“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.”
Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, in 1935
Who is Smedley Butler? Wikipedia starts off as follows: “…nicknamed ‘The Fighting Quaker’ and ‘Old Gimlet Eye’, was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. By the end of his career he had received 16 medals, five of which were for heroism. He is one of 19 people to twice receive the Medal of Honor, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.”
If there ever was a man that knew war he has to be among the elite. The quote is the start of his book, War is a Racket, published in 1935. The book is still in print and is available many places, the Amazon listing is War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier
Thinking of our two most recent military excursions the first thing that pops into my mind is the old cliché, “The more things change, the more the stay the same.” Greed knows no bounds and has no ethics.
According to Anti-War.org as of the date of this post, 4,477 Americans have died in Iraq. The official wounded count is 33,151. Other sources estimate it at over 100,000. The estimate of Iraqi deaths is approximately, 1.5 million. Now add in coalition forces, contractors, journalist. The human cost is high. The same site details 1802 combat deaths in Afghanistan, and 942 other military deaths.
The website Cost of War.com lists the cost of the Iraq at 798 billion and the Afghanistan at 463 billion. Of course the counters are going around so fast they are hard to read much below the billion level. What comes after a billion? Oh yeah, trillion. We, as a nation, have spent 1.1 trillion dollars on these senseless, needless wars. My head spins with the insanity. Now our Republican Congressional folks are screaming we must cut cost and not tax the rich one iota more. Generations are in debt for the Bush/Cheney follies. What could we have been doing in the USA and around the world with money such as this?
A little Googling will find article after article describing how corporations have profited from the blood of our soldiers, Iraqi and Afghanistani civilians. One particular good article is The 25 Most Vicious Iraq War Profiteers
I could just cry.