[ a true patriot, when he/she realizes that a country's military are used only to enrich, serve and protect the Banksters and their interests, is willing to tell the Truth to whoever will listen. . ]
Major General Smedley
Butler, USMC.
He joined the Marine Corps
when the Spanish American War broke out, earned the Brevette Medal
during the Boxer Rebellion in China, saw action in Central America, and
in France during World War I was promoted to Major General. Smedley
Butler served his country for 34 years, yet he spoke against American
armed intervention into the affairs of sovereign nations.
War Is A Racket
A speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley
Butler, USMC.
Smedley Butler
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 [I] 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?
Out of war nations acquire
additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This
newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the
selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general
public shoulders the bill.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible
accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds.
Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its
attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and
generations.
For a great many years, as a
soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to
civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war
clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.
Again they are choosing sides.
France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and
Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast
sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique
occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.
The assassination of King
Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and
Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy
was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All
of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight
and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home
to profit.
There are 40,000,000 men under
arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the
temerity to say that war is not in the making.
Hell's bells! Are these
40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?
Not in Italy, to be sure.
Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least,
is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in
"International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, said:
"And above all, Fascism,
the more it considers and observes the future and the development of
humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment,
believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual
peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and
puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet
it."
Undoubtedly Mussolini means
exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes,
and even his navy are ready for war – anxious for it, apparently. His
recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with
Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on
the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too.
There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner
or later.
Herr Hitler, with his rearming
Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if
not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of
military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.
Yes, all over, nations are
camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the
Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and
Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed
Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing
Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the
"open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China
is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent
about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our
bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments
there of less than $200,000,000.
Then, to save that China trade
of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less
than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate
Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost us tens of billions
of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more
hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.
Of course, for this loss, there
would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and
billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers.
Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They
would fare well.
Yes, they are getting ready for
another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.
But what does it profit the men
who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their
wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?
What does it profit anyone
except the very few to whom war means huge profits?
Yes, and what does it profit
the nation?
Take our own case. Until 1898
we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America.
At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000.
Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted
aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George
Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to
war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period,
as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our
national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable
trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about
$24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a
little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been
ours without the wars.
It would have been far cheaper
(not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay
out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like
bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the
cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not
profit.
CHAPTER TWO
WHO MAKES THE
PROFITS?
Continue Reading this important speech HERE