"War is Just a Racket" Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by General Smedley Butler, USMC.

[scarletwoman]

War is Just a Racket

War is Just a Racket

Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by General Smedley Butler, USMC. General Butler was one of the few Americans to be twice awarded the Congressional Medal 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.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

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 capitalim (my bold - sw)

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.

See Also: War Is A Racket (the complete book - sw) by Major General Smedley Butler

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warracket.html (hypertext)
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warracket.txt (text only)
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warracket.pdf (print ready)

Peace,
sw

[kentuck]

1. Aren't we fighting for one of these right now?

"There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket."

[scarletwoman]

2. How many Afghanis and Iraqis have mounted armed attacks against our shores?

How many invading foreign enemies are our military forces fighting on our beaches?

Come on, Kentuck, I expect more sense from you!

sw

[kentuck]

4. I was talking about our Bill of Rights...

Not what you assumed?

[scarletwoman]

6. My apologies then. However, I don't see any armed combat taking place in defense of

our Bill of Rights, so I don't understand your point in the context of the essay I posted.

General Butler's essay is about literal war, not metaphorical or figurative "war".

sw

[kentuck]

11. Here is a sentence from his speech:

""There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket."


Do you not feel we are fighting for our Bill of Rights right now??

[scarletwoman]

14. I believe General Butler's "we" specifically refers to the armed forces.

His entire essay is about the use of the military, not about civilians.

sw

[kentuck]

26. I think he was talking as a civilian?

"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."

[scarletwoman]

28. He was talking about his time in the military, and what the military does.

The opening sentence of the paragraph from which you lifted your quote is: "I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time."

The title of the piece is "War is Just a Racket", there's no ambiguity about the subject matter of this piece -- it's about MILITARY war, it's about using the military to engage in war in other countries.

sw

[kentuck]

34. Yes, but he couldn't say it until he was out of the military.

Just as he stated. Obviously, we are not communicating here. He was not just talking about the military not trusting those that wage war. He wanted everyone to know that war is a racket - not just for those in the military but for all of us. Or against all of us, as the case may be?

[scarletwoman]

35. "Obviously, we are not communicating here." True, that.

I must admit, I honestly have no idea what point you're endeavoring to make.

sw

[nichomachus]

57. Yes, against our own government

The only threat to us right now comes from Washington DC -- from the Congress to the US Chamber of Commerce.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. The most insulting thing about it is that the bosses tell the victims it's for their own good.

"We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it. The Attainment of freedom, whether for a person, a nation or a world, must be in exact proportion to the attainment of nonviolence for each." Mohandas Gandhi

[scarletwoman]

17. The victims, of course, understand differently... (nt)

[Jackpine Radical]

58. Sadly, the victims often don't understand differently.

They sometimes seem all too willing to go along with their own exploitation.

[scarletwoman]

64. I was thinking of the direct victims of our "interventions" -- the Haitians, the Somalis,

the Filipinos, the Nicaraguans, the El Salvadorans, the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Afghanis, the Panamanians, the Cubans... the whole endless list of the earth's people who have been at the barrel end of our guns.

Those of us at the trigger end are exploited, too, of course, but it's much more subtle -- which is why dissent is so rare.

sw

[Jackpine Radical]

67. I always think of Nixon classifying the fact that he was bombing Cambodia.

Apparently he didn't want the Cambodians to find out.

[scarletwoman]

68. Heh.

:hug:

sw

[Orsino]

20. Second most insulting thing:

...the faux piety with which the bosses pretend to honor the sacrifices of their uniformed patsies.

[dgibby]

5. This should be required reading for everyone in the country.

[scarletwoman]

15. I agree. I've been posting this essay on DU every year since 2001. (nt)

[Greyhound]

18. One of Nation's greatest heroes and I'll bet not one person ever even heard his name in school.

And why is that?

Is it because he twice committed the unforgivable sin of exposing the truth to Americans in America? That we destroyed and looted a continent for corporate profits and that the beneficiaries of that looting attempted, through force of arms, to take control of our government away from it's citizens?

Jefferson was right and we are long overdue for a revolution here.

[cascadiance]

41. Yep, we're paying the price for not having Smedley Butler in our high school history books!

He damn well should be required reading! I certainly would have benefitted from hearing about him before I graduated from college!

[Moderator]

63. There are many great documents that should be required reading...

but have fallen by the wayside.

First two I can think of:

1. The Constitution, w/all amendments.

2. Declaration of Independence


Other should include The Gettysburg Address; Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address; Washington's Farewell Address; FDR's "Fear" speech; FDR's request for a Declaration of War against Japan; The Federalist Papers; Eisenhower's Final Address, (military-industrial complex) and a whole slew of USSC decisions complete with the how and why they came to the decision.

Sadly, we rarely see these things in schools anymore...in fact Civics has been out of curriculum for ages, most people know virtually nothing about how government supposed to work as opposed to how it works now.

One thing I find incredibly sad is that every new citizen that take the oath goes through these and other things about our nation...yet those born here, don't have a clue.

[scarletwoman]

7. Kicking for Memorial Day.

Why should anyone be injured or die in military action dictated by the Ruling Class? It's obscene. War is obscene.

sw

[Uncle Joe]

8. Off to the greatest pages.

Thanks for the thread, scarletwoman.:thumbsup:

[scarletwoman]

Thank YOU for your support! (nt)

[Bigmack]

9. Don't forget Gen. Shoup....

Commandant of the Corps, and Medal of Honor Winner...

`I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these (Third World) nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the `haves' refuse to share with the `have-nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don’t want and above all don’t want crammed down their throats by Americans.' –

Gen. David Shoup, United States Marine Commandant Medal of Honor recipient.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. He was commandant when I was wasting my 4 years.

I never knew he held those sentiments..until now. Shit, I'd even salute him without the usual (under my breath) "Fuck you" accompaniment.

[Bigmack]

27. Yup... 1960-63...

He was Commandant of the Corps during the first part of my time in, too. He spoke out strongly against the Viet war and in favor of Vietnam Vets Against the War.

[scarletwoman]

12. That's the thing -- we DON'T keep "our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of

of these (Third World) nations"

Nothing destroys a country faster than American "intervention".

sw

[Karenina]

23. And here come Afghanistan and Pakistan!

w00t, w00t!1!

[Wednesdays]

13. K&R

:kick:

[scarletwoman]

16. Thank you. (nt)

[L. Coyote]

19. "My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders"

That condition reaches far beyond the military!

[WCGreen]

21. We use to call kids who were out of step with the main stream a Smedley...

I wonder if that had anything to do with the good General...

K&R for a provocative Memorial Day.

[scarletwoman]

30. That's very interesting. I never heard of that - of course, I never heard of Gen. Butler either,

until I got on the internet.

Surely General Butler's heresy didn't go unremarked upon at the time he was making public speeches and publishing his book. It's not too far a stretch, it seems to me, to surmise that for a time his name was used as an epithet.

sw

[Gonzo Gardener]

22. K&R

:hi:

[Posteritatis]

24. People like Butler are far, far, *far* too obscure these days

Man's a hero in a variety of ways, and it bothers me that I only learned of him in the last five or so years.

[scarletwoman]

31. He most certainly was effectively erased from our history -- down the Memory Hole.

The Ruling Class would prefer that the proles not know about prominent dissenters to the status quo.

sw

[defendandprotect]

37. Smedley also exposed an assassiantion plot against FDR by TPB/corps/elites . ..

There were USHR hearings on it -- and plot was stopped --

but biggest corporation at the time involved and not much publicized.

[scarletwoman]

43. Yes -- more hidden history. You'd think the revelation of a plot to assassinate a president would be

a story prominently featured in our history books, but I never knew a thing about it until I got on the internet.

Of course, these days the financial elites have no need to assassinate anyone to get their way, they own and control the whole Federal government.

sw

[ConcernedCanuk]

25. USA's prime movers would be happy - USA is doing exactly what they wanted to do

.
.
.

take over the World.

China and Russia are the only ones stopping them . .

If China and Russia didn't have nukes, the USA woulda invaded them too.

India only has nukes 'cause the USA hopes that they will stay on the USA's agenda

BUT

That ain't gonna work

USA had it's fingers in the pie in South America -

South America(most of it) got wise and is kicking USA interests out .

USA funded Afghanistan to fight off the Soviets - now the uSA is slaughtering the people that helped them run the soviets out

USA funded Iraq(Saddam) to make wars on Iran

that worked well

USA is one big shit-disturbing bully

sooner or later,

there's a price to pay

(sigh)

[scarletwoman]

33. It's abundantly clear that our government is owned by the Owners. (nt)

[chill_wind]

29. K & R. I never tire of hearing the hard biting truth.

It always has a nice clean unambiguous quality to it.

[scarletwoman]

32. Thank you. There are far too many people in this country who prefer to avoid or deny the truth.

From the very first time I read Gen. Butler's essay, I knew he had the right of it.

sw

[Gregorian]

36. Wow. I am so glad I found this thread.

Why did I know this when I was only a child? How did I know? I knew. I was conscientious objector in Vietnam. I wasn't going. But to hear this from a seasoned military man is more than a little satisfying. If satisfying is the word.

I do believe it is this moment when I officially give up. I don't think there's hope. In fact I know there's no hope. Not in the sense that we can make of this planet what I know we can. It could have been so easy. So easy to make this a better place. It's hard enough without the trouble we bring upon our selves. We get sick, injured, have to work to survive, and then die. As if we needed more trouble. Take a look at baboons. They're nasty at times. Fighting, stealing. You can see we're nothing more than monkeys. But we could be more. But now I see that the collective memory fails us. And people just don't see the truth. Saddam was no more of a threat to anyone than Peewee Herman. Now we find out that IBM programmed the machines that organized Hitler's prison camps. We made an enemy and then fought them, and then hid our complicity. Same with Saddam. And people died for those lies. And it's going to go on like this until something intervenes, or go on forever.

[scarletwoman]

45. I'm glad you're glad. I'm sorry, though, that you feel like giving up -- and I also understand.

It does seem such a shame and waste that we humans have been given this beautiful planet to live on and our capacity for intelligence and creativity, yet none of us gets to simply live in peace because of the unbounded greed of a few.

sw

[defendandprotect]

38. Thank you for posting this in full...

especially at this time when we remember the many who have died in our wars!

I've actually had this book in my hands . . . it's a small red book -- about 35 pages.

I zeroxed it while I had it. Pages now buried in one of my many journals.

But - also wanted to make clear that Smedley stressed that we had to take the profit

out of war. We have 45,000 private corporations operating in Iraq --

including the best known Bectel/KBR/Halliburton/Blackwater -- and mercenaries fighting

there, as well!

And many members of Congress are directly or indirectly connected to war profits!!!

[Octafish]

39. There should be a Smedley Butler Society.

It would be full of people who hate war, including patriots and heroes like Smedley Butler and Scarlet Woman.

[1776Forever]

40. Unfortunetly this proves it more then ever "Shooters say Blackwater Supplied Guns"

Contractors say Blackwater supplied forbidden guns

By MIKE BAKER – May 22, 2009

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gO3b8AQwioSxsmv6_PDjYvuE2N8QD98AVAI80

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The security firm formerly known as Blackwater armed some of its workers in Afghanistan despite U.S. military documents that prohibited them from carrying guns, said two former contractors who were fired after they were involved in a fatal shooting in the country.

Justin Cannon and Steven McClain said Thursday that they frequently asked superiors why the company distributed the AK-47 assault rifles without Department of Defense authorization.

"We were just told, 'Continue doing your job. Don't worry about it. That's above your paygrade,'" Cannon, 27, of Texas, said in an interview with The Associated Press. The men were involved in a shooting earlier this month that killed an Afghan and injured two others, and they recently returned to the U.S., saying they were cleared to leave after an interview with military investigators.

Blackwater, now known as Xe, has said the company's subsidiary, Paravant, fired the men "for failure to comply with the terms of their contract." McClain showed a letter detailing his termination, and it listed a violation of alcohol policy as the only specific reason for firing.

Both men said they weren't drinking and hadn't drank since arriving in Afghanistan in November. Their attorney, Daniel J. Callahan, said he believes the company is making up the alcohol issue so it can avoid scrutiny over contractors being armed.

"Blackwater's concerned about getting kicked out of Afghanistan as it got kicked out of Iraq," said Callahan, with Santa Ana, Calif.-based Callahan & Blaine. "They're trying to use these four men as scapegoats."

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell declined to immediately comment on the accusations.

McClain and Cannon said the company issued weapons to the contractors even though they were supposed to train the Afghan National Army on other styles of weapons used by NATO forces. And they said the company told them to carry the weapons, even when they weren't training, and that it was no secret that they had the guns.

"These weapons pretty much went wherever we went," Cannon said. "If we go to the classroom, we take our weapons. If we go to the range, we take our weapons. If we leave the compound at all, we take our weapons."

They had the guns with them as usual on the night of May 5. The men said they had dinner with some interpreters and then went to drive them to a taxi stand several miles away. On the way, the men said a speeding vehicle slammed into the first car of their two-vehicle convoy, causing it to roll.

McClain, 25, of California, said he was hurt and that he and his passengers had to climb out of the sport utility vehicle's back window.

Cannon said the people in his SUV got out to help but saw that the car that had caused the accident had turned and sped toward them. Cannon said he and another contractor, Chris Drotleff, fired their weapons. He wasn't sure how many rounds were fired.

"At that point, the vehicle was the threat," Cannon said. "I thought I was about to get creamed by a 2,000-pound car."

The brother of one of the wounded Afghans has said the car was full of shopkeepers heading home from work and that the people in the vehicle misinterpreted one of the Americans hitting the car as an order to move.

A passenger was hit in the stomach and died two days later, said Shah Agha, whose brother Farid was driving the car. Farid was shot in the hand and another person was injured outside the vehicle, Agha said.

McClain said three of the men, including Armando Hamid, who were fired in the aftermath of the shooting have left Afghanistan while a fourth, Drotleff, is still there. Callahan had accused the company of holding the men against their will. But they said Thursday that Blackwater told them to stay but didn't physically detain them. They left the compound Saturday night.

Xe, which is based in North Carolina, dumped its brand name Blackwater earlier this year as it tried to distance itself from its operations in Iraq. The State Department is not renewing the company's lucrative security work in there, which comprises an estimated one-third of Xe's revenues.

[destes]

48. With "old west" chivalry it's guiding light........

.....and six guns blazing,
cleaning up the town
(or village, or country, or ethnic group).
Old man Reagan's legacy,
permanent dumbing down of America.
Stupefaction of "main street".
Alan Ladd stands on a stool to face his enemy,
draw his gun and kiss his gal.
Impotence and innocence alike forgotten in the
heat of wars and support at home to
"bomb 'em, kill 'em all".
Unemployability at long last.
A "real" nation of killer sheep,
endlessly cheerleading, doomed to oblivion.
Nationalized madness:
I want my health care
I want my SUV too.
and God,
I want you to look after my grandchildren.
Amen.

Some subjects get to me so that I must respond as I only can respond. With half-baked poetry.

[dipsydoodle]

42. K & R

n/t

[Agony]

44. K & R !

Because we have to remember.

[scarletwoman]

46. Thank you. (nt)

[pleah]

47. K&R

[lxlxlxl]

49. I wonder how many other countries armies have their own Butler's

I love this essay. It's one of those things that gives people hope that no matter what the circumstance or setting, that people with rational minds can effectively understand how pointless and meaningless modern war normally is...even from the inside of the army.

When you read things like this, or Heller, or Vonnegut, or Celine -- you realize that people that ACTUALLY had to fight are not as gung ho about military action as some people want us to believe. If we didn't have crap like Rambo in our media bloodstream, the overwhelming depiction of war in the written record is deeply critical and inimical to the idea that military solutions are. That balance is undeniable to anyone that has spent a few minutes examining the record, but somehow people still think voices like Butler's are in the minority.

[spooked911]

50. full essay -- all 5 chapters-- here

http://smedlydarlingtonbutler.blogspot.com/

I like chapters 4 and 5.

[scarletwoman]

66. Thank you for posting that link. (nt)

[snot]

51. awesome post. sorry i'm too late to rec.

[glitch]

60. You're not, I just did (about 30 minutes left) :)

Thanks for posting, especially appropriate on Memorial Day!

[mod mom]

52. Smedley Butler exposed the coup against FDR (elitists including Prescott bu$h):

1934: The Plot Against America
DEPARTMENT No Comment
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED July 28, 2007
I’m back from the land of heather and thistles, not to mention wee drams and lukewarm ale, but on my way out a friend at the BBC alerted me to this, a not-to-miss program on the BBC this morning, accessible over the next several days by internet. It’s the story of the Plot Against America. I don’t mean the Philip Roth novel, nor even the Sinclair Lewis book, It Can’t Happen Here, but rather the historical events upon which these two works of fiction were based.

In November 1934, federal investigators uncovered an amazing plot involving some two dozen senior businessmen, a good many of them Wall Street financiers, to topple the government of the United States and install a fascist dictatorship. Roth’s novel is developed from several strands of this factual account; he assumed the plot is actually carried out, whereas in fact an alert FDR shut it down but stopped short of retaliatory measures against the plotters. A key element of the plot involved a retired prominent general who was to have raised a private army of 500,000 men from unemployed veterans and who blew the whistle when he learned more of what the plot entailed. The plot was heavily funded and well developed and had strong links with fascist forces abroad. A story in the New York Times and several other newspapers reported on it, and a special Congressional committee was created to conduct an investigation. The records of this committee were scrubbed and sealed away in the National Archives, where they have only recently been made available.

The Congressional committee kept the names of many of the participants under wraps and no criminal action was ever brought against them. But a few names have leaked out. And one is Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the incumbent president. Prescott Bush was of course deep into the business of the Hamburg-America Lines, and had tight relations throughout this period with the new Government that had come to power in Germany a year earlier under Chancellor Aldoph Hitler. It appears that Bush was to have formed a key liaison for the group with the new German government.

Prescott Bush, of course, went on to service as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut, and his son, George H.W. Bush emerged from World War II as a hero.

-snip

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651



The Whitehouse Coup
Monday 23 July 2007



The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.




http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

[Lydia Leftcoast]

53. Whenever I hear some naive young person talk about joining the military

out of "patriotism" or "a desire to serve their country" or "protect freedom," I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I am still haunted by a photograph that appeared in The Oregonian in the early days of the Iraq invasion.

A local youth, 19 years old, was one of the earliest casualties. According to the obituary article, he seemed like the proverbial nice, wholesome kid, who had joined the military out of desire to "serve his country" and to get money for college.

He was the only child of a working-class couple, and as fate would have it, he died in a jeep accident in Iraq.

The photograph that ran in the paper was one of the most heartbreaking I have ever seen: his parents, following the casket out the door, their faces contorted with utter desolation and grief, leaning on each other so as not to collapse, their hope for the future destroyed.

That kind of scene has been repeated thousands of times in the past six years (six years!), millions of times if you count the Iraqi and Afghan dead, and I'm angry at the entire Republican party and at every spineless Democrat who has gone along with the slaughter out of fear of being seen as "weak on defense" or because "the war resolution is going to pass anyway."

What moral bankruptcy there is among the politicians in this country.

[Honeycombe8]

54. I hate to see that in writing, but it seems to be true.

Having watched a number of documentaries on WWII and other wars, anyone studying those wars can see that the REAL reasons for the wars were sometimes different things for different countries, and not what the masses thought the wars were about.

Still, now and again, a war IS for a just cause, even though there are war profiteers and such.

[Mechatanketra]

69. I think it works the other way around.

At least for American history, it seems that now and again we're fortunate enough that the war we were going into anyhow happens to have a justifiable cause. E.g. it's nice that we could end slavery in the Civil War, but we fought it "to preserve the Union" (which I think is roughly the justification for the PRC threatening Taiwan).

As Frank Drebin said: "In all honesty, the last three I backed over with my car. Luckily, they turned out to be drug-dealers."

[applejuice]

55. K & R !

Hoping een more people can see this. :)

[femrap]

56. I always carry my

'WAR IS A RACKET' poster with fake money taped to it in my trunk....just in case there is a protest nearby. The other one I carry is: 'ATONE FOR THE GREED.'

It is so amazing to me that people can't see that war is a racket.

[Dangerously Amused]

59. Thank you for posting this.

Now I know of, and will never forget, a true American hero: General Smedley Butler.

[RedCloud]

61. Smedley Butler vs. Ollie North

The fight would be over real quick.

[troubledamerican]

62. We have a modern Smedley Butler. His name is John Perkins. "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"

is exactly the same book as "War Is A Racket" except Perkins was not military.

The next Business Coup will not be stopped, as a result. Stay out of D.C. when Hillary becomes president.

[G_j]

65. great book!

highly recommended