{"quotes":[{"text":"It struck me that such analyses had it backward. It’s the American public for whom the Iraq War is often no more real than a video game. Five years into this war, I am not always confident most Americans fully appreciate the caliber of the people fighting for them, the sacrifices they have made, and the sacrifices they continue to make. After the Vietnam War ended, the onus of shame largely fell on the veterans. This time around, if shame is to be had when the Iraq conflict ends - and all indications are there will be plenty of it - the veterans are the last people in America to deserve it. When it comes to apportioning shame my vote goes to the American people who sent them to war in a surge of emotion but quickly lost the will to either win it or end it. The young troops I profiled in Generation Kill, as well as the other men and women in uniform I’ve encountered in combat zones throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, are among the finest people of their generation. We misuse them at our own peril.","author":"Evan Wright","tags":["inspirational","iraq-war","war"],"id":17850,"author_id":"Evan+Wright"},{"text":"I think you can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfeld is also an enemy of Saddam Hussein.","author":"Adam Michnik","tags":["donald-rumsfeld","iraq","iraq-war","saddam-hussein","war"],"id":18043,"author_id":"Adam+Michnik"},{"text":"First Afghanistan, now Iraq. So who's next? Syria? North Korea? Iran? Where will it all end?' If these illegal interventions are permitted to continue, the implication seems to be, pretty soon, horror of horrors, no murderously repressive regimes might remain.","author":"Daniel Kofman","tags":["afghanistan","antiwar-movement","axis-of-evil","despotism","foreign-policy","foreign-policy-of-the-us","interventionism","iran","iraq","iraq-war","north-korea","repression","syria","war","war-in-afghanistan-2001-present"],"id":25821,"author_id":"Daniel+Kofman"},{"text":"Thomas Jefferson once said: 'Of course the people don't want war. But the people can be brought to the bidding of their leader. All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for somehow a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.' I think that was Jefferson. Oh wait. That was Hermann Goering. Shoot.'[Hosting the Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence at the New York Waldorf-Astoria, June 6, 2006].","author":"Jon Stewart","tags":["indoctrination","iraq-war","jefferson","misquote","war"],"id":31519,"author_id":"Jon+Stewart"},{"text":"Some say that because the United States was wrong before, it cannot possibly be right now, or has not the right to be right. (The British Empire sent a fleet to Africa and the Caribbean to maintain the slave trade while the very same empire later sent another fleet to enforce abolition. I would not have opposed the second policy because of my objections to the first; rather it seems to me that the second policy was morally necessitated by its predecessor.).","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["abolition","africa","american-imperialism","anti-americanism","britain","british-empire","caribbean","imperialism","iraq-war","morality","politics","slave-trade","united-states"],"id":40258,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"},{"text":"I have been taunted on various platforms recently for becoming a neo-conservative, and have been the object of some fascinating web-site and blog stuff, from the isolationist Right as well as from the peaceniks, who both argue in a semi-literate way that neo-conservativism is Trotskyism and 'permanent revolution' reborn.Sometimes, you have to comb an overt anti-Semitism out of this propaganda before you can even read it straight. And I can guarantee you that none of these characters has any idea at all of what the theory of 'permanent revolution' originally meant.","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["antisemitism","blogosphere","internet","iraq-war","isolationism","neoconservatism","peace-movement","permanent-revolution","politics","propaganda","right-wing-politics","trotskyism","us-non-interventionism","war-on-terror"],"id":46026,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"},{"text":"Whether it’s an Iraqi widow mourning her dead loved ones standing helplessly in the rubble of her former home or a dying soldier in an Iraqi city street asking, “Why, God? Why is this happening? Where are you?” I can’t help but wonder the same. You realize that there is no justice, no karmic retribution swift enough, and that happy endings are a terrible, terrible lie. We are all subject to the same blind boot stomp and our luck is merely where we happen to be standing when death inevitably comes roaring down upon us.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["atheism","death","god","iraq-war","karma","ptsd","trauma","war"],"id":47562,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"},{"text":"Ensuring that our home planet is healthy and life sustaining is an overwhelming priority that undercuts all other human activities. The ship must first float. Our failure to grasp these fundamental tenants of existence will be our undoing. And one thing is for certain. No calvary is going to come charging to our rescue. We are going to have to rescue ourselves or die trying. Workable solutions are urgently needed. Saving seals and tigers or fighting yet another oil pipeline through a wilderness area, while laudable, is merely shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. The real issue is our elementary accord with Earth and the plant and animal kingdoms has to be revitalized and re-understood.The burning question is, How?","author":"Lawrence Anthony","tags":["animals","earth-citizen","iraq","iraq-war","memoir","war","wildlife","zoos"],"id":55561,"author_id":"Lawrence+Anthony"},{"text":"I would add entertainment media cheerleader Wolf Blitzer, CNN’s Pentagon sycophant in Kuwait City, a representative of the neon press, neon being that colorless, inert gas that lights up on command.","author":"Stan Goff","tags":["cnn","iraq-war","media","pentagon","press","war-propaganda"],"id":62905,"author_id":"Stan+Goff"},{"text":"I am sorry for those who have never had the experience of seeing the victory of a national liberation movement, and I feel cold contempt for those who jeer at it.","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["2003-invasion-of-iraq","antiwar","iraq","iraq-war","liberation","liberty"],"id":65842,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":46,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}