When I pray for peace, I pray God to pacify not only the Russians and the Chinese, but above all my nation and myself.
When I pray for peace, I pray to be protected not only from the Russians but also from the folly and blindness of my own country.
I am praying that both we and the Russians may somehow be restored to sanity and learn how to work out our problems, as best we can, together, instead of preparing for global suicide.
Every form of healthy human contact with Russia, and above all China, is to be encouraged. We have got to see each other as people and not as demons.
What is the use of the exhortations to “pray for peace”, and then spending billions of dollars on atomic submarines, thermonuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles?
The present war crisis is something we have made entirely for and by ourselves. There is in reality, not the slightest logical reason for war, and yet why the whole world is plunging headlong into frightful destruction!
The danger to the whole world is the fact that today the economic life of the more highly developed nations is centered largely on the production of weapons, missiles and other engines of destruction.
We have to consider the hate propaganda. We have to recognize the implications of politicians who promote policies of hate.
The motives for promoting nuclear armament mask a horrible, indeed diabolical, danger to mankind.
These people, however sincere may be their motives, tend to be prejudiced in favor of everything that endangers the peace of the world.
The great problem we face is NOT RUSSIA, but war itself. War is the main enemy and we are not going to make sense unless we see that.
We have created for ourselves a suitable enemy, a scapegoat in whom we have invested all the evil in the world. He is the cause of every wrong. He is the fomenter of all conflict. If he can only be destroyed, conflict will cease, evil will be done with.
We tend by our very passivity and fatalism to cooperate with the destructive forces that are leading inexorably to war.
We prevent ourselves from seeing any good or any practicability in the political ideals of our enemies.
The duty of a Christian in this crisis is to strive with all his power and intelligence…. to do the one task which God has imposed upon us in the world today. That task is to work for the total abolition of war.
U.S. hypocrisy about the war in Ukraine is absolutely stunning, given that it invaded and bombed countries all over the world (e.g., Iraq) for flimsy reasons, often allying with Muslim extremists (e.g., Afghanistan in 80s, Serbia, Libya, and Syria). The U.S. occupies 1/3 of Syria (the parts with oil), with help from its proxy army, the Syrian Defense Forces. Russia's invasion was along its borders, in response to CIA and NATO meddling in a country with deep historical, linguistic, and cultural ties to Russia. U.S. meddling included "engineering" the 2014 coup, according to Chas. W. Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Lifetime Director of the Atlantic Council. The U.S. also armed far-right militias that were attacking Russian speakers in the east. Before the 2022 invasion, the militias increased their bombings. Crimea had voted multiple times for closer ties to Russia. The U.S. exploited divisions in Ukraine between pro-Western and pro-Russian provinces and groups to provoke the war. RAND Corporation recommended arming Ukraine as the best way to "weaken and overextend" Russia and predicted it would result in a war. The New Yorker reported that the CIA and NSA engaged in a broad "effort, around the time of the invasion, to close off many 'sources related to Russia/Ukraine matters.'"
Jack Matlock (former U.S. Ambassador to the USSR under Ronald Reagan) said in a 2024 interview: "Why don’t we understand that trying to remove Ukraine from Russian influence and put military bases there would be, in their case, absolutely unacceptable and worthy of defense?" Matlock said the U.S. backed the 2014 coup, and "Obviously, to any Russian leader, not just Vladimir Putin, that would have been an absolutely impossible, hostile act, which they had to react to. And in particular, they were not going to lose their naval base in Crimea." Finally, Matlock said the Ukrainians are "dominated in their thinking by neo-Nazis — we tend to ignore that, or when Putin points it out, we say he’s lying. He’s not lying."
America the Battleful (Oh Beautiful for Endless Wars!)
We are Spending Two Trillion Dollars on Weapons That Must Never Be Used
We Can't Compete with China, So Let's Provoke a War
Thomas Merton's Prayer for Peace
Rock Opera about U.S. Militarism, Part One
The Unholy Land has Genocide
Requiem for Victims of U.S. Wars
Bending Over for Dearest Uncle Sam
Endless War Blues
The-Endless War Blues (different version)
Windy City Protests -- from Vietnam in '68 to Gaza in '24
No More Blood For Their Endless War: an antiwar folk song made with AI
Machinery of Death (death metal song)
No More Stupid Wars!
Lesser of Two Evils Blues
The-Lesser of Two Evils Blues (longer, different version)
Eisenhower warns about the Military-Industrial Complex
Eisenhower Warns about U.S. Militarism
War is a Racket (Smedley Butler Song)
and Love Song by the U.S. Military Gospel Choir.