“Men will freely offer their sons to die for a government whose legitimacy they grant with their own consent.”

“That same merchant of death decrying the conflict will lobby against its end, for war is a most profitable enterprise.”

“A mother sells her last rug to feed her children while her government's refusal of a truce drives the price of bread ever higher.”

“It is easier to supply a war with fresh conditions than it is to supply a soldier with fresh socks.”

“The precise geometry of a missile's trajectory matters less to the farmer than the geometry of the crater it leaves in his field.”

“A committee has been formed to draft the preliminary requirements for the subcommittee that will review the initial ceasefire proposal.”

“Ten conditions for peace are ten variables in an unsolvable equation when the constant is a mutual desire for victory.”

“Those who speak most eloquently of national honor are seldom the ones whose homes are shattered to secure it.”

“Hateful things: the clean line of a diplomat's signature, the precise distance of a falling shell, the neat column of casualty figures.”

“The plume from a burning refinery connects the geopolitics of the capital to the failing harvests a thousand miles away.”

“Reason dictates that a people trained for generations to venerate martial glory will mistake belligerence for strength.”

“'The path to a lasting peace requires the complete cessation of hostilities,' declares the communique sent hours after the latest airstrike.”