Catchy title, right? I only wish it was mine. This was a book that came out in 1938 by Major General Smedley D. Butler (ret.). He served 33 years in the United States Marine Corps and his was the highest rank authorized at that time. At the time of his death, in 1940, he was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. To date, he is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions. I was introduced to this book in college by a political science professor. It’s only around 90 pages and I have read it nearly every other year as a reminder.
You’ll see in a bit why it’s important to tell you who this man was…
Clearly no chicken hawk, Butler’s book details his exploits in his time with the Marines. He was in every major war, or battle, from the Spanish American War, through WWI, where he fought on the Western Front. He also led charges at his rank; there were no Green Zones or iPads back then…
His main point, hence the title, is that War is a Racket for money and unless we are truly fighting for the freedom of our country, we have no business being anywhere. Of course, he died before the Pearl Harbor attacks of December 7, 1941. He may have had a different opinion there. Sadly, 1950 onward have seen no exception to his main thesis. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and seven current wars we’re fighting in the Middle East all make Butler’s point; we’re fighting wars for corporate interests and the dollar, regardless of political party.
In his book, he cites with clarity of purpose, the profits of military suppliers before and after each of the wars he was involved in. He also discusses in plain English, the ploys used to manufacture consent; God, patriotism, the flag, protecting democracy…These are noble things, if indeed any of them were threatened. They’re not, especially not today and especially not God, who by the way, doesn’t need our help, if our current track record is any sort of litmus…
In the last 16 years we have seen these ploys play out in our media like it was a Hearst newspaper in 1895. The Washington Post made you out to be a fool and a Communist if you had anything bad to say about the Iraq War. For the first time in U.S. history; we invaded a sovereign nation. Why? Bogus charges of WMDs (none of which were ever found). Later, Republicans would feign sadness over bad coordinates, and claim they went with the information at hand.
Former CEO of Blackwater submits proposal for private Air Force in Afghanistan. Making a killing from killing ??https://t.co/OeXkbMgWvV
— Mikey Kay (@MikeyKayNYC) August 3, 2017
I call bullshit. It was about the dollar; we knew it wasn’t going to cost $50 billion over three months. The Gulf War, which was solely a bombing campaign, was not about putting boots on the ground and sending our best and brightest to die…for nothing. Here, we knew it’d be trillions of dollars and so far, 8,000 of our kids are dead and we have killed a million Iraqi civilians. You want to make a terrorist? Kill his kids, Ron Paul warned of this for three decades. We knew what the blowback would be. Colin Powell warned the W. Administration about it, before he did his Adlai Stevenson impression in front of the U.N. with phony dummy boards that our glorious CIA bought from Ahmed Chalabi, who later got a cushy gig as Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq.
We knew…so why go in? The dollar, man! Always follow the dollar. Not long after getting off the Gold Standard, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger made a deal with OPEC nations (the Arabs to you and me) in which the U.S. dollar would be the sole currency for any and all oil trade, the world over. Even countries who couldn’t afford the oil increases would borrow U.S. dollars and pay the interest back in U.S. dollars and the petrodollar was born.
There are no coincidences, only the illusion of coincidence…
Now, here’s where I believe coincidences do not exist where ever money does…In 2000, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were running for president, when Saddam Hussein told the U.S. dollar to go screw themselves and started trading in Euros. Obviously, the Gulf War and Bill Clinton bombing Iraq to deflect from Monica Lewinsky stuck in his craw a little bit!
In the 90s, Cheney belonged to a Republican think tank called, the Project for a New American Century. In 2000, shortly after Saddam’s highly raised middle finger to the U.S. currency, the Council put out a paper on what this could mean long term. In it, the group said that Hussein getting off the dollar could send a dangerous message to other OPEC Nations, thus giving them permission. It said that the petrodollar and thus, the U.S. economy could crumble. It made the case that we must send a message and yet, predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless there was “some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor.” Otherwise, it’d be a painful and costly waiting game.
On September 11, 2001, the newly minted W. Administration got their wish. We invaded Iraq in March of 2003 and remember all those questions asked earlier? “Mission Accomplished” of Day One was we got Iraq back on the dollar! Who cares what trillions it would cost of printed money or who would die or be maimed? The petro dollar is backed by oil not gold! That oil goes and so does the U.S. economy. Hussein had to go and also serve as warning to OPEC, “Fuck with us, and we’ll chase you into a hole.” Anyone think the Arab Spring was an organic “uprising?” Yeah, I got a Tower Records for sale too, if you’re interested…
You ever wonder why we enjoy the quality of life we do, while we manufacture almost nothing? We export the dollar, man! And Smedley D. Butler saw it firsthand…
What he also saw in his time, were politicians being bought by the highest bidder; he lists company profits before and after each of the wars he fought in. The names Halliburton or Raytheon ring any bells today? They replaced the companies of his day, that’s all…
Here’s the thing; I only talked about one dirt war, one experience. There are hundreds!!! You think terrorists just make themselves? We’re doing it in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan…and why? We can’t just buy bombs to sit, they must go boom! That’s what the corporate masters want. Obama and Hilary Clinton took W.’s two wars and turned them into seven with nary a peep from the so-called liberal, not a sound…That Raytheon money tastes the same going down whether you’re a Republicrat or Demopublican…
FDR had a jobs program. If you wanted a job, building airports, subways and infrastructure; we have a job for you!!! We invested in people, people who pay taxes…
Now?
We have spent over 50 years shipping our jobs overseas. But we got a job for you; go overseas and kill poor brown people so we can take their natural resources and make corporations rich and maybe we’ll pay for college, that is if you make it back alive or not come back insane or having lost all of your limbs…
22 American service men commit suicide every day. Twenty-two. That’s eight thousand service men a year! Where’s the call for help from our leaders? This goes ignored…But hey! Russia and emails come first because covering up for a fraud candidate losing a no choice election is more important, right? I can’t even thank our kids in uniform for their “service” because I know we lied to them. Our government has lied to American People…
There are no victors in wars only victims… – Connie Tallada
I can already tell you the so called conservative response to this, much as the so called liberal response, sadly…You care so much about pro-life, but then decry welfare and education! Screw a kid after they’re born, we ain’t paying for milk and eggs or books! We’re so ready to send these kids to die for nothing. Let Exxon fight for that! Let the sons and daughters of Congress go fight in Afghanistan. Now, that our armies are voluntary, it’s our responsibility to send them into harm’s way only when it is absolutely necessary, not because Hillary Clinton said, as Secretary of State, “There’s a tremendous business opportunity in Iraq.”
We pitch our kids God and country and a flag. We have gotten to where we pledge allegiance to fabric and this is relatively new so can the “tradition” stuff. I pledge my allegiance to the Constitution of United States and if you’re offended because this flies in the face of your partisan hackery, then you’re part of the problem and I, as an American, refuse to treat stupid as a theory anymore. War is a Racket. A real veteran said that…Sleep tight.
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