{"id":652,"date":"2004-12-23T17:23:18","date_gmt":"2004-12-23T17:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:55","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:55","slug":"random_quotes_f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=652","title":{"rendered":"Random Quotes for Today: Penn & Carroll"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Penn Gillette<\/a>, in Reason –<\/p>\n

“I get that feeling that maybe I endorse some stuff that doesn\u2019t make sense, and I\u2019d like someone to beat me up about that a little more. I have a certain kind of peacenik default in all my interactions. If you ask me, \u201cShould we have been in World War II?,\u201d I instantly say no. World War I, certainly no. Vietnam, certainly no. Iraq, no. I really seem to think that the answer to everything is peace, and I\u2019m not sure I can support that. I have this weird kind of feeling that if I knew enough, maybe peace isn\u2019t always the answer.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From James Carroll<\/a>, in the Boston Globe –<\/p>\n

“WHY DON’T we Americans look directly at the war? We avert our gaze, knowing that the situation in Iraq grows more desperate by the day. Vaunted “coalition” efforts to “break the back” of the “insurgency” have only strengthened it. The violence among Iraqis would surely qualify as civil war — except that only one side is fighting. The structures of relief and repair are gone. Whole cities are destroyed, populations displaced. The hope of Iraqi elections is mortally compromised. “Coalition” members are dropping out. The mission of American force is to secure the country, but it can’t secure itself. The performance of US intelligence has been consistent: Its strategic failures caused the war, and its tactical ignorance of the enemy is losing the war.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

“On the other side, it is the proliferation of suicide-bombing that has come to seem normal. Soldiers commonly risk their lives for nation, honor, or buddy — but they will not kill themselves with forethought, in large numbers, except for the most transcendent of reasons. The United States has given itself an enemy that shows by its central tactic that it is fighting for God.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…talk amongst yourselves…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Penn Gillette and James Carroll comment on the war, and indirectly comment on underlying attitudes about the use of force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}