Ward Churchill Quotes

The American system of civilian control of the military recognizes that soldiers' attention must be fixed on winning battles and staying alive, and that the fog of war can sometimes obscure the rule of law.

Conscientious objection is an intrinsic part of being a soldier.

The last thing we want to do is to go into an area and inflict unnecessary civilian casualties. One is too many.

You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians.

The definition of a modern approach to war is the acknowledgement of individual lives lost.

Imagine if these computer geeks who are running baseball now were allowed to run a war? They'd be telling our soldiers: 'That's enough. You've fired too many bullets from your rifle this week!'

Curious people who have become accustomed to think that one cannot sustain the moral of the army without giving it the freedom to shed blood from time to time.

Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.

It is not the business of generals to shoot one another.

When you start off with them being the bad guys and you being the good guys, once you've made that one decision, you don't have to think anymore, if you're in the military. From that point on, anything goes. From that point on, you're capable of anything, even atrocities. Because you've made a decision a long time ago that you're on the right side. You don't keep questioning, questioning, questioning

Unauthorized misdeeds are committed by every army in every war, but in this case the German hierarchy formally endorsed the legitimacy of its soldier’s conduct..

You don't ask people to sacrifice their lives until the nation has debated and committed to the mission. It's immoral.

For the most part, I think American armies are awfully good in the business of protecting civilians, of not going over the line.

I know, as a former serving officer, that our troops are extremely well disciplined and well led, and they take the correct treatment of prisoners very seriously.

Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone.

In a war the last thing the English know is how to practice fair play.

The lowest standards of ethics of which a right-thinking man can possibly conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellow men. In youth he may have learned the command, 'Thou shalt not kill,' but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor's heart - and this, unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to right or wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word.

What’s the difference? Fill a hundred pits with dead Northmen, congratulations, have a parade! Kill one man in the same uniform as you? A crime. A murder. Worse than despicable. Are we not all men? All blood and bone and dreams?

Some of us, perhaps all of us, believe that it is legitimate to kill enemy soldiers in a war, as if war were a special circumstance that shrinks the sizes of enemy souls.

Your Marines having been under my command for nearly six months, I feel that I can give you a discriminating report as to their excellent standing with their brothers of the army and their general good conduct.

If I get an order to evacuate a Jew from his home, to expel him, me, personally, my conscience would not let me do it. I'll ask my commander to excuse me, but I won't publicly call on others to refuse an order. I personally can't.

I have never witnessed on any previous occasion such entire disregard of the usage of civilized warfare and the dictates of humanity.

Explain to me why it is more noble to kill ten thousand men in battle than a dozen at dinner.

I don't want my generals or my defense secretary or my national-security team to ever feel deploying weapons to kill people as routine or abstract, even if the targets are bad people.

A military without political training is a potential criminal.