I want young people to be hesitant to glorify war and to demand of their leaders justification for the sacrifices they ask of our citizens.
War, I thought, was the most negative aspect of male heterosexuality. If more men were homosexual, there would be no wars, because homosexual men would never kill other men, whereas heterosexual men love killing other men.
Women don't go to war to kill other women. Wars and armies and nuclear weapons are essentially heterosexual hobbies.
'Misguided Little Unforgivable Hierarchies' is a piece that I did around the time that I was very frustrated and angry with the fact that the U.S., where I live, had decided to pull itself into another war. I was really angry.
America has lost the moral high ground with the rest of the world, and we have fewer allies as a result. President Bush and his administration have undermined the war on terror by using tactics outlawed by international treaty and condemned by even our closest friends.
The high point of civilization is that you can hate me and I can hate you but we develop an etiquette that allows us to deal with each other because if we acted solely upon our impulse we'd probably go to war.
Our life is half natural and half technological. Half-and-half is good. You cannot deny that high-tech is progress. We need it for jobs. Yet if you make only high-tech, you make war. So we must have a strong human element to keep modesty and natural life.
With 'A Hijacking' I didn't talk to anyone who had been hijacked, but with 'A War,' I talked to as many soldiers as possible trying to understand how is it in Afghanistan.
Americans worry that Afghanistan has become a petri dish in which the germs of Islamic fanaticism are replicating - soon Afghans will be hijacking American planes and bombing embassies everywhere. And their fears are not necessarily unfounded. The Taliban are unemployed war veterans, ready and even eager to return to the battlefield.
Hiroshima has become a metaphor not just for nuclear war but for war and destruction and violence toward civilians. It's not just the idea we should not use nuclear arms. We should not start another war because it's madness.
Saddam Hussein could have provided irreplaceable help to future historians of the Iran/Iraq war, of the invasion of Kuwait, and of the subsequent era of sanctions culminating in the current invasion.
It is a historical fact that President Bush pushed this nation into a war that had little to do with apprehending terrorists. We did not seek an impeachment of President Bush because, as an executive, he had his authority.
Everybody wants to talk about sectarian conflicts of the war in Iraq, but the fact of the matter is, Sunnis have lived with Shias in harmony more in the confines of Iraq, in that land, than they have been in conflict. That's an historical fact.
I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did - or did not do - to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.
With all the negativity going on in the world right now, people need an escape. When you give them a hit record or a great record, it allows them to escape for at least three to four minutes. They're not thinking bills or economy or immigration or war when you create that kind of ambiance.
I read everything that Tolkien wrote, and also read biographies of him. I was fascinated by his experiences in World War I, which includes the loss of life of some of his very, very close friends. I think he writes about that a lot in 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings.'
Since war became a geographically distant but very real way of life after Sept. 11, 2001, no Hollywood star has stepped up to support active duty U.S. military personnel and wounded veterans like Gary Sinise.
There must be people who remember World War II and the Holocaust who can help us get out of this rut.
When I was a girl, civil war in Sudan forced me to flee my home town of Wau.
For the average person, 98 percent of those who fought in the Civil War, they did not own slaves. They were simply answering the call, and in this case many, many young men - 17, 18 years old - coming in to defend what they saw as a federal invasion of Virginia, and they fought honorably.
