WAR IS A RACKET

I'm posting this for anyone unfamiliar with the words of Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (1881-1940)


WAR IS A RACKET

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

-snip-

Much much more: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

TYY

EDITED BY ADMIN FOR COPYRIGHT REASONS

And how true it is. Rare are those in military dress who can see through the whole rotten enterprise, but Butler was one of them.

Shame on this nation for using war as a lever of profit and power. Shame on the pols who make war to polish their speeches, and shame on the sheep in the press, easy chair and SUV who applaud.

This poem from the soldier and great British antiwar poet Siegfried Sassoon comes to mind as a reminder of the crap and dishonesty that a nation gets up to in war time. Sassoon imagines a different sort of soldiers' homecoming parade...


"Fight to a Finish "

THE boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying,
And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street
To cheer the soldiers who’d refrained from dying,
And hear the music of returning feet.
 
‘Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought,
This moment is the finest.’ (So they thought.)
Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob,
Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of steel,
 
At last the boys had found a cushy job.

    .    .    .    .

I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal;
And with my trusty bombers turned and went
To clear those Junkers out of Parliament.

(1918)

http://www.bartleby.com/136/index.html

Only two men in Marine Corps history have been awarded the MoH twice, Butler and Sgt. Maj. Dan Daly. The guy was fearless and knew of what he spoke.

But then again, he isn't a real hero like George W. Bush, he of the flightsuit/codpiece photo-op.

... for the Bushco corporate buddies.

No doubt the few Freepers who have heard of this man hate him like they hate Lincoln, Hefferson, Paine...

However, since the thread title is directly copied
from the title of the article linked, we're going to
let the thread stay open.

kaitykaity
DU Moderator

TYY :kick: