'War is Just a Racket' -- by Gen. S. D. Butler

[Dover]

I'm sure this has been posted before, but Randi Rhodes just mentioned it again, so thought I'd post this excerpt:

'War is Just a Racket'

Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by General Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC. General Butler was the recipient of two Congressional Medals of Honor.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of 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 masses. . . .

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

---

(At about the same time the Du Ponts were serving the Nazi cause in Germany, they were involved in a Fascist plot to overthrow the United States government.

"Along with friends of the Morgan Bank and General Motors," in early 1934, writes Higham, "certain Du Pont backers financed a coup d'etat that would overthrow the President with the aid of a $3 million-funded army of terrorists . . ." The object was to force Roosevelt "to take orders from businessmen as part of a fascist government or face the alternative of imprisonment and execution . . ."

Higham reports that "Du Pont men allegedly held an urgent series of meetings with the Morgans," to choose who would lead this "bizarre conspiracy." "They finally settled on one of the most popular soldiers in America, General Smedly Butler of Pennsylvania." Butler was approached by "fascist attorney" Gerald MacGuire (an official of the American Legion), who attempted to recruit Butler into the role of an American Hitler.--R. William Davis, "The Elkhorn Manifesto," July 4, 1996)

(If one were to look closely at the past 58 years, one would be hard pressed to find a single U.S. military or C.I.A. intervention that has brought us one iota of safety, or, for that matter, that has actually been done for national defense purposes. As Butler illustrated in 1933, and it is even truer now than then, the U.S. engages in interventions meant to protect the interests of the powerful and wealthy of our nation and our allies, and rarely, if ever, in order to actually protect its citizens.--Chris White, "Is War Still a Racket?" CounterPunch, January 9, 2003)

Charlie Liteky, "An Open Letter to the U.S. Military: Congressional Medal of Honor recipient addresses U.S. forces in Iraq,"


http://www.twf.org/News/Y2001/0911-Racket.html

[tom_paine]

1. Snedley Butler is one of my heroes.

The way he told the Busheviks to go fuck themselves in 1934, when they wanted to do a Coup on FDR and replace him with a Hitler-style Military Dictator (for which Butler was tapped by the Busheviks long ago)?

The way he put country before party and turned those Busheviks in?

My God, if FDR had only prosecuted the Busheviks for Treason back then, we might still be a Free Nation today.

[Dover]

2. He turned them in? What became of them...did they suffer any

punishment at all? I can't imagine they got away with that.

[AP]

5. Just like Chavez in VZ, FDR didn't arrest anyone. Just like Chavez he knew

that the best thing to do would be to pass immense amounts of economic, political and cultural power down to the people so that they could take the reigns of democracy in a way that couldn't be taken by the fascists.

Higher wages, the WPA, and letting Dorothea Lange run around the country taking pictures of poor people so that Americans could see what was at stake was a much better defense than arresting trying a bunch of fascists who still could use their power to fight back.

[tom_paine]

7. They got away with it (and to be fair Prescott Bush wasn't mentioned, but

it was his crowd -- notice how the Busheviks weren't mentioned in Watergate either)

FDR suppressed it "for the good of the country". Sealed the papersd until 2000, I believe.

Coincidentally, this was why the Democrats failed to Impeach Raygun and Bush I over Iran-Contra.

[Dover]

8. I really don't see how it could be for the good of the country.

Will it be for the good of the country to let the Bush regime walk?
How is that good?

[Solon]

14. The Reason for FDR letting them walk is this...

arresting the Morgan Family, the Rockafellers, Bethlehem Steel, Du Pont family, GM CEO and Vice President, during the Great Depression would have caused a complete collapse of the economy. Those people represented 60-75% of the wealth in the country all by themselves.

[lanparty]

11. Your saying it was suppresed ...

... to maintain an internal "cold war" instead of an outright CIVIL WAR????

If we win the next election, there should be no more of this business. We need to put these neo-con's feet to the flames and drive them OUT of office before it's too late!!!! They're trying to take over the country and make it fascist!!!!!

[AP]

3. When Republicans say they want to undo the New Deal, what I think they

really mean is that they want to go back to Smedley Butler, pick a less patriotic and intelligent coup leader, and have the fascistic dictatorship that Butler did not deliver to them.

[Dover]

4. Well, I'd say they got it.

I'd like to see a full list of those big players who have backed the Bushistas.

[AP]

6. They're 99.9% there, I'd say. We need a new FDR.

[lanparty]

10. We may NEED a coup soon ...

... just to RESTORE Democracy.

It has me worried about exactly WHICH troops are being deployed overseas. Are they hand-picking those with high moral standards to send out of country??? They keep all the assholes stateside so when they steal the next election, all the officers loyal to Democracy are in Iraq, Iran and Korea!!!!!

[Cleita]

13. The Abu Ghraib prison story doesn't make it appear that they

are sending the ones with high moral standards overseas. They are too dumb and corrupt themselves to know the difference.

[lanparty]

9. This is why the Cold War was a waste of time ...

We were never about bringing "freedom and Democracy" to the hoveled masses of foreign nations. We were trying to subject them to American corporate interests.

The world turned to communism because America and Great Britain had spent too much time dicking with them and subjecting foreign countries to de-facto fascist rule.

Most of the things we did to "stop communism" was done for American business interests. It did the opposite. It ENCOURAGED the spread of communism.

NAFTA, WTO, GATT, etc... is an effort to
1) Re-inforce fascist rule by corporations in 3rd world nations and ...
2) Finally force fascist rule on 1st world nations by relocating eliminating the middle classes and relocating crucial manufacturing to 3rd world nations.

[Cleita]

12. It was more than a waste of time. It was a waste of minds and

lives because if the money spent on it had been spent on education, health care and other social programs to help people live quality lives, we would now be living in a world that we only fantasize about. Our technology would probably have been used to explore space and improve our lives on earth instead of destroying them and other life forms as we pollute our planet.

[Karenina]

15. Yup.

:kick:

[Cleita]

16. Hey Karenina.

:hi: