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Quote by David Ball

“Bismarck's generals needed little persuasion of their own superiority. They were confident or their troops. For four years, since Sadowa, they had been rearing, preparing, planning. As generals always did, they wanted more time. But when time ran out, they would be ready.”

Quote by David Ball

Book:Empires of Sand by David Ball
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Empires of Sand by David Ball

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David Ball

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“Noor Afzhal looked into Jim’s eyes. “You are not just a fighter anymore,” he told Jim. “You are nangyalee.” In a verse by the seventeenth-century Pashtun poet Khushal Khan Khattak, nangyalee refers to a brave man who also has honor and who never gives up. “A brave man has only two options in the world, to fight to the death or secure victory,” went the famous line. But Noor Afzhal explained the term to Jim as meaning a champion who is both brutal and compassionate. “Nangyalee is a warrior who rides a white horse, and when he sees someone who cannot protect themselves, he rides there with his men and fights for them,” he said. Jim was deeply moved.”

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Book:American Spartan
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“A Mall and Bullet Holes" While walking in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country devastated and drained by the wars of the global elite, exactly like mine, I arrived at an intersection and noticed a huge mall on the right side… On the left side, there was an old residential building filled with bullet holes that looked like eyewitnesses to all the free death that took place here in a war that has since ended, yet its real causes and the criminals behind it are still lurking in every corner, like infected pus ready to burst at any moment of awareness… I wondered bitterly: When will the world understand that violence never erupts inadvertently, that all violence in our times is premeditated and agreed upon by a small elite that decides in advance that any nation that rejects malls, consumption, and superficiality, must be disciplined with free death for those who resist! It is also agreed upon – and it all costs – that the minds and souls of all survivors must permanently be pierced with bullet holes! In the same intersection, I observed a redhaired elderly woman with sorrowful eyes deep as bullet holes… I then saw a group of youth wearing modern clothes, like those we see in malls… The elderly woman looked at them as if wishing to tell them about all that happened here, but they didn’t notice her existence for their eyes were fixated on their phones… I painfully wondered then: Has anyone told them about what happened here? Can they distinguish the sounds of bombs from those of fireworks? Has this elderly woman, who looked broken and brokenhearted, told them about the real price she’d paid with all the holes left in her heart and her history for the sake of these malls and cheap consumer goods? [Original poem published in Arabic on July 4, 2024 at ahewar.org]”

WarDeathViolenceCapitalismArabic PoetryBalkansDivide And ConquerBosnian WarRuling ClassBalkanization
Author:Louis Yako
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“When will the world understand that violence never erupts inadvertently, that all violence in our times is premeditated and agreed upon by a small elite that decides in advance that any nation that rejects malls, consumption, and superficiality, must be disciplined with free death for those who resist! It is also agreed upon – and it all costs – that the minds and souls of all survivors must permanently be pierced with bullet holes! [From a poem titled "A Mall and Bullets Holes". Original poem published in Arabic on July 4, 2024 at ahewar.org]”

WarViolenceCapitalismArabic PoetryDivide And ConquerRuling ClassBalkanization
Author:Louis Yako
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