Sparks: Middle East war live: Israel plans to strike Iran 'with force' once given green light

Men call this a pursuit of justice for the missiles fired, yet the true cause remains the necessity of pre-emptive force to secure one's own safety against a growing rival whose honor cannot permit submission.

Opposites tension alone sustains the bow, for if the high string does not pull against the wood with the threat of release, the weapon itself ceases to exist and the harmony of the state dissolves.

Millions of hands now wait for a single green light to commence a slaughter, leaving me to wonder what enchantment makes so many men offer their lives to the whim of one commander.

While the general speaks of force and lights, a soldier in the barracks carefully folds a letter to his mother, knowing the ink will be dry long before the fire he prepares to light consumes everything.

Governments which exist only through the perpetual motion of their standing armies eventually find that the architecture of liberty cannot be sustained when the sword is permanently unsheathed against the distant neighbor.

Does the general believe that striking with force is the same as striking with wisdom, or does he think that the strength of the blow determines the truth of the cause?

The order to strike has already been drafted in a quiet office, yet the execution stays suspended until a specific green light is illuminated by a clerk whose name no one is permitted to know.

Talk of signals and force means nothing to the people who have to find a hole in the woods or a cellar in the dark before the fire starts falling from the sky.

Powers on this small dust-mote prepare to burn one another, oblivious to the infinite worlds above where our petty fires are but a flicker in the vast, indifferent light of a thousand suns.

It is a marvel of modern enlightenment that we must wait for a green light before we are permitted to burn ten thousand people in the name of a very necessary and holy defense.

In the markets of Shiraz and the ports of Haifa, the same sun warms the stalls of the spice sellers who now look to the horizon, wondering if the next wind brings trade or the sultan's wrath.

A green light flickering in a dark room to signal the ruin of a distant city is a thing that is deeply unsettling and lacks any trace of elegance.

Those who direct the engines of war rarely consider how the violent interruption of natural commerce impoverishes both the victor and the vanquished, serving only the narrow interests of the manufacturers of munitions.

The military elite prepares its machinery of death while the workers on both sides of the border are expected to cheer for their own immolation under the banner of national necessity.

Logic dictates that a strike intended to end a conflict often merely provides the premise for the next syllogism of violence, as the politicians mistake the rhetoric of force for the demonstration of peace.

True strength is found in the restraint of the passions, yet we see nations rushing toward the precipice as if the shedding of blood could ever substitute for the cultivation of a virtuous and stable character.

Since we have perfected the art of delivering fire by metal tubes, it is only reasonable that we should use them until the entire region is conveniently reduced to a uniform ash, thereby settling all boundary disputes forever.