War Is A Racket

War sucks. It's not noble so let's stop pretending otherwise.

Most Americans view war as necessary. But beyond that, many Americans look at war as something noble and those who fight, at least on our side, are courageous and valiant warriors worthy of the deepest respect and the highest veneration.

Many think that America fights wars to topple dictators, to free people from repressive rule, and through war true American heroes are born.

But is this view of war really accurate? Does America go to war for virtuous purposes?

Here’s the backstory you’re not being told.

Major General Smedley Butler who at the time of his death was the most decorated marine in US history described war as nothing more than a racket. He said that war is the oldest, most profitable and most vicious racket in history. It is the only racket in which profits are counted in dollars and the losses are counted in lives.

This sort of definition flies in the face of the common belief of the average American. Money and power doesn’t drive America to war, right? Wrong.

According to tax records, over 21,000 millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during World War 1. But how many of them fired a shot or dug a trench? How many of them experienced hunger in a rat-infested dug-out? How many spent sleepless nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them paid for their newly minted fortunes with their lives?

Out of war, huge fortunes are made. But how is the cost for these fortunes paid? The price is paid with mangled bodies and shattered minds. It is paid with economic instability and back-breaking taxation for generations. But most of all it is paid for with broken hearts, broken homes and freshly dug graves.

Henry Kissinger who has arguable been the single, most influential person in creating America’s current foreign policy said that “Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”

America’s founders warned incessantly about the dangers of always having a standing army and in meddling in the affairs of other countries. James Madison said that “a standing military force... will not long be a safe companion to liberty and that no nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

And yet, The United States has over 800 military bases scattered around the world and spends more on its military than any other country. In fact, the US spends more on its military than the next highest eight countries combined.

Like any racket, War needs people to participate in order to generate profits for the racketeers. In the last ten years alone, more than $16 billion has been spent just in pro-military marketing and advertisements.

It is unfortunate that those who speak out against war are ridiculed and labeled as unpatriotic cowards who hate America and refuse to “support the troops.”

In 1967, Muhammad Ali was sentenced to five years in prison for his refusal to be inducted into the armed forces. He said “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother… or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

In 2003, with 9/11 fresh in their minds, Americans were once again duped into joining yet another war. Built on a lie, the Iraq War has cost over $2 trillion, 4500 American lives and conservative estimates put the non-combatant, civilian body count at over 500,000, many other estimates put it at over a million, most of those being women and children.

And for what? Money. Fortunes have been made and companies who provide weapons, planes, ships and vehicles to the military are larger and more profitable than ever.

Throughout history, hundreds of millions of people have been killed by poor men who have been conscripted to fight in the wars of rich men whose appetites for money and power could only be appeased through death and destruction.

While brave men and women may believe that they are sacrificing their lives for American ideals and that they are liberating captives abroad and preserving our freedoms at home, we must realize that those ideals are all-too-often manipulated for political propaganda, for the machine of war, for corporate interests whose patriotism and virtue are only as deep as the dollar bill that they’re selling the lives of our brave children to gain.

War rarely, if ever, solves problems but war will continue to be rationalized and propagated so long as there is money to be made by those in power.