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 its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. [1953]
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
posted by EAPrez @ 11:59 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
There are a handful of Republicans who I have always had a soft spot in my heart for, and felt that they made or would make good Presidents. Ike was one. Teddy Roosevelt was one. Colin Powell is one (yeah, he gave and was diminished greatly by the UN speech on Iraq, but as I've blogged, he was fed bad info and used by the Bush administration, and he is starting to find his voice in criticizing them).
Other quotes by Eisenhower:
Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.
I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.
I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.
In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Only Americans can hurt America.
There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.
War settles nothing.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.
And one of the bravest things he ever said, recognizing that we needed to negotiate a cease-fire to put a stop to a useless, costly war that was going nowhere:
I shall make that trip. I shall go to Korea.
Then there is also this jewel that Bushco should have read:
When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
No, they don't make Republican Presidents like they used to. From Eisenhower to Nixon to Reagan to Bush has been one long, steep road down to hell.
A lot of things DDE warned us about 50 years ago have come to fruition - especially what he said about the defense industry. Colin Powell - I can't muster up much sympathy for. Once he realized he' d been duped he should have been screaming from the rooftops rather than engaging in this poilitical dance of his. Playing politics seems to take priority over the U.S. troops dying for a lie with him and I have a hard time swallowing that and giving him any credit.
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