War

"The Trump administration has barred International Criminal Court investigators from entering the United States. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday that the U.S. will start denying visas to members of the ICC who may be investigating alleged war crimes by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. In September, national security adviser John Bolton threatened U.S. sanctions against ICC judges if they continued to investigate alleged war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan."

"Although it is commonly supposed that war making is the specific activity of nations, the blind rage that motivates war destroys the very social bonds that make nations possible. Of course, it can fortify the nationalism of a nation, producing a provisional coherence bolstered by war and enmity, but it also erodes the social relations that make politics possible. The power of destruction unleashed by war breaks social ties and produces anger, revenge, and distrust (“embitterment”) such that it becomes unclear whether reparation is possible, undermining not only those relations that may have been built in the past, but also the future possibility of peaceful coexistence."

"War is the ultimate realization of modern technology."

"Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose — especially their lives. They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. And here let me emphasize the fact — and it cannot be repeated too often — that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace. Yours not to reason why; Yours but to do and die. That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation. If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace."

"Dieu est d'ordinaire pour les gros escadrons contre les petits."

"Reflective apologists for war at the present day all take it religiously. It is a sort of sacrament. It's profits are to the vanquished as well as to the victor; and quite apart from any question of profit, it is an absolute good, we are told, for it is human nature at its highest dynamic."

"From fear in every guise, From sloth, from love of pelf, By war's great sacrifice The world redeems itself."

"Men will seem to see new destructions in the sky. The flames that fall from it will seem to rise in it and to fly from it with terror. They will hear every kind of animals speak in human language. They will instantaneously run in person in various parts of the world, without motion. They will see the greatest splendour in the midst of darkness. O! marvel of the human race! What madness has led you thus! You will speak with animals of every species and they with you in human speech. You will see yourself fall from great heights without any harm and torrents will accompany you, and will mingle with their rapid course."

"But they will have it thus nevertheless, and so they put note of "divinity upon the most cruel and pernicious plague of human kind," adore such men with grand titles, degrees, statues, images, honour, applaud, and highly reward them for their good service, no greater glory than to die in the field. So Africanus is extolled by Ennius: Mars, and Hercules, and I know not how many besides of old, were deified; went this way to heaven, that were indeed bloody butchers, wicked destroyers, and troublers of the world, prodigious monsters, hell-hounds, feral plagues, devourers, common executioners of human kind, as Lactanius truly proves, and Cyprian to Donat, such as were desperate in wars, and precipitately made away themselves, (like those Celtes in Damascen, with ridiculous valour, ut dedecorosum putarent muro ruenti se subducere, a disgrace to run away for a rotten wall, now ready to fall on their heads), such as will not rush on a sword's point, or seek to shun a cannon's shot, are base cowards, and no valiant men. By which means, Madet orbis mutuo sanguine, the earth wallows in her own blood, Sævit amor ferri et scelerati insania belli; and for that, which if it be done in private, a man shall be rigorously executed, "and which is no less than murder itself; if the same fact be done in public in wars, it is called manhood, and the party is honored for it.""

"‘But human beans [...] is shootling guns and going up in aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each other's heads every week. Human beans is always killing other human beans.’"

"War has revealed an overpowering national instinct. The conflicting theories of the exact nature and limitations of our government had blinded the shrewdest minds to the fact that we were a nation, with all the feelings and instincts of a nation, and that our quarrels must be settled inside and not outside."

"Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled; Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory!"

"You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight."

"YOU are going to hear of wars and reports of wars; see that YOU are not terrified. For these things must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another. All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress."

"There was a war, just one in a long line of wars, fought for beliefs and principles as all wars have ever been fought and will ever be in days to come. Little was achieved, nothing was gained. Lives were taken and pain was inflicted. The real reasons are lost in the mists."

"We give up the fort when there's not a man left to defend it."

"This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers."

"General Taylor never surrenders."

"Hence jarring sectaries may learn Their real interest to discern; That brother should not war with brother, And worry and devour each other."

"I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people."

"Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

"But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at."

"The god of war has gone over to the other side."

"Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation—the last arguments to which kings resort."

"The flames of Moscow were the aurora of the liberty of the world."

"You are there, stay there."

"The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force."

"Napoleon healed through sword and fire the sick nation."

"Hang yourself, brave Crillon. We fought at Arques, and you were not there."

"Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς, καὶ τοὺς μὲν θεοὺς ἔδειξε τοὺς δὲ ἀνθρώπους, τοὺς μὲν δούλους ἐποίησε τοὺς δὲ ἐλευθέρους."

"# War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free."

"# War is the father and king of all, and has produced some as gods and some as men, and has made some slaves and some free. (G. T. W. Patrick, 1889)"

"#* Hippolytus, Ref. haer. ix. 9 (Fragment 53). Context: "And that the father of all created things is created and uncreated, the made and the maker, we hear him (Heraclitus) saying, 'War is the father and king of all,' etc.""

"#* Plutarch, de Iside 48, p. 370. Context, see frag. 43."

"#* Proclus in Tim. 54 A (comp. 24 B)."

"#* Compare Chrysippus from Philodem. P. eusebeias, vii. p. 81, Gomperz."

"#* Lucianus, Quomodo hist. conscrib. 2; Idem, Icaromen 8."

"# See also: πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι, πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς"

"# Martin Heidegger, Parmenides (1942–1943)"

"Τίς γὰρ αὐτῶν νόος ἢ φρήν; [δήμων] ἀοιδοῖσι ἕπονται καὶ διδασκάλῳ χρέωνται ὁμίλῳ, οὐκ εἰδότες ὅτι πολλοὶ κακοὶ ὀλίγοι δὲ ἀγαθοί. αἱρεῦνται γὰρ ἓν ἀντία πάντων οἱ ἄριστοι, κλέος ἀέναον θνητῶν, οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ κεκόρηνται ὅκωσπερ κτήνεα."

"# The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle."

"# For what sense or understanding have they? They follow minstrels and take the multitude for a teacher, not knowing that many are bad and few good. For the best men choose one thing above all – immortal glory among mortals; but the masses stuff themselves like cattle. (G.T.W. Patrick, 1889)"

"#: "The passage is restored as above by Bernays (Heraclitea i. p. 34), and Bywater (p. 43), from the following sources:"

"#:* Clement of Alex. Strom. v. 9, p. 682."

"#:* Proclus in Alcib. p. 255 Creuzer, = 525 ed. Cous. ii."

"#:* Clement of Alex. Strom. iv. 7, p. 586.""

"Inquiry shall likewise be made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted to the [Christian] faith. ... A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath; if he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected. ... If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God."

"I believe that I am today acting according to the purposes of the almighty Creator. In resisting the Jew, I am fighting the Lord’s battle."

"And I should not like to forget the hint which I have already given once before, on 1 September 1939, in the German Reichstag — that should the other world be plunged into a general war, Jewry as a whole will have played out its role in Europe. They can laugh at this today just as they laughed at my prophecies before. The coming months and years will prove that here too I was right."

"The war had been going on long enough that soldiers digging graves for comrades would unearth bones of men killed in previous battles. And because they were starving just about anything went into the stewpot. Frogs. Mice. Bugs. Dogs. Snails. Worms. They slaughtered the horses and oxen that were pulling carts heaped with treasure; jeweled reliquaries, silver candlestick holders, and gold crucifixes were abandoned in scorched fields or left in carts too heavy for starving men to pull. They drank from stagnant puddles and filthy streams... a well or cistern... never mind the body floating on the surface. ...Blackburn [in Old Man Goya] reports that a soldier who approached a convent being used as a hospital saw amputated limbs along the wall, "while more arms and legs kept flying out the windows..." At La Coruña, two thousand horses were shot to prevent enemy soldiers from riding them. ...One Spaniard kept a bag of French ears and fingers. ...[A] pack of English hounds accompanied [the Iron Duke]. Between military engagements he would go fox hunting. At Talavera... a fire sprang up in dry grass where... soldiers lay dead or dying, "and men were ashamed because their pangs of hunger increased with the smell of roasting meat.""