"War is a Racket" -- General Smedley Butler

> "War is a Racket" 
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> Smedley Butler served in the US Marine Corps for 33 years, rising to become a Major General. Awarded 2 Congressional medals of Honor, he was also visibly involved with organizing police forces at the time of prohibition, gaining a lot of national prestige and recognition. Upon retirement however, he renounced war and imperialism and began a vocal campaign against US interventionism. His military career saw the USMC change from being involved mostly in port operations to an infantry force regularly deployed internationally. His dissidence did not originate from the prevailing isolationist or leftist ideologies of 1930s America, but rather from first hand experience. This independence of thought produced a disarmingly clear and straightforward viewpoint on the role of war. Here is an excerpt from a speech he gave during this period, reproduced from <http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm>here: 
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> > "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.  
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> > 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.  
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> > 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.  
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> > 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.  
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> > 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. 
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> > 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. " 
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> His book "War is a Racket", is an elaboration of the excerpt above and is available <http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm> online over here. This is worth a look; particularly interesting is the third chapter, "Who Pays the Bills" where the soldier's pay structure during those times is discussed. I wonder how the contemporary US soldier is paid. 
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> In the book, he had three recommendations for doing away with war as a racket. Firstly, he said there should be no profit associated with war, secondly soldiers or draftees should be allowed to vote whether or not they want to fight, and thirdly that war should only be fought to defend national borders. To take profit out of war, Smedley suggests that everyone should be conscripted into the army, and that all ranks should get the same pay as those in the trenches. His overly simplistic viewpoints sound naive, however, they were voiced in very different political times, when the experience of the Great Depression and the presence of the Soviet Union created receptivity for substantive action and alternatives. 
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> To what extent is the racketeering viewpoint still relevant today? The US has the mightiest military force around. Oil is frequently cited as the prime incentive in the Gulf War, and most recently the Afghanistan war was talked about as a cover for controlling the Central Asian oil reserves. Securing natural resources is a close variation of the General's proposition as to the relationship between business and war. These two cases have left behind US military bases in a global network of power. However, economic rationale is not the only motivation in contemporary times. Take the case of Serbia, there was no economic prize to be gained, but there was a wanton display of might. While the role and the different ways in which the US intervenes abroad have variation, the central theme of a racket, whereby the real story is hidden, continues. 


Finally, the General's career saw bloody campaigns. In Haiti, e.g. he was awarded the Medal of Honor for an engagement in which 200 Cacos (rebels) were killed and no prisoners taken, while one Marine was struck by a rock and lost two teeth. We "hunted the Cacos like pigs", he recalled later (from Year 501, Noam Chomsky.) Notably absent from the General's dissidence is any mention of the wretchedness wrought on those on whom it is waged. It is odd that he may see the machinations and the effects on the soldiers, but not the real devastation.