I was listening to a campaign speech by Sarah Palin.  One of her common lines is “John McCain knows how to win a war.”

We need somebody who knows how to prevent war and will fight for peace.

“If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
— Moshe Dayan

Perhaps talking to our enemies, as Barack Obama advocates, will work.  It will work better than not talking.

“There never was a good war or a bad peace.”
— Benjamin Franklin

“Time itself becomes subordinate to war. If only we could celebrate peace as our various ancestors celebrated war; if only we could glorify peace as those before us, thirsting for adventure, glorified war; if only our sages and scholars together could resolve to infuse peace with the same energy and inspiration that others have put into war.

Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war?

Every nation has its prestigious military academies – or so few of them – that reach not only the virtues of peace but also the art of attaining it? I mean attaining and protecting it by means other than weapons, the tools of war. Why are we surprised whenever war recedes and yields to peace?”
— Elie Wiesel