"No one that has ever been in combat ever wants to see war anywhere in the world. It is horrible. It's horrible looking at the pock-marked walls. It's horrible looking at the flesh embedded on walls in Bosnia. It was horrible looking and interviewing and talking to the kids who lost their parents, because Saddam Hussein decided to feed their parents to the lions in downtown Baghdad. To characterize particularly myself, but other groups, as wanting to advocate a war I think is not only disingenuous, I think it's a patent falsehood intentionally created to stigmatize a group of people"
About this Quote
The quote then pivots into a barrage of graphic images Bosnia’s “pock-marked walls”, “flesh embedded”, orphaned children, the lurid detail of parents “fed...to the lions”. These aren’t just memories; they’re rhetorical shock grenades, designed to short-circuit deliberation. The specificity of violence stands in for specificity of policy. Notice what’s missing: no clear chain from these scenes to the war being defended, no acknowledgment of competing harms, no sense of proportionality. Horror is made to do the argumentative work that facts would normally have to do.
The most revealing subtext arrives at the end: the real grievance isn’t war’s cost; it’s reputational injury. “Disingenuous”, “patent falsehood”, “intentionally created to stigmatize” recasts criticism as persecution. The speaker positions himself and his allies as victims of narrative sabotage, not as actors accountable for choices. In context, this is a classic inoculation strategy: preemptively disqualify opponents by framing them as bad-faith smear merchants, while wrapping your own agenda in the unassailable language of grief.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Shea, Matt. (2026, February 9). No one that has ever been in combat ever wants to see war anywhere in the world. It is horrible. It's horrible looking at the pock-marked walls. It's horrible looking at the flesh embedded on walls in Bosnia. It was horrible looking and interviewing and talking to the kids who lost their parents, because Saddam Hussein decided to feed their parents to the lions in downtown Baghdad. To characterize particularly myself, but other groups, as wanting to advocate a war I think is not only disingenuous, I think it's a patent falsehood intentionally created to stigmatize a group of people. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-one-that-has-ever-been-in-combat-ever-wants-to-185003/
Chicago Style
Shea, Matt. "No one that has ever been in combat ever wants to see war anywhere in the world. It is horrible. It's horrible looking at the pock-marked walls. It's horrible looking at the flesh embedded on walls in Bosnia. It was horrible looking and interviewing and talking to the kids who lost their parents, because Saddam Hussein decided to feed their parents to the lions in downtown Baghdad. To characterize particularly myself, but other groups, as wanting to advocate a war I think is not only disingenuous, I think it's a patent falsehood intentionally created to stigmatize a group of people." FixQuotes. February 9, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-one-that-has-ever-been-in-combat-ever-wants-to-185003/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"No one that has ever been in combat ever wants to see war anywhere in the world. It is horrible. It's horrible looking at the pock-marked walls. It's horrible looking at the flesh embedded on walls in Bosnia. It was horrible looking and interviewing and talking to the kids who lost their parents, because Saddam Hussein decided to feed their parents to the lions in downtown Baghdad. To characterize particularly myself, but other groups, as wanting to advocate a war I think is not only disingenuous, I think it's a patent falsehood intentionally created to stigmatize a group of people." FixQuotes, 9 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-one-that-has-ever-been-in-combat-ever-wants-to-185003/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.
