Michael Joseph Curley Quotes

The old saying that war is a racket has taken on an even more shameful meaning.

Soldiers will continue to die in wars that few can convincingly explain why we are fighting.

The unvarnished truth is that we have spent the last decade funding the machinery of war, and our children have been sacrificed.

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

I hate those men who would send into war youth to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die.

The pinning on of stars reaches its full cynical significance when sanctified valor and bereaved families are used to lend dignity to wars stupidly fought. The courageous and their families are drawn into a circular trap. The sacrificed soldier was valorous under the orders of a commander who has rewarded his effort. The battle was therefore worth fighting. Courage made it worthwhile. The basic rule of war - that it is fought to be won --- has been forgotten.

War and preparation for war is not a matter of national honor and national defense, but a matter of profit for the few.

One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

No soldier starts a war—they only give their lives to it. Wars are started by you and me, by bankers and politicians, excitable women, newspaper editors, clergymen who are ex-pacifists, and Congressmen with vertebrae of putty.

Of course the people don't want war... It is the leaders...who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along...all you have to do is 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 any country.

Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.

The world is organised by the war economy and the war culture.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.

Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon.

When I was growing up, it was 'Communists'. Now it's 'Terrorists'. So you always have to have somebody to fight and be afraid of, so the war machine can build more bombs, guns, and bullets and everything.

It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.

We have as a nation been duped by those who use our guilt about how we treated the innocent pawns in the Vietnam War game - the soldiers - into missing the point once again about the utter senselessness that is war.

the world's chief war-monger

... a caricature of Mr. Military Industrial Complex.

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 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.

The people, ever greedy for war, till they suffer by it …

You think you are dying for your country; you die for the industrialists.

This is garbage from right-wing think-tanks stuffed with chicken hawks -- men who have never seen the horror of war but are in love with the idea of war.

War is no longer made by simply analyzed economic forces if it ever was. War is made or planned now by individual men, demagogues and dictators who play on the patriotism of their people to mislead them into a belief in the great fallacy of war when all their vaunted reforms have failed to satisfy the people they misrule.

Every government explains its existence, and justifies its deeds of violence, by the argument that if it did not exist the condition of things would be very much worse. After assuring the people of its danger the government subordinates it to control, and when in this condition compels it to attack some other nation. And thus the assurance of the government is corroborated in the eyes of the people, as to the danger of attack from other nations.