Major General Smedley Butler, 'WAR IS A RACKET", still relevant this Memorial Day 2012

[LibyaWest]

As that  black-faced cracker and blood-sucking vampire, obomber, ratchets up the call for the slaughter of the Syrian people, it's past time to reflect on whose interests that slimy piece of s*** really serves.

 

 

 http://warisaracket.org/

 

 Semper Fi
Semper Fidelis, Always Faithful, is the motto of the United States Marine Corps. But faithful to what?

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, one of the most colorful officers in the Marine Corps' long history, was one of the two Marines who received two Medals of Honor for separate acts of outstanding heroism. General Butler was still in his teens when, on 20 May 1898, he was appointed a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps during the Spanish-American War. In the early part of the last century General Butler led assault troops in Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Haiti. He was a regimental commander in France during World War I and later served in China. On 1 October 1931, he was retired upon his own application after completion of 33 years' service in the Marine Corps. Major General Butler died at the Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, on 21 June 1940, following a four-week illness.

After his retirement General Butler wrote a book WAR IS A RACKET, which begins as follows:

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.

And in a speech delivered in 1933, General Butler said:

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.

General Butler has had a naval destroyer, a military base and a chapter of Veterans for Peace (the 'Smed Butts') named for him. He is loved and quoted not only in the United States, but around the world.

Like all officers General Butler swore the following oath upon his commissioning:

"I, _____ , having been appointed an officer in the Marine Corps of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."

Was General Butler faithful? You decide.

 

[UMOJA]

http://www.wanttoknow.info/plottoseizethewhitehouse

[UMOJA]

http://www.wanttoknow.info/plottoseizethewhitehouse

This is Jules Archer's shocking book The Plot to Seize the White House (1973) 
which vividly describes an actual attempt of a fascist takeover 
of USA. The story in brief is that General Smedley Butler 
was approached by shadowy men to lead a coup d'etat 
to overthrow democracy in 1933&34. In telling the story 
of the Plot, Jules Archer tells also the biography of 
General Smedley Butler who declined 
to become the American Hitler or Mussolini, over a fascist
 takeover of the US. The plot was not only real, it was witnessed
 and documented by the man the moguls wanted to lead it, 
retired Marine Corps General, Smedley D. Butler. 
Not a man for idle brag or idle praise, two-time 
Medal of Honor winner, Smedley Butler, 
was a Marine's Marine. He led his Marines from the 
front in battle, which was why he was such a popular figure with the
 veterans of that very unstable Depression period - a point 
not lost on those who wanted a military figure to
lead a veteran army, similar  to the Nazis in 
Germany, the Fascists in Italy and the strong but 
untried fascist movement in France. Playing 
for time and gaining as much information 
as he could about the plotters, 
Butler finally took his evidence before the
 House Un-American Activities Committee. 
He reported. His report and evidence was found solid, 
legitimate and unquestioned. But then what? 
Nothing. Nobody was ever prosecuted. Important 
men were never arrested or grilled over facts. 
The newspaper sensation created by an impotent 
congressional investigation in 1934 and 1935 died 
down and the story collected dust, forgotten ever since. 
However, the story fits into some others, including other
 suppressed and buried history. This book stands alone 
as a mystery story, a spy story, a thriller, a history, a 
biography of a patriot, a record of government corruption. 
It also fits in with a great body of literature with pieces of 
information telling bits of the history of sociopathy that killed
 over 200,000,000 people last century. As major industiral 
and banking names were involved, the story, it seems, was 
buried. Until Archer's book appeared in 1973. Then it seems
 to have been buried again. The question is why and who is
 still afraid of the information contained in Archer's book? 
285 pages, many pictures. A must read for everyone.

[UMOJA]

 

 

[james wilson]

I read this story some months ago on the website Counterpunch. However, I'd forgotten to read the book.

Thanks UMOJA, for reminding me to read in greater detail this best kept secret of American history.