In Honor of Soldiers of Conscience

"Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" But conscience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right."
-Martin Luther King


"We have found ourselves in a pivotal era where we have traded humanity for patriotism. Where we have traded our civil liberties for a sense of security. I stand here before you sharing the same idea as Henry David Thoreau: as a soldier, as an American, and as a human being, we mustn't lend ourselves to that same evil which we condemn."
- Sgt. Ricky Clousing

"The war in Iraq violates our democratic system of checks and balances. It usurps international treaties and conventions that, by virtue of the Constitution, become American law. The wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of Iraqis is not only a terrible moral injustice, but it is a contradiction to the Army's own law of land warfare. My participation would make me party to war crimes. Normally, those in the military have allowed others to speak for them and act on their behalf. I believe that time has come to an end."
-Lieut. Ehren Watada

"Well, I'd like to apologize to Iraq honestly, because I think we have done so many things wrong over there. I think the military guys wanted to go over there and really liberate Iraq, and we have just really screwed it up."
-Spc. Tony Lagouranis