Under A Cloud
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from an iron cross."—Dwight D. Eisenhower
Speech given in 1953 at the end of the Korean War
Comments
An even more impressive quote than the previous one. As I see it, both ideas have infinitely greater moral weight and authority because they were voiced by a courageous and honorable soldier.
And all the more interesting since it comes from a "Republican" president who foresaw many of the messes we seem to have gotten ourselves into recently.
One certainly wonders if giving aid to impoverished nations and devoting time, energy, and money resolving the Palestinian question wouldn't be more succesfull in eliminating El Queda's appeal.
bq. If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
bq. I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. - Dwight D. Eisenhower