By General William T. Sherman
You people of Gaza don’t know what you are doing. Your land will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of Israel. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let Israel be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it … Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? Israel can make Tanks, Precision missiles and Advanced Technology; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail.
Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out and cut off as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.
If you want eternal war, well and good; we accept the issue, and will dispossess you and put our friends in your place. I know thousands and millions of good people who at simple notice would come to Gaza and accept the houses and farms there. If you people of Gaza think different, persist then in war nine years longer, and then you will not be consulted.
Nine years ago by a little reflection and patience you could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but you preferred war; very well. Next year your lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year you may beg in vain for your lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many peoples with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence.
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into Israel and Gaza deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and practice Jihad with our country. If Israel submits to a cease fire now, it will not stop, but will go on as eternal war. Israel does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling.
I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting. Even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers … it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated … that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.
I tell you, war is Hell!
(This article was rewritten from various speeches of the Union Army General William T. Sherman during the American Civil War and is meant as satire)
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