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

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

You are not going to get peace with millions of armed men. The chariot of peace cannot advance over a road littered with cannon. ~David Lloyd Georg

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. ~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

Gulf War Syndrome

When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die. ~Jean-Paul Sartre

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

O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it. ~Mark Twain, “The War Prayer”

Naturally, the common people don’t want war … but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the 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 lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

– Hermann Goering

Support the troops. Why is it one can only support the troops by supporting those who are sending them to die. Sending them to kill the sons and daughters and mothers and fathers in other countries so that those sitting comfortably ensconced in money and power, can achieve even greater heights of obscene grasping and despoiling of the earth and it’s riches.

Why are our troops guns, bombs, paths of destruction in another country calls to freedom, but when the fight is brought to our soil it is terrorism?

What is patriotic about supporting wars which have no mission other than to serve the interests of the robber oil barons?

Do we really want our country to be known as one that supported this

Did the American people see on CNN the child whose face was burnt by Israeli phosphorous bombs in Lebanon? Did they hear him screaming in pain at Sidon Hospital, with his mother falling to pieces in agony beside him because of the injury he sustained from the terrible bombs? How can the American people accept their elected President George W. Bush’s rejection of a ceasefire?

Can we accept a PM who thinks this is ok? Who gives full support to the perpetrators of this act? Can we support political candidates who do not believe war crimes have taken place here and around the world?
Last night on CTV News after downplaying the number of people rallying in Toronto against the war the newscaster changed stories saying — meanwhile others in Kingston were showing their support of the troops.

An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me…It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride and superiority. The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside of you and every other person too.”

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied…”The one I feed.”