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Quote by Kurt Vonnegut

“It was a war of reason against barbarism, supposedly, with the issues at stake on such a high plane that most of our feverish fighters had no idea why they were fighting—other than that the enemy was a bunch of bastards.”

Quote by Kurt Vonnegut

Book:Armageddon in Retrospect
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Armageddon in Retrospect

This book delves into the origins, interpretations, and impact of the Armageddon narrative across various societies and time periods. more

Author

Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer known for his unique humor and profound satire. His works often explore themes of war, humanity, society, and politics. His most famous works include 'Slaughterhouse-Five' and 'Cat's Cradle'. His writing style has been widely appreciated by readers and has had a profound impact on literature. more

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WarLanguage
Book:Language in Danger
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“That war [Bosnian war] in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstiutution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent - or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought - destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position - leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that - like Chomsky - looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.”

WarGenocideAnti WarEthnic CleansingPacifismLeftismHumanitarian InterventionIsolationismBosnian WarInterventionismBosnia And HerzegovinaNeoconservatismNoninterventionismNeocons
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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