Quotations regarding the Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq "We are in the process of destroying an entire society, it is as simple and as terrifying as that." --DENNIS HALIDAY - Former UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator to Iraq "How long should the innocent civilian population of Iraq be exposed to such punishments" --HANS VON SPONECK Former UN Hamanitarian Co-ordinator to Iraq and UN Secretary General "In fifty years, the next generation will ask: 'What were you doing when the children of Iraq were dying?'" --Mairead Corrigan Maquire, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny· In war, then as in peace, assert the freedom of speech and of the press. Cling to this as the bulwark of all our rights and privileges. --- William Ellery Channing "War is an instrument entirely insufficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses." --Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) A free press is the parent of much good in the state. But even a licentious press is far less evil than a press that is enslaved. --- Charles Caleb Colton Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding --- Einstein In time of war, the loudest patriots are the greatest profiteers. --- August Bebel (1870- at the Reichstag) Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. --- Guy De Maupassant Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. --- Aldous Huxley To make ideas effective, we must be able to fire them off. We must put them into action..."I will not cease from mental fight," Blake wrote. Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. The current flows fast and furious. It issues a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians. Every day they tell us we are a free people fighting to defend freedom. That is the current that has whirled the young airman into the sky and keeps him circulating there among the clouds. Down here, with a roof to cover us and a gas mask handy, it is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth. -- Virginia Woolf: New Republic, Oct. 21 1940 Governments rule in the name of the people, and in the name of the people the most incredible and fantastic injustices are imposed. ---Dennis Fahey I am a man of peace. God knows how I love peace. But I hope I shall never be such a coward as to mistake oppression for peace. ---Lajos Kossuth Patriotism is the passion of fools and the most foolish of passions. ---Arthur Schopenhauer (The American Freeman) Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. ---Samuel Johnson April 7, 1775 Fear is the mother of morality. ---Friedrich Nietzsche (The Genealogy of Morals) Laws can never be enforced unless fear supports them. ---Sophocles (Ajax) "I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in." -- George McGovern "If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies." -- Moshe Dayan "To convince an enemy, convince him that he's wrong Is to win a bloodless battle, where victory is long a simple act of faith, of reason over might To blow up his children will only prove him right." -- Sting "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience·Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring" -- Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950 Nothing is more difficult, and nothing requires more character than to find oneself in open opposition to one's time (and those one loves) and to say loudly: No! --Kurt Tucholsky, Germany, 1934 And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions. --Albert Camus Certified lunatics are shut up because of their proneness to violence when their pretensions are questioned; the uncertified variety are given the control of powerful armies, and can inflict death and disaster upon all sane men within their reach. --Bertrand Russell (1872-1970): Power [1938] ch.16 Nothing is more terrifying than ignorance in action. --Goethe Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 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, 12/18/00 Who cares what you think? (in response to a US citizen trying to express an opinion, after the press had left following a campaign appearance) --George W. Bush, 7/01 "Peace is the only battle worth waging." --- Albert Camus -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind... And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." --anonymous (widely attributed to William Shakespeare, but this appears to be a hoax) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ãIt is the leaders of a country who determine the policy. It is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, a parliament or a communist dictatorship, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.... ãAll you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.ä -- Herman Goering, founder of the German State Secret Police (Gestapo), once-president of the German Legislature (Reichstag), and convicted war criminal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart. I have generally found the gravest and most useful citizens are not the easiest provoked to swell the noise, though they may be punctual at the polls." --Ralph Waldo Emerson "The United States has sowed in the Middle East and in South Asia very poisonous seeds. These seeds are growing now. Some have ripened. Some are ripening. An examination of why they were sown, what has grown, and how they should be reaped is needed. Missiles won't solve the problem." --Eqbal Ahmad FINAL WORDS FROM A FOUNDING FATHER "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war...and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." --James Madison, April 20, 1795 "...[violent revenge] is not the way to go. It will not avenge our son's death. Not in our son's name. Our son died a victim of an ihnuman ideology. Our actions should not serve the same purpose. Let us grieve. Let us reflect and pray. Let us think about a rational response that brings real peace and justice to our world. But let us not as a nation add to the inhumanity of our times." --letter to President George W. Bush, from the parents of Greg Rodriguez, who was killed in the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. "Since the end of the Gulf War, the U.S. Catholic Bishops and Pope John Paul II have repeatedly called for reducing, shaping, and quickly ending the economic sanctions against Iraq that have brought such suffering to the Iraqi people." öArchbishop Harry J. Flynn, Archdiocese of St. Paul / Minneapolis, MN "The problem is that sanctions are most often imposed against regimes that have only their own interests and the retention of power at heart. And since these leaders are still going to have a roof over their heads, food on their table, and power in their hands, sanctions rarely work against them. Saddam was the perfect example." --Secretary of State Colin Powell, My American Journey, 1995 autobiography. "According to other writers, it is the women who last longest in sieges, the young men who soonest fall into that deadly lethargy that precedes actual death. But the account is accurate enough: that is what a siege is like. Moreover, that is what it is meant to be like. When a city is encircled and deprived of food, it is not the expectation of the attackers that the garrison will hold out until individual soldiers... drop dead in the streets. The death of ordinary inhabitants of the city is expected to force the hand of the civilian or military leadership. The goal is surrender; the means is not the defeat of the enemy army, but the fearful spectacle of the civilian dead." --Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, NY: Basic Books, 1977, p. 161. "After WW II most Germans protested that they did not know what went on the heinous Nazi concentration camps...But this claim of ignorance did not absolve them from blame...They raised little objection, most even applauded, when he [Hitler] closed their newspapers and clamped down on free speech. Certainly our leaders are not to be compared with Hitler, but today, because of onerous, unnecessary rules, Americans are not being permitted to see and hear the full story of what their military forces are doing in an action that will reverberate long into the nation's future." --Walter Cronkite (2/25/91) "Is the Christian church going to sleep through another Holocaust?" --Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Detroit "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 not clothed." --President Dwight Eisenhower (April 16, 1953) "They died in silence for humanity had closed its ears to their cry" --Khalil Gibran "The Americans need to start treating the Iraqis like people. And the Iraqis have to find a way of resistance that doesn't lead to reprisals." Dave Pankratz Mennonite Central Committee aid worker back from Iraq (quoted in the Winnipeg Free Press, Dec. 26, 2003). ".violence can never bring peace, and 'putting the sword back in its place' is admitting God's authority, and confirms God's love for us." Rev. Chang-whan Kim (speaking to a over a million people in Seoul, 1987 ) as quoted in the book, Ordeal and Glory The 30-Year History of Yoido Full Gospel Church, Korea "There never was a good war, or a bad peace." Benjamin Franklin "War is the only game in which both sides lose." Walter Scott "War is the blackest villainy of which human nature is capable." Erasmus "If you had seen one day of war, you would pray to God that you would never see another." The Duke of Wellington "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." Ghandi ". I had finally become anti any kind of war for whatever reason." Giles- much beloved (especially by the common soldiers) World War II British cartoonist "I emptied the whole clip into him; then I cried." Vietnam vet ".killing is the worst thing that one man can do to another man.it's the last thing that should happen anywhere." Israeli Lieutenant Gilli from the book Soldiers by Keegan, et al. "If you want to take revenge on somebody, you better dig two graves." Chinese proverb "If you have to resort to force, you have already lost." Tokugawa. Japanese Shogun "It is a conviction that war is not an answer to human conflict any more than cannibalism is to human hunger." Bruce Kent International Peace Bureau President at centenary reception, Berne, 1991 "War is not heroics nor is it pride/ It's a shame to lose all those precious lives./Where's the glory? Never again! War Amps of Canada in their theme song, NEVER AGAIN "As far as I am concerned, war itself is immoral." Omar Bradley, U.S. five star general, known as the "GI's general". "The time has now come for man's intellect to win out over the brutality, the insanity of war." Linus Pauling, Nobel Peace Prize recipient in his book No More War "Does the commandment 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' mean nothing to us? Are we to interpret it as meaning "Thou shalt not kill except on the grand scale,' or 'Thou shalt not kill except when the national leaders say to do so'?" Linus Pauling "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who are hungry and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed." Dwight D. Eisenhower "There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword." General Grant (All wars could cease if the above quote, alone, was listened to. As Winston Churchill put it, "To jaw, jaw, is better than to war, war.) "The more I study the history of the world the more I am convinced of the inability of brute force to create anything durable." Napolean, on St. Helena "I have known war as few men now living know it. Its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes." General Douglas MacArthur "Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them must share in the guilt for the dead." General Omar Bradley "Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind." President John F. Kennedy "Today every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or madness." John F. Kennedy "More than guided missiles, all the world needs guided men." Poet Helen Steiner Rice "Old soldiers never die, but ninety-nine soldiers in a hundred are pitiably young, and they die in their millions, without beginning to guess why it is that life asks that of them. John Keegen, et al. in their book, Soldiers "Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die." Herbert Hoover "The pioneers of a warless world are the young men who refuse military service." Albert Einstein "You can't say that civilizations don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a different way." Will Rogers ( Winnipeg Free Press, March 6, 2004) "I'm sick and tired of old men dreaming up wars in which young men do the dying." George McGovern during his 1972 presidential campaign "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." Dwight D. Eisenhower, from his farewell address "War is not only the denial of Christianity, but of all the most sacred things of life." Major General John O'Ryan. "War exhibits principally two characteristics that mark it as essentially devilish, namely murder and deception." Phillip Mauro "The churches have sacrificed the teaching of Jesus to exigencies of the state." Dr. W.E. Orchard "Shall Christians assist the prince of hell, who was a murderer from the beg inning, by telling the world of the benefits or the need of war?" John Wesley "War is as contrary to the spirit of Christianity as murder." Dr. Adam Clark "God is forgotten in war; every principle of Christianity is trampled upon." Sidney Smith ". The demonic character of the sinful will has its greatest triumph in offering a diabolical 'yes' to blood and violence. People and armies destroy each other in mutual murder." Ethelbert Stauffer, German theologian "I find it strange that the last place I can really quote Jesus these days is in American churches. They don't want to hear `overcome evil with good.' They don't want to hear `those who live by the sword die by the sword.' They don't want to hear `if your enemy hurts you, do good, feed, clothe, minister to him.' They don't want to hear `blessed are the merciful.' They don't want to hear `love your enemies.'" Tony Campolo, on the war effort, Christian Week Nov. 27, 2001 "Love, not deadly force, is the Christian's weapon." John D. Roth "We Christians teach against the great vices of the world; but sad to say, we almost overlook the greatest of vices, war." Theodore Epp ".confessing the other person's sins leads to war, while confessing one's own, leads to peace." Samuel M. Shoemaker "I..call to everyone, Christians and the followers of other religions, to work together to build a world without violence, a world that loves life and grows in justice and solidarity." Pope John Paul II, Kazakhstan, Sept. 2001 "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." the Apostle Paul "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Jesus "Thou shalt not kill." God ..................................... The poem, below, was written by Nicholas Peters just after the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Peters, who lived for some years at Grande Pointe, Manitoba, Canada, had emigrated from Russia in 1925 as a boy of 10 and had seen firsthand the horrors of revolution and war in his native country. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942 and trained as a flying officer. He died on the night of March 7-8, 1945 after his aircraft was hit by enemy fire. The poem is from a collection of Peters' work entitled Another Morn. The Peters family has given permission to have the poem published. THE WARS WE MAKE I gaze into the world with sorrowing eyes And see the wide-abounding fruits of hate. We fight, we say, for peace, and find The wars we make To be a spring of hate and source of future wars. Is there no peace for man? No hope that this accursed flow Of blood may cease? Is this our destiny: to kill and maim For peace? Or is this `peace' we strive to gain A thin unholy masquerade Which, when our pride, our greed, our gain is touched too far, Is shed, and stands uncovered what we are? Show me your light, O God That I may fight for peace with peace And not with war; To prove my love with love, And hate no more! Author: Nicholas Peters Some ten years ago, my wife and I stood beside Peters' grave in an Allied war cemetery in Germany, with a huge sword on a cross backdrop, and grieved for him and the countless others buried there "row on row" in those graveyards of Europe. Quietly they lie now, sometimes friend and foe close together with so much of life still waiting to be lived. Most of the last verse of Peters' poem is inscribed on his tombstone with "me" and "I" changed to "US" and "WE". SHOW US YOUR LIGHT, O GOD, THAT WE MAY FIGHT FOR PEACE WITH PEACE AND NOT WITH WAR. I dream of the day when all of us, governments included, will listen to this soldier's plea. ........................................ Farley Mowat, now a naturalist, a writer, and a former Canadian soldier who participated in the carnage of the Second World War, writes as follows in his book AND NO BIRDS SANG: "Let it be said then that I wrote this book in the absolute conviction that there never has been, nor ever can be a "good" or worthwhile war. So awful that through three decades I kept the deeper agonies of it wrapped in the cotton-wool of protective forgetfulness. ...but could not, because the Old Lie--temporarily discredited by the Vietnam debacle--is once more gaining credence; a whisper which soon may become another strident shout urging us on to mayhem. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!* Spawned in Hell long before Homer sanctified it, and goading men to madness and destruction ever since, that Old Lie has to be put down! (McClelland et al,Toronto, 1979, p. 195-196). (*It is sweet and seemly to die for one's country.) ......................................... Pierre Berton, a Canadian soldier, an officer, and also a renowned author, describes the battle of Vimy Ridge in gruesome detail in his book, Vimy. In conclusion he asks, "Was it worth it?" The battle had cost thousands of limbs, eyes, and lives on both sides. Even relatives had been pitted against each other in this terrible slaughter and, much after the war, as an old German soldier and the son of a Canadian soldier talk about this they agree that the war had been "a terrible waste of human life brought on by greedy people and tolerated for too long by silent majorities." To the question, "Was it worth it?" the answer is very clear- "No." (McClelland et al, Toronto, 1986, p. 307-308}. ....................................... The following poem was written by a woman who walked over 25 000 miles for peace in the United States and Canada and who preferred to be simply called "Peace Pilgrim". The poem may be published for peaceful purposes. GREED (A story of Men or Nations) There were two men who had a dispute Over a boundary line. One said, "This land belongs to me!" The other said, "It is mine!" So they fought and fought like two wild beasts, And oh, the blood that was shed. Till one of the men was crippled for life And the other man was dead! Then the cripple lived in misery, And he cried in his despair, "What fools we were so greedy to be! There was plenty for both to share!" Peace Pilgrim STATEMENTS OF CONSCIENCE Statement on Iraq U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Disarm Iraq Without War [Religious leaders in the U.S. and U.K.] Not In Our Name [notinourname.net] Statement of Conscience: A Feminist Vision For Peace [Feminist Peace Network]

Center on Conscience & War
To Defend and extend the Rights of Conscientious Objectors to War and Violence

The Witness of U.S. Lutherans on Peace, War, and Conscience A Study Paper of the Lutheran Council in the USA