Bill Moyers War Quotations

War, except in self-defense, is a failure of moral imagination.

In uniform patriotism can salute one flag only, embrace but the first circle of life-one's own land and tribe. In war that is necessary, in peace it is not enough.

The thing about war is that once it's triggered, it is unyielding in its appetite. And the more it consumes and gorges, the more it wants.

In tracking down and eliminating terrorists , we need to change our metaphor from a "war on terror" exactly what, pray tell, is that? to the mind-set of Interpol tracking down master criminals through intense global cooperation among nations, or the FBI stalking the Mafia , or local police determined to quell street gangs without leveling the entire neighborhood in the process.

Presidents are afraid to lose wars. They're afraid to be outflanked on the right by the militarists. They don't want to be seen as soft on either communism or soft on terrorism or whatever. So presidents are constantly tugged away from their domestic commitments to foreign policy.