I am a veteran. I did not experience combat, however, members of my family did and friends and people I have known did.

War kills human beings and causes emotional damage.

On this Veteran’s Day in 2010 I offer the following words of others in an effort to renew our spirit in the struggle for peace. The irony in several of the quotes is intentional.

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.

~Adolph Hitler

Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.

~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible.

~A. Philip Randolph

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

~Barbara Ehrenreich

Blind faith in your leaders or in anything will get you killed.

~Bruce Springsteen

War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures.

~Congressman Ron Paul

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

No war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.

~Eugene Debs

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

~Frederick Douglass

I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.

~George McGovern

How can you make a war on terror if war itself is terrorism?

~Howard Zinn

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

~Issac Asimov

I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

~James Baldwin

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

~James Madison

In any war, the first casualty is common sense, and the second is free and open discussion.

~James Reston

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

~Jimmy Carter

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.

~John Lennon

The hardest thing for me in Vietnam wasn't seeing the wounded and dead. It was watching the big transport jets come in, bringing loads of fresh new boys for the war.

~Johnny Cash

You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or who says it.

~Malcolm X

The greatest crime since World War II has been US foreign policy.

~William Ramsey Clark

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.

~William Colby, former CIA director

Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.

~Joseph Goebbels

War is the gambling table of governments, and citizens the dupes of the game.

~Thomas Paine

There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

~Sun Tzu, The Art of War

All wars are fought for money.

~Socrates

Draft beer, not people. 

~Attributed to Bob Dylan

Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Vietnam War Pacifist Badge

We saw the lightning and that was the guns and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped. 

~Harriet Tubman

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

~Ronald Reagan

I can tell you this: If I’m ever in a position to call the shots, I’m not going to rush to send somebody else’s kids into a war.

~George H. W. Bush

...the role of the military is to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place.

~George W. Bush

Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood. 

~Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War, 1948

Throughout my life, including my work as a young man on behalf of the urban poor, I have always found inspiration in the life of Gandhi and in his simple and profound lesson to be the change we seek in the world.

~ Barack Obama, speaking to the Parliament of India, November 2010.

-0-

“Without Benefit of Declaration” - Langston Hughes

Listen here, Joe
Don't you know
That tomorrow
You got to go
Out yonder where
The steel winds blow?

Listen here, kid,
It's been said
Tomorrow you'll be dead
Out there where
The snow is lead.

Don't ask me why.
Just go ahead and die.
Hidden from the sky
Out yonder you'll lie:
A medal to your family--
In exchange for
A guy.

Mama, don't cry.

BlackCommentator.com Publisher and Chief Technical Officer Peter Gamble, is the recipient of a national Sigma Delta Chi award for public service in journalism and numerous other honors for excellence in reporting and investigative reporting. The “beats” he covered as a broadcast journalist ranged from activism in the streets to the State Department and White House. The lure of a personal computer on his desk inspired a career change in 1985 and an immersion into what he saw as the future of communications. The acquisition of computer programming skills made it possible for Peter to achieve an important level of self-reliance in the technology of the 21st century and to develop BlackCommentator.com. Click here to contact Peter.