Dissident Veteran For Peace: Quotable: Home Invasion

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Quotable: Home Invasion

Think about -- putting into context -- somebody moves in and decides to take your house over. You know, you're going to fight for it and that's exactly what they did.

Source: US Army Staff Sergeant Kevin Rice speaking (at 5:57) in the 2014 documentary film Korengal on Afghani resistance to US forces in the Korangal Valley. US forces maintained a presence in the "Valley of Death" for about five years. In April 2010, US forces abandoned the outposts there. By the time commanders decided the valley wasn't so vital after all, forty-two American troops had died in fighting and hundreds more were wounded along with uncounted Afghani and other casualties.

A U.S. Army soldier watches as U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter jets destroy "insurgent" positions with a
bomb, after a 20-minute gun battle in Kunar province, Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, Aug. 13, 2009.

See also: "My Worst Nightmare and the Korengal Valley" from the On Violence blog.

Labels: Afghanistan, film & television, military, quotations, War