Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich. ~Sir Peter Ustinov

India is a spiritual destination. It forces one to reflect. It has awakened my latent activism. The worst and the best, the poorest and the richest, the ugliest and the most beautiful sides of humanity co-exist together here. If you can’t tell already, I can’t help but wax philosophical and maybe share something I’m learning along the way. These posts may be idealistic, but it’s what I’ve been thinking about lately.
I’m such a hippie.
Well, not the drug-using hallucinating part. But the anti-war part. When the Iraq war was announced, in all its patriotic fervor, I shared with my family and friends that we were making a mistake. I was hardly prophetic. War has been denounced throughout time as being one of the least effective ways to solve the world’s problems. I wish that I had been more outspoken, just for the sake of my conscience now.

  I guess every generation is doomed to fight its war...suffer the loss of the same old illusions, and learn the same old lessons on its own. ~Phillip Caputo

I am publishing this in the hope that I can communicate that we must learn to communicate with our so called radical Muslim brothers and sisters: using force with them will not convince them to stop using force with us.

Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it….
To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.
~Noam Chomsky

If these quotes inspire you at all, think about getting involved. I found this excellent organization online: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/index.php It has ways to protest and to encourage our leaders to bring our troops home.
I share this because…

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
~Margaret Mead

One reason the United States finds itself at the edge of a foreign policy disaster is its underinformed citizenry, a key weakness in democracy.
~Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke
About the quote: from "America Alone"

And

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.
~Hugo Black, Supreme Court Justice

So many of these quotes were said/written decades and centuries ago, and yet history continues to repeat itself.
I really hope some of these quotes ring true to you. I think every single one of these is incredibly insightful, except for the ones made by George W. Those were added for comic effect.

‘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 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!'
~Rhett Butler, Gone With the Wind

Most of the miseries of the world were caused by wars and when the wars are over, no one ever knew what they were about.
~Ashley Wilkes, Gone With the Wind

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.
~Abraham Lincoln

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
~Agatha Christie

When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid, it can't last long." But though a war may be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting.
~Albert Camus

Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
~Albert Einstein

What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.
~Aldous Huxley

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.
~Benjamin Harrison, US President
About the quote: from an 1888 address to Congress

The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.
~Brendan Behan, author

War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals.
~Charles Evans Hughes, Supreme Court Justice

The truth is that neither British nor American imperialism was or is idealistic. It has always been driven by economic or strategic interests.
~Charley Reese

Imperialism is an institution under which one nation asserts the right to seize the land or at least to control the government or resources of another people.
~John T. Flynn, journalist

War, n: A time-tested political tactic guaranteed to raise a president’s popularity rating by at least 30 points. It is especially useful during election years and economic downturns.
~Chaz Bufe

War in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics.
~Chris Hedges

After victory, you have more enemies.
~Cicero

All forms of violence, especially war, are totally unacceptable as means to settle disputes between and among nations, groups and persons.
~Dalai Lama

You cannot win a War on Terrorism. It’s like having a war on jealousy.
~David Cross
About the quote: Cross is a comedian, most well known for his roles on the television series "Arrested Development" and "Mr. Show." This quote is from his 2002 comedy album.

War creates peace like hate creates love.
~David L. Wilson

We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.
~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I hate war  as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower
About the quote: from 1953

Together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

(I think he must be my new favorite president)

Compare him with George W.:

If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road.
~George W. Bush

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.
~George W. Bush
About the quote: From a speech at the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development in Wash. DC, 6/18/02.

Our nation is somewhat sad, but we’re angry. There’s a certain level of blood lust, but we won’t let it drive our reaction. We’re steady, clear-eyed and patient, but pretty soon we’ll have to start displaying scalps.
~George W. Bush

Wow. I think that quote just changed my life.

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.
~George W. Bush

Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously--and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.
~George W. Bush
About the quote: from the President's Veteran's Day Speech (11/11/05).

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful...They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
~George W. Bush
About the quote: From remarks by the president at the signing of The Defense Appropriations Act for 2005  (At least he is honest here)

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

I think war is a dangerous place.
~George W. Bush

These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave...I think the world would be better off if we did leave...
~George W. Bush (on Iraqi Insurgency)

Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.
~George W. Bush
About the quote: from a speech on 10/3/03 (LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL how hypocritical can you get)

Oh my gosh. Did we really have this man leading our country for 8 years?

It's quite fun to fight 'em, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling.
~Lt. Gen. James Mattis, USMC
About the quote: Comments from 2/1/05 conference in San Diego, California. Lt. Mattis commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SICK.

The worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.
~Ellen Key

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
About the quote: from "Notes on the Next War," published in Esquire Magazine, 1935.

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army.
~Frederick the Great

With no notice to the American people...this country entered the war...Stranger than the fact was the passive acceptance of it.
~Garet Garrett

Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.
~General Douglas MacArthur

I believe that the entire effort of modern society should be concentrated on the endeavor to outlaw war as a method of the solution of problems between nations.
~General Douglas MacArthur

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency.
~General Douglas MacArthur

Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.
~General Douglas MacArthur
 About the quote: MacArthur was an American army general who lived 1880-1964.

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.
~George Washington

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
~H. L. Mencken

How can you make a war on terror if war itself is terrorism?
~Howard Zinn

It's more humane to cure your enemies than to kill them.
~Hugh Mann

Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: ‘War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.'
~Immanuel Kant

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
~James Madison
About the quote: This quote is from the period he served as a US Congressman (he represented Virginia from 1789-1797).

Even the most piddling life is of momentous consequence to its owner.
~James Wolcott
About the quote: in his article “From Fear to Eternity” in Vanity Fair, March 2005

I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.
~Jim Garrison

Scary to ask ourselves…has this already happened?

Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are for war.
~John Andrew Holmes

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
~John F. Kennedy

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.
~John Lennon

I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private individuals.
~Joseph Heller
(author of Catch-22)

We have to show the American People that war is not patriotic.
~Justin Raimondo

The war on terrorism is akin to the war on drugs…unwinable, unless you kill everyone…or address the root causes.
~K. W. Ibrahim

The greatest protection against war is a well educated populace.
~L.L. Castetter

Wars are inevitable... as long as we believe that wars are inevitable. The moment we don't believe it anymore it is not inevitable.
~Lydia Sicher

It takes more courage to get out of a war than it does to get into one.
~Mark Couturier

Why, the Government is merely...a temporary servant...Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
~Mark Twain

     

Is it not a strange blindness on our part to teach publicly the techniques of warfare and to reward with medals those who prove to be the most adroit killers?
~Marquis de Sade

There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism.
~Noam Chomsky
About the quote: from his book "Necessary Illusions" (p. 270)

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.
~Pentagon Official (unnamed )
About the quote: This quote was from a Pentagon Official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War.

Power is usurped from the people, first by implementing fear, then it is maintained by slandering as 'unpatriotic' those who refuse submission.
~Ramman Kenoun

The occupation and robbery of a nation occurs under the illusion of freeing its citizens from brutal oppression.
~Ramman Kenoun

When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie.
~Robert Higgs

There were no international terrorists in Iraq until we went in. It was we who gave the perfect conditions in which Al Qaeda could thrive.
~Robin Cook
About the quote: Cook is Britain's former foreign secretary. He resigned from the British Cabinet over the Iraq War.

Terror is a tactic. We can not wage "war" against a tactic.
~Ron Paul

War--after all, what is it that the people get? Why--widows, taxes, wooden legs and debt.
~Samuel B. Pettengill

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.
~Thomas Jefferson

If you kill one person you are a murderer. If you kill ten people you are a monster. If you kill ten thousand you are a national hero.
~Vassilis Epaminondou

If [America] becomes militant, it will be because its people choose to become such; it will be because they think that war and warlikeness are desirable.
~William Graham Sumner
About the quote: from 1903

The greatest crime since World War II has been US foreign policy.
~William Ramsey Clark
About the quote: William Ramsey Clark was US Attorney General under Lyndon B. Johnson

And finally…I don’t normally like to combine the gospel and politics. But this isn’t something you hear preached over the pulpit much, yet I believe it is fundamental to what our religion stands for. So I close with this quote from a General Conference in 1942:

The Lord is a Lord of peace. He has said to us in this dispensation:
“Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace . . . ” (D&C 98:16) Thus the Church is and must be against war. The Church itself cannot wage war, unless and until the Lord shall issue new commands. It cannot regard war as a righteous means of settling international disputes; these should and could be settled—the nations agreeing—by peaceful negotiation and adjustment.
A message from the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and David O. McKay), delivered in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah, Monday, April 6, 1942, during the closing session of the 112th Annual General Conference of the Church.
http://www.latterdayconservative.com/articles/j-reuben-clark-jr/war-first-presidency