I offer here for your reflection –without comment, none being needed –some random thoughts on the eve of an announcement of a “surge and acceleration” ever deeper into Iraq.
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Elections have consequences.
President George W. Bush
January 2005
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The war…was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President….When the war began, it was my opinion that all…should…remain silent on that point, at least until the war should be ended. Some leading Democrats…have taken the same view…I cannot be silent.
As to the mode of terminating the war and securing peace, the President is wandering and indefinite. First, it is to be done by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in the vital parts of the enemy’s country; and after apparently talking himself tired on this point, the President drops down into a half-despairing tone and tells us that ‘with a people distracted and divided by contending factions, and a government subject to constant changes by successive revolutions, the continued success of our arms may fail to secure a satisfactory peace.’ Then he suggests the propriety of wheedling the…people…to set up a government from which we can secure a satisfactory peace; telling us that ‘this may become the only means of obtaining such a peace.’ But soon he falls into doubt of this too; and then drops back to the already half-abandoned ground of ‘more vigorous prosecution’…it is a singular omission in this message that it nowhere intimates when the President expects the war to terminate….[The President] is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man. God grant he may be able to show there is not something about his conscience more painful than his mental perplexity.
Congressman Abraham Lincoln
On President Polk’s conduct of the Mexican War
January 12, 1848
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We have invited our clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and to do bandits’ work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not follow; we have debauched America’s honor and blackened her face before the world, but each detail was for the best. We know this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty in Christendom and 90 percent of every legislative body in Christendom, including our Congress and our fifty state legislatures, are members not only of the church but also of the Blessings of Civilization Trust. This world- girdling accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and justice cannot do an unright thing, an unfair thing. It knows what it is about. Give yourself no uneasiness; it is all right.
Mark Twain
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Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don’t want war, neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood.
But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for their lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
Hermann Goering
Nuremberg Trials
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One of the great tragedies of our time is that in our desperate incapacity to cope with the complexities of our world, we oversimplify every issue and reduce it to a neat ideological formula. Doubtless we have to do something in order to grasp things quickly and effectively. But unfortunately this "quick and effective grasp" too often turns out to be no grasp at all, or only a grasp on a shadow. The ideological formulas for which we are willing to tolerate and even provoke the destruction of entire nations may one day reveal themselves to have been the most complete deceptions....The American conscience is troubled by a sense of tragic ambiguity in our professed motives for massive intervention. Yet in the name of such tenuous and questionable motives we continue to bomb, to burn, and to kill because we think we have no alternative, and because we are reduced to a despairing trust in the assurance of "experts" in whom we have no real confidence.
Thomas Merton
On Vietnam
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During the last three years U.S. armed forces have been used repeatedly to defend our interests and achieve our political objectives....The reason for our success is that in every instance we have carefully matched the use of military force to our political objectives. President Bush, more than any other recent President, understands the proper use of military force. In every instance, he has made sure that the objective was clear and that we knew what we were getting into. We owe it to the men and women who go in harm's way to make sure that their lives are not squandered for unclear purposes.
....But we also recognize that military force is not always the right answer. If force is used imprecisely or out of frustration rather than clear analysis, the situation can be made worse.
Decisive means and results are always to be preferred, even if they are not always possible. So you bet I get nervous when so-called experts suggest that all we need is a little surgical bombing or a limited attack. When the desired result isn't obtained, a new set of experts then comes forward with talk of a little escalation. History has not been kind to this approach.
Colin Powell
On President George H.W. Bush and
Operation Desert Storm
October 8, 1992
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The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved….
Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly.
The Iraq Study Group Report
December 6, 2006
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Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed….Rather than deploy additional forces to Iraq, we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Letter to President Bush
January 5, 2007
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There is no question that the situation in Iraq is very dangerous and not improving, particularly in Baghdad with respect to the sectarian violence….I don't believe that increasing U.S. forces in Baghdad in the way and size being discussed— with a temporary surge of between 10,000 and 40,000 troops— would secure the city. I think it would be the wrong way to go.
Representative Heather Wilson, R-NM
January 5, 2007
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I ask the government: Is there any hope of success or are we pressing on without any probability of victory?
Lieutenant Matsuoko
Imperial Japanese Navy
1943
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The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great weight it cannot save.
Psalm 33:17
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Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Jesus the Christ
Matthew 5:9
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He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
The Prophet Isaiah
Isaiah 2:4
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Peace always seems a weary way off. As Jeremiah lamented, “We looked for peace, but no peace came.” But to give up on peace is to give up on God….
Peace does not come rolling in on the wheels of inevitability. We can’t just wish for peace. We have to will it, fight for it, suffer for it, demand it from our governments as if peace were God’s most cherished hope for humanity, as indeed it is.
William Sloane Coffin
Credo
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If you’re at the edge of an abyss the only progressive step is backward.
William Sloane Coffin
Credo
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Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
Where Have All the Flowers Gone
Pete Seeger
1961
