Thursday, 14 October 2004
Wise Words
Today is Dwight Eisenhower's birthday. In celebration, here are a few choice quotes (attention neocons):
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing."
Posted by flow Frazao on October 14, 2004 at 11:53 AM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink
War settles nothing? Just because someone says something, that doesn't make it true. Hitler would tell you different, I'm sure. War does settle quite a few things. It's not the most agreeable way, to be sure, but sometimes it's the only way.
Posted by: John Couch | Oct 18, 2004 4:52:41 PM
Although I agree with you for the most part, Mr. Couch, war is never the *only* way.
Posted by: Steve | Oct 18, 2004 5:13:29 PM
Everybody's a fucking literalist these days.
Yeah, fine. War definitely settles things, but the problem is that it does so in the most inefficient and ineffective way possible.
Please allow me to use a concrete example. Take, for instance, Iraq. By staging Gulf War II, we settled the problem of having Saddam Hussein in power there. However, in doing so we created approximately 911,000 more issues that may at some point wind up being far more problematic that the original threat.
Did we settle A problem? Yes we did. Would anyone in his right mind say the situation is now resolved? I doubt it. In fact, I submit that the situation (in terms of the War On Terra) is currently much worse now than it was before we invaded. Hence, war has settled nothing.
War is to foreign policy as amputation is to medicine. There are rare cases when it should be considered, but the notion of pre-emptive amputation is, in a word, retarded. As Steve said, there is always another way.
Posted by: smoovej | Oct 20, 2004 12:41:43 AM
"War is to foreign policy as amputation is to medicine."
Ha! I like that line!
Posted by: Steve | Oct 20, 2004 1:29:44 PM
Thanks - every now and then I'm clever. Not usually, but once in a while.
Posted by: smooveJ | Oct 20, 2004 2:31:39 PM
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