Short Solo

Smedley Butler’s 1935 speech / short book – War is a Racket – warned Americans that unless they took control over war mongers- the world was heading toward major global conflict.  

The problem – according to Butler – wasn’t that there were bad actors, but rather that there weren’t incentives to push for peace. Instead there were incentives enjoyed by the most powerful people to constantly be at war.

According to official taxation statistics, the First World War created 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires – not counting those who evaded taxes. 

Butler wasn’t a radical American Marxist.  He was a Major General in the Marine Corps, and the most decorated Marine in U.S. military history up to and including WW2. This included five medals for heroism and two Medals of Honor. 

Wars of Conquest

Butler’s criticism of American Wars was a learned experience. He served during “the banana wars” when the United States occupied Nicaragua, Veracruz and Haiti (1898 to 1934). 

These weren’t defensive campaigns. None of those nations posed a threat to Americans.

However, approximately 700 Americans died and spent years away from family to secure the Standard Fruit Company (Dole) and United Fruit Company’s (Chiquita) – control over land and the resources produced on that land – namely bananas, tobacco, and sugar cane – however, the Marines also acted as thief, looting Haiti’s gold reserves.

Butler became disgruntled – American soldiers went hungry for years living on their stomachs in swampy trenches.

The mental anguish of the routine to “kill, kill, kill – and be killed” resulted in post-conflict fatalities that were 3x greater than those who didn’t serve.

These sacrifices, to make others rich, were wars of conquest – a cost that Butler believed wasn’t in the purview of a military – which is to protect Americans on American soil.  

Soldiers were paid $30 a month and were expected to purchase their own accident insurance.  

Corporate America enjoyed profit margins that increased by 100 to 1500%.  Butler recalls the waste – one corporation mass produced 48-inch wrenches. The only nut large enough to accommodate that tool was used for the turbines at Niagara Falls – far from a war zone.

Corporate interests treated the American taxpayer as a blank cheque to transfer income from the poor to the rich – and then used the poor to fight those wars.

Public Policy Recommendations

Butler proposed three solutions to ensure America’s military stayed out of Corporate hands:

1. Limiting military forces to defense. 
2. Taking profit out of war.  
3. Plebiscites to transfer decision from Congress to those who fight in war. 

These solutions are so radical they’d never make their way to the modern marketplace of ideas.  However, that’s beside the point. 

War has become so integrated into the American way of life that nobody second guessed its conquest nature and nobody thinks of incentives for peace.

The concept of defense is so wrapped in propaganda and “threats” are never real (e.g. Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba) to those living on American soil.

American corporate interests continues to push Americans into similar banana wars. Today it’s about different resources and land – but ultimately about conquest.

Butler warned against this close to a hundred years ago.  He believed in Founding Father Thomas Jefferson who warned, “If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest”. 

Butler advocated for law that would require defensive measures and limit naval operations to within 200 miles of the coastline – noting that Americans were promoting war 2,000 to 3,500 miles away.   He contemplated that planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. 

Butler was smart enough to predict that future wars will be fought not with battleships, not by artillery, not with rifles and not with machine guns. It will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases. Today we could add nuclear and drone warfare. 

Regardless, the truth remains the same. Foreign military threats are fictitious in the name corporate profit.