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War is a Racket – Smedley Butler

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and 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 benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might 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.”

― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier

CHAPTER ONE

War Is A Racket

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?

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Memorial Day – 2015

by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | May 25, 2015

Fort Hood has put a boot on the ground for every American life lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. A powerful memorial. Fort Hood has put a boot on the ground for every American life lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. A powerful memorial.  Yet, another way to honor the war dead is to put a stop to all these pointless, unconstitutional wars.

If you have time to read the three well-researched and documented books by Antony C. Sutton listed here …

1) Wall Street & the Rise of Hitler; 2) Wall Street and FDR; 3) Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution: The Remarkable True Story of the American Capitalists Who Financed the Russian Communists … the self-righteous myths that tell us the USA is all about the spreading of democracy and the protecting of freedom will become an obvious, painful hoax to you.   Yes, I too believed in these myths, but after the JFK assassination, the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the obvious coverup concerning the attacks on 9/11, it was finally time for me to dig in, invest some time and take a closer look at what our government was actually doing.   Do I disparage our brave soldiers who fight to protect this country; who believe they are fighting for truth, justice and the American way?   Not at all. I honor their well-intended sacrifices.    But I am now aware of the deals made behind closed doors, as documented by Carroll Quigley (Anglo-American Establishment), Sutton and other top historians that base their research — not on official establishment propaganda– but on the facts as they find them; thereby removing the political spin and propaganda that we have all grown up believing. This is the critical point for me: If we care to regain the honorable ideals of a free and prosperous people, we must confront the evil that has infiltrated our government and surreptitiously controls the money system and therefore the government and all its machinery. This can not be done by pretending that facts are not facts. So if you choose to take this brave journey to the truth, buckle your seat-belts, it going to be a bumpy ride.

Here is just one example how our vaulted sultans of American Foreign policy honor our military:

“Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”

― Henry Kissinger

P.S. And to all my fellow patriotic citizens:  Before you go about bashing my head against the wall with your fists, please read the above mentioned three books by Sutton and then we can sit down as adults and talk –not fight– about solutions and the sad predicament we all find ourselves and our beloved America in now on this May 25th, 2015 Memorial Day.

More reading on this topic here:

U.S. Soldiers Died for Empire and Hegemony
by Jacob G. Hornberger May 25, 2015

America: The Greatest Force for Good? (ClearNFO)

Is the U.S. a force for good or evil? (ClearNFO)


From Wikipedia: Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country’s armed forces. The holiday, which is observed every year on the last Monday of May, originated as Decoration Day after the American Civil War in 1868, when the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans — established it as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. By the 20th century, competing Union and Confederate holiday traditions, celebrated on different days, had merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service. It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.

War Is A Racket (text)
By Major General Smedley Butler

War is a Racket (Video) by Smedley Butler is a famous speech denouncing the military industrial complex. This speech by two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient exposes war profits that benefit few at the expense of many. Throughout his distinguished career in the Marines, Smedley Darlington Butler demonstrated that true patriotism does not mean blind allegiance to government policies with which one does not agree. To Hell with war.

Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex.