War is a Racket -- General

[techweenie]

Interesting reading:

War Is A Racket

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.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few -- the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Full story:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

[Hugh R]

war is profitable for some, no question about it. After all, aren't the three basic human emotions, greed, fear and greed? Isn't war ALWAYS about what the other guy has, or his designs on your stuff? Or are you griping about the companies that make money off of war? Exactly whom do you think supplies the military, another arm of the government? Or are you suggesting that, for example, General Electric went to the Prez. and said " Hey our stock price and sales are down, we need you to start a war so that we can sell the government instruments of death?"

Are these what you call war time profiteers? Maybe GE should tell the government that they won't make them the MiniGun because it might be used to hurt people. Actually, I'm kind of pleased with the fact that the company I work for doesn't make anything designed to hurt people and we try to bring happiness to people's lives.

[Jim Richards]

Haliburton

[tabs]

Have you Boyz met... Motion....he is our war profiteer....

[Jim Richards]

What's he cashing in on? Is it too late to make my millions?

[cashflyer]

War is profitable? I thought we learned this when Johnson got rich off Vietnam....

I really don't mind companies who supply the defence industry making money. My only objection is when politicians manipulate the war so as to make more money for themselves. Did I mention Johnson...?

[fastpat]

Originally posted by techweenie
Interesting reading:

War Is A Racket

WAR is a racket. It always has been.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

That's the late General Smedley Butler, US Marine Corps, retired, twice decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honor.

He was, and still is, absolutely correct.