“For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.” ——Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, War Is A Racket, speech delivered in 1933
“It has been for some time a generally received opinion, that a military man is not to inquire whether a war be just or unjust; he is to execute his orders. All princes who are disposed to become tyrants must probably approve of this opinion, and be willing to establish it; but is it not a dangerous one, since, on that principle, if the tyrant commands his army to attack and destroy, not only an unoffending neighbor nation, but even his own subjects, the army is bound to obey? A negro slave, in our colonies, being commanded by his master to rob or murder a neighbor, or do any other immoral act, may refuse, and the magistrate will protect him in his refusal. The slavery then of a soldier is worse than that of a negro!” ——Benjamin Franklin, letter to Benjamin Vaughan, March 14, 1785
“Someday, the news media may get around to re-examining the assumption that killing foreigners in their own country is the best patriotic credential imaginable. Media outlets rarely put a fine point on the fact that McCain had been dropping bombs on civilians.” ——Norman Solomon, Beyond Hero-Worship, CommonDreams.org, August 27, 2004
“The soldier must be so trained that he becomes a mere automaton; he must be so trained that it will destroy his initiative; he must be so trained that he is turned into a machine. The soldier must be forced into the military noose; he must be jacked up; he must be ruled by his superiors with pistol in hand. You cannot conduct war with equals; you cannot have militarism with free born men; you must have slaves, automations, machines, obedient disciplined creatures, who will move, act, shoot and kill at the command of their superiors. That is preparedness, and nothing else.” ——Emma Goldman, Preparedness: The Road to Universal Slaughter
“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
“Where is the indignation about the fact that the United States and Soviet Union have accumulated thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?” ——Norman Cousins
“The era of true peace on earth will not come as long as a tremendous percentage of your taxes goes to educate men in the trades of slaughter.” ——Reginald Wright Kauffman
“A standing army is one of the greatest mischief that can possibly happen.” ——James Madison (1751-1836), US fourth president
“The greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism.” ——Emma Goldman (1869-1940), anarchist, feminist, labor advocate
“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