.”

Albert Einstein

---

“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”

George Orwell, “1984”

---

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Albert Einstein

---

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Plato

---

“The supreme art of war is to subdue         the enemy without fighting.”

Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”

---

Today the most civilized countries of the world spend a maximum of their income on war and a minimum on education.

The twenty-first century will

reverse this order.

It will be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die on the field of battle.

The discovery of a new scientific truth

will be more important than the

squabbles of diplomats.

Even the newspapers of our own

day are beginning to treat scientific discoveries and the creation of fresh philosophical concepts as news.

The newspapers of the twenty-first century will give a mere ‘stick’ in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis.

Progress along such lines will be impossible while nations persist in the savage

practice of killing each other off.

I inherited from my father, an erudite

man who labored hard for peace,

an ineradicable hatred of war.

Nikola Tesla

---

“Older men declare war.

But it is youth that must fight and die.”

Herbert Hoover

---

“War does not determine who is right –   only who is left.”

Anonymous

---

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are

cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not

spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers,

the genius of its scientists,

the hopes of its children.

This is not a way of life at all

in any true sense.

Under the clouds of war,

it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

---

“You can have peace.

Or you can have freedom.

Don’t ever count on having both at once.”

Robert A. Heinlein

---

“War is over … If you want it.”

John Lennon

---

“How is it possible to have a civil war?”

George Carlin

---

“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”

Aristotle

---

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.

But in modern war, there is nothing

sweet nor fitting in your dying.

You will die like a dog

for no good reason.”

Ernest Hemingway

---

“In times of war, the law falls silent.”

“Silent enim leges inter arma“

Marcus Tullius Cicero

---

“The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.”

Carl Sagan

---

“The human race is unimportant.

It is the self that must not be betrayed.”

“I suppose one could say that

Hitler didn’t betray his self.”

“You are right.

He did not.

But millions of Germans

did betray their selves.

That was the tragedy.

Not that one man had

the courage to be evil.

But that millions had not

the courage to be good.”

John Fowles, “The Magus”

---

“Fighting for peace, is like f***ing for chastity.”

Stephen King, “Hearts in Atlantis”

---

“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”

George McGovern

---

“Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist.

This is elementary common sense.

If you hamper the war effort of one side,

you automatically help out

that of the other.

Nor is there any real way

of remaining outside

such a war as the present one.

In practice, ‘he that is not with me

is against me’.”

George Orwell

---

“The essential act of war is destruction,

not necessarily of human lives,

but of the products of human labour.

War is a way of shattering to pieces,

or pouring into the stratosphere,

or sinking in the depths of the sea,

materials which might otherwise

be used to make the masses

too comfortable, and hence,

in the long run, too intelligent.”

George Orwell, “1984”

---

“Mankind must put an end to war – or war will put an end to mankind.”

[Address before the United Nations, September 25 1961]

John F. Kennedy

---

“Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”

Henry Kissinger

---

“In War: Resolution,
In Defeat: Defiance,
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Good Will.”

Winston S. Churchill, “The Second World War”

---

“this is the 21st century and we need

to redefine r/evolution.

this planet needs a people’s r/evolution.

a humanist r/evolution.

r/evolution is not about bloodshed or about going to the mountains and fighting.

we will fight if we are forced to

but the fundamental goal of

r/evolution must be peace.

we need a r/evolution of the mind.

we need a r/evolution of the heart.

we need a r/evolution of the spirit.

the power of the people is stronger

than any weapon.

a people’s r/evolution can’t be stopped.

we need to be weapons

of mass construction.

weapons of mass love.

it’s not enough just to change the system.

we need to change ourselves.

we have got to make this world

user friendly. user friendly.

are you ready to sacrifice

to end world hunger.

to sacrifice to end colonialism.

to end neo-colonialism.

to end racism.

to end sexism.

r/evolution means the end of exploitation.

r/evolution means respecting

people from other cultures.

r/evolution is creative.

r/evolution means treating your

mate as a friend and an equal.

r/evolution is sexy.

r/evolution means respecting and

learning from your children.

r/evolution is beautiful.

r/evolution means protecting

the people.

the plants. the animals. the air. the water.

r/evolution means saving this planet.

r/evolution is love.”

Assata Shakur

---

“After all, no one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons.”

Herodotus

---

“Let my country die for me.”

James Joyce, “Ulysses”

---

“If we really saw war,

what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be impossible to embrace the myth of war.

If we had to stand over the mangled corpses of schoolchildren killed in Afghanistan and listen to the wails of their parents, we would not be able to repeat clichés we use to justify war.

This is why war is carefully sanitized.

This is why we are given war’s perverse and dark thrill but are spared from seeing war’s consequences.

The mythic visions of war keep it heroic and entertaining…

The wounded, the crippled, and the dead are, in this great charade, swiftly carted offstage.

They are war’s refuse.

We do not see them.

We do not hear them.

They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the edges of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled.

The message they tell is too painful for us to hear.

We prefer to celebrate ourselves and our nation by imbibing the myths of glory, honor, patriotism, and heroism, words that in combat become empty and meaningless.“

Chris Hedges “Death of the Liberal Class”

---

“The ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illness, poverty or hunger.”

Fidel Castro

---

“For the whole earth is the tomb

of famous men; not only are they commemorated by columns

and inscriptions in their own country,

but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them,

graven not on stone

but in the hearts of men.

Make them your examples, and,

esteeming courage to be freedom and freedom to be happiness,

do not weigh too nicely

the perils of war.”

[Funeral Oration of Pericles]

Thucydides, “History of the Peloponnesian War”

---

“War and drink are the two things

man is never too poor to buy.”

William Faulkner

---

For me, the most ironic token of

[the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon.

It reads:

“We came in peace for all Mankind.”

As the United States was dropping

7 ½ megatons of conventional

explosives on small nations

in Southeast Asia,

we congratulated ourselves on

our humanity.

We would harm no one on a lifeless rock.”

Carl Sagan, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”

---

“This topic brings me to that

worst outcrop of herd life,

the military system, which I abhor…

This plague-spot of civilization ought

to be abolished with all possible speed.

Heroism on command,

senseless violence,

and all the loathsome nonsense that

goes by the name of patriotism —

how passionately I hate them!”

Albert Einstein

---

1. Bangladesh…. In 1971 … Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support

the Pakistani generals in both their

civilian massacre policy in East Bengal

and their armed attack on India

from West Pakistan….

This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt.

Kissinger’s undisclosed reason for the ‘tilt’ was the supposed but never materialised ‘brokerage’ offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China….

Of the new state of Bangladesh,

Kissinger remarked coldly that it

was ‘a basket case’ before turning

his unsolicited expertise elsewhere.

2. Chile…. Kissinger had direct personal knowledge of the CIA’s plan to kidnap

and murder General René Schneider, the head of the Chilean Armed Forces … who refused to countenance military intervention in politics.

In his hatred for the Allende Government, Kissinger even outdid Richard Helms …

who warned him that a coup in such

a stable democracy would

be hard to procure.

The murder of Schneider nonetheless

went ahead, at Kissinger’s urging and

with American financing, just between Allende’s election and his confirmation….

This was one of the relatively few times

that Mr Kissinger (his success in getting people to call him ‘Doctor’ is greater

than that of most PhDs) involved himself

in the assassination of a single named individual rather than the slaughter

of anonymous thousands.

His jocular remark on this occasion—

‘I don’t see why we have to let a country

go Marxist just because its people

are irresponsible’—suggests he may

have been having the best of times….

3. Cyprus…. Kissinger approved of the preparations by Greek Cypriot fascists

for the murder of President Makarios,

and sanctioned the coup which tried

to extend the rule of the Athens junta

(a favoured client of his) to the island.

When despite great waste of life this coup failed in its objective, which was also Kissinger’s, of enforced partition, Kissinger promiscuously switched sides to support

an even bloodier intervention by Turkey.

Thomas Boyatt … went to Kissinger

in advance of the anti-Makarios

putsch and warned him that it

could lead to a civil war.

‘Spare me the civics lecture,’ replied Kissinger, who as you can readily see had an aphorism for all occasions.

4. Kurdistan. Having endorsed the covert policy of supporting a Kurdish revolt

in northern Iraq between 1974 and 1975, with ‘deniable’ assistance also provided

by Israel and the Shah of Iran, Kissinger made it plain to his subordinates that

the Kurds were not to be allowed to win,

but were to be employed for their

nuisance value alone.

They were not to be told that this was

the case, but soon found out when

the Shah and Saddam Hussein composed their differences, and American

aid to Kurdistan was cut off.

Hardened CIA hands went to Kissinger …

for an aid programme for the many thousands of Kurdish refugees

who were thus abruptly created….

The apercu of the day was: ‘foreign policy should not he confused with missionary work.’ Saddam Hussein heartily concurred.

5. East Timor. The day after Kissinger left Djakarta in 1975, the Armed Forces

of Indonesia employed American weapons to invade and subjugate the independent former Portuguese colony of East Timor.

Isaacson gives a figure of 100,000 deaths resulting from the occupation, or one-seventh of the population, and there

are good judges who put this

estimate on the low side.

Kissinger was furious when news of

his own collusion was leaked, because

as well as breaking international law

the Indonesians were also violating

an agreement with the United States….

Monroe Leigh … pointed out this awkward latter fact. Kissinger snapped: ‘The Israelis when they go into Lebanon—when was the last time we protested that?‘

A good question, even if it did not and

does not lie especially well in his mouth.

It goes on and on and on until one

cannot eat enough to vomit enough.”

Christopher Hitchens

---

“At one time I had given much thought

to why men were so very rarely

capable of living for an ideal.

Now I saw that many, no,

all men were capable of dying for one.”

Hermann Hesse, “Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend”

---

“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.”

Howard Zinn

---

All wars are sacred,” he said.

“To those who have to fight them.

If the people who started wars

didn’t make them sacred, who would be

foolish enough to fight?

But, no matter what rallying cries

the orators give to the idiots who fight,

no matter what noble purposes they

assign to wars, there is never but

one reason for a war.

And that is money.

All wars are in reality money squabbles.

But so few people ever realize it.

Their ears are too full of bugles

and drums and the fine words

from stay-at-home orators.

Sometimes the rallying cry is

’save the Tomb of Christ from the Heathen!’

Sometimes it’s ’down with Popery!’

and sometimes ‘Liberty!’

and sometimes

‘Cotton, Slavery and States’ Rights!”

Margaret Mitchell, “Gone with the Wind”

---

“The most dangerous people in the world are not the tiny minority instigating evil acts, but those who do the acts for them.

For example, when the British

invaded India, many Indians accepted

to work for the British to kill off

Indians who resisted their occupation.

So in other words, many Indians were

hired to kill other Indians on behalf

of the enemy for a paycheck.

Today, we have mercenaries in Africa, corporate armies from the western world, and unemployed men throughout the Middle East killing their own people – and people of other nations – for a paycheck.

To act without a conscience,

but for a paycheck,

makes anyone a dangerous animal.

The devil would be powerless

if he couldn’t entice people

to do his work.

So as long as money continues to seduce

the hungry, the hopeless, the broken,

the greedy, and the needy,

there will always be

war between brothers.”

Suzy Kassem

---

“Peace is such hard work.

Harder than war.

It takes way more effort

to forgive than to kill.”

Rae Carson, “The Bitter Kingdom” (Fire and Thorns, #3)

---

“An unjust law is itself a species of violence.

Arrest for its breach is more so.

Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence.

This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.”

Mahatma Gandhi, “Non-violence in Peace and War” 1942-1949

---

“Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another.”

Sigmund Freud

---

“In war,

the strong make slaves of the weak,

and in peace,

the rich makes slaves of the poor.”

Oscar Wilde

---

“So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one’s fatherland

is to wish evil to one’s neighbors.

The citizen of the universe would be

the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.”

Voltaire, “Philosophical Dictionary”

---

“A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern,

scientific war must necessarily

cease to be democratic.

No country can be really well

prepared for modern war unless

it is governed by a tyrant,

at the head of a highly trained

and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.”

Aldous Huxley, “Ends and Means”

---

“War may sometimes be a necessary evil.

But no matter how necessary,

it is always an evil, never a good.

We will not learn to live together in peace

by killing each other’s children.”

Jimmy Carter, “The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture”

---

“The most disadvantageous peace

is better than the most just war.”

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, “Adagia. Lateinisch / Deutsch”

---

“I prefer the most unfair peace

to the most righteous war.”

Cicero

---

“War is not the answer,

for only love can conquer hate.”

Marvin Gaye

---

“A weapon does not decide

whether or not to kill.

A weapon is a manifestation of a decision that has already been made.”

Steven Galloway, “The Cellist of Sarajevo”

---

“There has never been a just [war],

never an honorable one —

on the part of the instigator of the war.

I can see a million years ahead,

and this rule will never change

in so many as half a dozen instances.

The loud little handful — as usual —

will shout for the war.

The pulpit will–warily and cautiously–object–at first;

the great, big, dull bulk of the nation

will rub its sleepy eyes and try to

make out why there should be a war,

and will say, earnestly and indignantly,

‘It is unjust and dishonorable,

and there is no necessity for it.

‘ Then the handful will shout louder.

A few fair men on the other side will

argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform,

and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as earlier–but do not dare say so.

And now the whole nation–pulpit and all–will take up the war-cry, and shout

itself hoarse, and mob any honest man

who ventures to open his mouth;

and presently such mouths

will cease to open.

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities,

and will diligently study them, and refuse

to examine any refutations of them;

and thus he will by and by convince

himself the war is just,

and will thank God

for the better sleep he enjoys

after this process of

grotesque self-deception.”

Mark Twain, “The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories”

---

“We often think of peace

as the absence of war,

that if powerful countries

would reduce their weapon arsenals,

we could have peace.

But if we look deeply into the weapons,

we see our own minds – our own

prejudices, fears and ignorance.

Even if we transport all the bombs

to the moon, the roots of war

and the roots of bombs are still there,

in our hearts and minds,

and sooner or later we will

make new bombs.

To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts

of men and women.

To prepare for war,

to give millions of men and women

the opportunity to practice killing

day and night in their hearts,

is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, “Living Buddha, Living Christ”

---

“There are seasons of our lives when nothing seems to be happening, when no smoke betrays a burned town or homestead and few tears are shed for the newly dead.

I have learned not to trust those times, because if the world is at peace then it means someone is planning war.”

Bernard Cornwell, “Death of Kings” (The Saxon Stories, #6)

---

“That there are men in all countries

who get their living by war,

and by keeping up the quarrels

of Nations is as shocking as it is true…”

Thomas Paine

---

“The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps

and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees,

except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don’t mind admitting it.

They worship money and power and death.

Their ideal solution to all the

nation’s problems would be

another 100 Year War.”

Hunter S. Thompson, “Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century”