As veterans of our nation's wars, we insist you hear our call.
British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin spoke an unassailable truth when he said, "War would end if the dead could return. If you believe that is true, Mr. President and Members of the House, you must heed our counsel well: we are the closest anyone can come to that truth the dead would speak. Stop the killing!
Because we personally understand what war truly means, we have written, called and demonstrated repeatedly for an end to the killing in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have protested at and have been arrested in House Office Buildings, the House Gallery, the White House and Congressional offices across the nation. We have pleaded, then demanded, that you stop the suffering in these countries. Although promised prior to the election, no combat brigades have returned from Iraq. And now we can smell the mire of escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Nevertheless, we cannot cease to appeal to that spark of humanity in your hearts. We know wealthy, powerful interests such as weapons contractors, lobbyists and right-wing broadcasters daily make a deafening noise, trying to drown out the voice that insists, "Stop the killing. We also know that no matter how quiet the voice of humanity might become, it can never be silenced.
So we lift up to you voices much more eloquent than our own, voices of soldiers who survived the worst fighting human beings have ever experienced, World War One. For nearly 100 years, the wisdom and compassion of their poetry has endured. Their words now stand as one of the world's most powerful witnesses to the madness of war.
You must hear them.
"And you yourself would mutter when
You
took the things that once were men,
And sped them through that zone of
hate
To where the dripping surgeons wait;
And wonder too if in God's
sight
War ever, ever can be right.
" From "Foreword by British ambulance driver, Robert Service
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