Major General Smedley Butler, USMC *WAR IS A RACKET*

[upi402]

(an oldie, but a goodie -just in case somebody out there has missed this)

***** MUST READ *****



Smedley Butler on Interventionism

-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

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 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.

http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/Gen-Smedley-Butler.htm

[ddzimm]

1. Jar Heads are practical animals, and I love them. Semper Fi! EOM

[Peter Frank]

6. Welcome to the DU ddzimm...

:hi:

You'll find that many of us here have a great respect for the military.

My uncle Donald, Army General (retired), served with Oliver North on the NSC and was slated to testify at the Iran/Contra hearings ...if events needed his clarification.

Previously as Colonel, he commanded thousands of troops in two tours of Vietnam.

My (deceased) uncle Gerald Was a retired Air Force Col.

Look around & see America everywhere. Gravestones of soldiers don't say political party -- they say American.

I trust that you know the response when a Marine says Semper Fidelis (always faithful)...

Semper Fi -- 'Till you die

Some of the people that you may have been encouraged to marginalize, might have more in common with you than you suspect.


Respect...

[ddzimm]

25. Thank you, but ‘encouraged to marginalize’?

I’m not sure I follow. Who is encouraging me to marginalize whom? The men (and women) in uniform.

My best friend is a Marine, my wife’s father was a squid, my great-uncle was in the ACE in the Pacific during WWII and helped pour the floors in NORAD, through extensive genealogy research I have discovered ancestors who chased Pancho Via in Mexico and New Mexico, fought with the Rebels in the Civil War, and fought the British in the Revolutionary war.

I agree, the last thing on a soldiers mind when he is in the ‘shit’ is party affiliation And Bodies, Bullets, Bombs and Blood know nothing. We owe it to the dead heroes to fight the right fight at home, not support a political agenda.

[grasswire]

2. Smedley Butler, American hero

It was Butler who stopped the coup attempt against FDR -- a plot by the elite industrialists who didn't like FDR's policies. They nearly deposed FDR, but they had asked General Smedley Butler to carry out the coup, and he ratted them out.

Most Americans are not aware of this important event.

[upi402]

3. IMPORTANT indeed

:toast:
Here's the reference that the cited website gives that IMPORTANT event;

"...In Oct. 1, 1931 General Butler retired. To earn extra income he became a lecturer throughout the 1930's, was a Republican Candidate for Senate in 1932, and was asked to head an alternative government by right-wing industrialists. He died of cancer at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, June 21, 1940..."

A Quaker in the USMC.

[grasswire]

23. oh my goodness

"asked to head an alternative government"

disgusting.

[bushmeister0]

4. Ulyssis S. Grant on unjust war:

"To this day regard the war which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.

Even if the annexation itself could be justified, the manner in which the subsequent war was forced upon Mexico cannot.

Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times. "

And on opposing war:

"Once initiated there were but few public men who would have the courage to oppose it. Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war in which his nation is engaged, no matter whether right or wrong, occupies no enviable place in life or history. Better for him, individually, to advocate war, pestilence, and famine, than to act as obstructionist to a war already begun."

More on Smedly Butler and war at http://imnotworthy.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_imnotworthy_archive.html

[oblivious]

7. The cowards beat the war drums. The courageous stand against it.

[CarlSheeler4U]

12. Why is that exactly? Sort of like buying a sports care when you're 55?

[NewJeffCT]

18. amazing how those that were actually in a war..

Like conservatives Chuck Hagel & John Murtha, are the strongest critics of it.

[1932]

20. I just read an amazing indictment of KKK by Grant, which he gave to

Congress. I think it was quoted in Freakanomics in a section about the KKK and Stetson Kennedy (what a smarty pants!).

[Peter Frank]

5. Emphatic K&R!...

Let's keep this kicked DU'd for an historical context of todays events; and what to learn from history (so that we're not doomed to repeat it).

[malaise]

8. Nice read

The racket works because of brainwashing from the cradle. When humanity smashes the brainwashing racket, we can Imagine peace.

[Peter Frank]

9. "When humanity smashes the brainwashing racket"...

...peace will be the predetermined result.

[Peter Frank]

17. Please read this remark more closely...

(...keeping in mind the RW context)

[unhappycamper]

10. Here's a pic of the Smedley D. Butler Brigade of the Veterans for Peace

Taken at the end of the Patriot's Day parade in Concord, MA last year:



One of our ongoing actions: http://cancelmyglobe.com/

[CarlSheeler4U]

11. This quote is on my campaign website homepage Semper fi'

Carl
Sheeler for US Senate
www.carlsheeler.com

[leftchick]

13. His whole book is available here online....

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html#c3

It is excellent and timeless, sadly.

[annabanana]

14. kick. . . . . . . . . n/t

[JNelson6563]

15. great stuff!

Kickety-kick. :kick:

[Junkdrawer]

16. He's the man who stopped "The Coup Attempt of 1934" to remove FDR...

Streaming link here:

http://wfmu.org/listen.ram?show=10938

Summary:

First of a four-part series about fascism in America, this program documents the early growth and powerful nature of American fascism. Much of the program centers on the actions of American industrialists and financiers sympathetic to fascism, most of whom were also professionally connected to corporate elements in Nazi Germany. The bulk of the program is analysis and history of the relationship of the Morgan and Dupont interests to the MacArthur Group in the military (General Douglas MacArthur and an important group of high-ranking officers on his staff.) The machinations of this economic, miliary and polical milieu are the focus of much of the program. The broadcast highlights the 1934 coup attempt by powerful members of America's corporate elite. Dissatisfied to the point of treason by President Roosevelt's New Deal, they sought to overthrow FDR and install a Mussolini-style "corporate state." (See Miscellaneous Archive Show M42.) The conspirators sought to utilize an armed force of World War I veterans, led by Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, a two-time winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. A true patriot, Butler pretended to go along with the conspirators, but actually informed the Roosevelt administration of the plot. During the subsequent Congressional investigation, Butler revealed that among the central conspirators were members of the Morgan-Dupont economic axis and that Douglas MacArthur had been the plotters' first choice to lead the coup. The program also documents the involvement of elements of the MacArthur/Morgan/Dupont milieu in subsequent attempts to overthrow FDR. Some of those attempts were undertaken in conjunction with Third Reich intelligence officers and with the knowledge and blessing of the Nazi leadership. The program concludes with history and analysis of the program of assassination and terror conducted by the so-called "Black Reichswehr" (para-military units functioning at the behest of the German military leadership.) This assassination program paved the way for Hitler's rise to power. Program highlights include: the Nazi /fascist background of Major General Charles Willoughby (Douglas MacArthur's top intelligence officer from 1939 through the beginning of the Korean War); MacArthur's selection of Andres Soriano (a prominent Phillipine fascist) to hold a key post in the islands after "liberation;" the support given by the 1934 coup backers to Hitler; MacArthur staffer General George Van Horne Moseley's collaboration with German intelligence in an attempt to overthrow FDR; American fascist William Dudley Pelley's treasonous attempts to help overthrow Roosevelt (also undertaken in conjunction with German intelligence); the post-World War II American right's adoption of the ideological line of the pre-war domestic fascists; the connections of the early Nazi party in Germany to Reichswehr intelligence.

[rman]

22. A coup attempt by Dupont, Morgan - nazis avant-la-lettre

Not far-fetched conspiracy theory, but very well documented facts.
There was a congressional investigation, purpetrators found guilty - but nothing came of it. Those guys were (are) protected by people even more powerfull then them.


for more on the US nazi network see
"JFK 2 - the Bush connection"
http://www.jfkii.com/

[oblivious]

28. Wow. There's a lot I didn't know about US history.

[rman]

19. THE SMEDLEY BUTLER SOCIETY

http://warisaracket.org/

"Seventy years ago a highly decorated Marine Corps general, disturbed by his participation in various military interventions, declared that WAR IS A RACKET and that we need a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT to guarantee everlasting peace to our nation."

[Bigmack]

21. Whenever I read the Butler quote...

... I'm reminded of the quote from the former Commandant of the Corps during the first part of my time in....

`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.

[Solon]

24. Wish he ran our foriegn policy for the past half-century...

Would have saved us, and the world, a lot of grief.

[Karenina]

29. Indeed.

:kick:

[Ernesto]

26. A KICK from an old crotch creature.... n-t

[upi402]

27. Thank you for your service bro

:patriot:
I really am a patriotic sap when it comes to defending America and get that water in the eye easy for this country. I get vein popping furious too. Man, that Arizona tour in Pearl Harbor had an effect on me.