Miller on the War Butchers
One would think, if we really worshipped life and not death, if we valued creation and not destruction, if we believed in fecundity and not impotence, that the supreme task we would set ourselves would be the elimination of war. One would think that, sick of butchery, men would get after the butchers, i.e., the men who plan to make war, the men who decide the modes of warfare, the men who command the manufacture of war materials, materials now unspeakably diabolical. I say "butchers," because in the ultimate such men are nothing else. In cold blood, years before any outbreak, they prepare to make others do their bidding; mentally they embrace every conceivable form of horror and destruction, and they set about their business calmly, deliberately, ruthlessly, waiting only for the opportune moment to put their plans into execution. The men who are called to arms, the men who are obliged to put this inhuman machinery into operation, though not entirely innocent, are nevertheless not guilty of planning and preparing the butchery. They are simply the victims who subsequently, according to the hazards of fate, will be dubbed cowards or heroes. Their role is to obey. And, even though their lives should be spared, even though they be not mutilated in the flesh, they who survive will most certainly be maimed in spirit.Henry Miller
"Obscenity in Literature"