USMC Gen. Smedly Butler Hated America!

[Comadreja]

WAR IS A RACKET
Smedley Darlington Butler
Major General - United States Marine Corps
Born West Chester, Pa., July 30, 1881
Educated Haverford School
Married Ethel C. Peters, of Philadelphia, June 30, 1905
Awarded two congressional medals of honor, for capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914,
and for capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917
Distinguished service medal, 1919
Retired Oct. 1, 1931
On leave of absence to act as director of Department of Safety, Philadelphia, 1932
Lecturer - 1930's
Republican Candidate for Senate, 1932
Died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, June 21, 1940


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?

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.

SNIP

[Arlington]

1. smedley butler --worth reading

a good book on the guy is "Maverick Marine," by Hans Schmidt.

"War is a Racket" is also available -- isbn 0922915865 -- just reprinted last year through arrangement with his heirs.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Maybe we can get Will Pitt to do a beyond the grave interview with

the Major General and get his thoughts on Bush, Cheney, Iraq, Halliburton, etc.

[Ernesto]

20. Why, was he a Marine?

[Narraback]

3. If its good enough for Smedley.....

Here is a site:


http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

[leesa]

4. And just think Bush's relatives profited in every war of the last century

including the fake anti-communism and anti-drug wars. What a way to build a legacy.

[BiggJawn]

5. I was just thinking about Prescott's dad when I read that bit about...

...all the new millionaires WWI made.

[Comadreja]

6. Gen. Butler

probably was speaking with the Bush gang in mind.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Gen. Butler didn't hate America. He respected the military and

what it represented.

He hated the military being used as a toady for a few greedy individuals looking to increase their wealth by making soldiers, etc. a private police force.

[9215]

8. What do you mean Butler hated America?

Explain please.

[Kanary]

11. Doesn't exactly fit the rules of DU, does it?

A lead-off with an untrue and inflammatory statement, never explained in the body of the message.....

Nor futher on........

[mike1963]

12. Didn't you get the RW memo? "If you're against war, you hate America!"

sheesh
:eyes:

[Kanary]

16. Your opinion is supposed to be expressed at the beginning then....

[mike1963]

19. Well, if you think it was misrepresented, you should do an alert instead o

of showing the world you don't understand sarcasm.

:eyes:

[JohnLocke]

22. IT WAS A JOKE!

Sheesh

[rasputin1952]

9. Smedley Butler didn't hate America...

what he found despicable was the use of the military to enhance the coffers of the war profiteers. Quite often he and his men were given substandard weapons and food, and yet required to do the job that what required of them.

MG Butler was the last General that actually led his men into battle in the front lines. He never took the lives of his men lightly, and fought tirelessly to get the equipment and goods necessary to wage the battles he was ordered to fight.

Butler was outspoken against those that sent sub-standard equipment and ill trained troops into battles that were part of the American era of imperialism. Butler made a lot of enemies in high places, (mostly among war profiteers), but he was correct in his ideology that "war was a racket". Many men died to enrich others that never had to fight off more than flies in their backyard.

Smedley Butler was a true American hero, utterly fearless and more than willing to tell the truth as he saw it.

O8)

[nannah]

21. Smedley Butler has been a hero of mine since I read "Maverick Marine".

What always interested me about him was how his efforts after he retired from the Marines were a synthesis of his unique perspective on war and the military . Smedley Butler was: the son of the Head of the U.S. Senate Arms Committee, a Major General in the Marine Corps, a soldier who led his men into battle and fought along side them, and a young man who grew up in a Quaker family.

I think the suggestion above, that Will Pitt do an imaginary interview with him, is a good idea. Smedley Butler's life and thoughts would make an excellent context for seeing Bush's life and experience, as someone has begun here in this thread.

I think Butler could become a credible voice with which to focus on george's awol and prescott and herbert walker's military efforts. it would also be a nice way to examine haliburton and cheney.

[mike1963]

10. I see that some of us are sarcasm-impaired (your subject)

Good catch.
:D

[Comadreja]

14. Thanks

Bush supporters would claim he hates America, but they would be embarrassed to learn the source.

[MGKrebs]

13. Gen. Butler (who is an ancestor of mine) also

foiled a coup attempt by the DuPont , Morgan, and Singer families. Interesting stuff.

A place to start:
http://members.aol.com/discord23/coup.htm

In 1933, Irenee, Pierre and Lammot Du Pont, along with Alfred P. Sloan of the Du Pont controlled General Motors, began funding several anti-semitic/anti-black groups. These groups, including the million-strong Clark's Crusaders, and the American Liberty League, were highly outspoken in their attacks on Roosevelt, linking the socialist policies of the New Deal with an international Zionist conspiracy. (Apparently the same Zionist bankers popular among Birchers and other right-wing groups today.) In all, Higman states that over $ million was put up to finance an army modeled on the French fascist movement, Croix de Fau.

Following a series of meetings with members of the Morgan dynasty in 1934, the group approached former Marine commandant General Smedley Butler. Butler, a two-time Medal of Honor recipient who had often bitterly attacked Roosevelt's policies, was contacted at his home in Pennsylvania by one Gerald MacGuire, who related to him the conspiracy's plans and urged him to become the nation's figurehead should Roosevelt prove "difficult and unwilling to take orders from the 'fraternity'."

Though Butler ultimately proved unwilling to commit treason, he remained silent as to his intentions and attended a second meeting in which MacGuire related more detailed plans centering around the installation of a fascist dictatorship in America. Following this meeting, Butler immediately contacted the White House and informed Roosevelt of all he knew about the plot.

[Sterling]

15. Hated America?

I don't think so.

[Comadreja]

17. Nor I

[JanMichael]

18. Bwah! You too? I just posted using his name and words.

Beat me too it:-)