Friday, March 28, 2008

Draft beer, not people

That quote, "Draft Beer, Not People," has been attributed to Bob Dylan. I guess he was an anti-war hippie. What does he know about war. Where are the words about war from the people who know war intimately?

What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world. ~Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864

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, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. ~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution. ~John F. Kennedy

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. ~Otto Von Bismark

It still amazes me to hear people talk about "winning the war." Just this morning in our local paper a reader was commenting that the war had to be won or "They" will be on our doorsteps. He claims that someone smarter than you or I may have had information we're not privy to and that the war is justified. I guess he's talking about George and his band of war mongering friends. The war must be won! I don't think I'm alone in thinking that this war won't be won with military might. Every bullet we fire creates more terrorists.....winning this war in the conventional sense won't happen.......

Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace. ~Charles Sumner