War
The motivations for nations starting, entering, or ending wars is
often suspect.
As with assassinations, the question that is often asked by
conspiracists when
a war breaks out is "who directly benefits?"
For decades, a common answer has been "munitions suppliers" - as
argued by, e.g.,
Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler in the 1935 jeremiad "War is a Racket". [6]
(http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm)
http://www.centipedia.com/index.php?title=Conspiracy_theories
"RH" <halcon7roho@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:1107020768.880323.8880@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> "I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service in the
> country's most agile military force, the Marines. I served in all
ranks
> from second lieutenant to major general. And during that period I
spent
> most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for
> Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster
> for capitalism."
>
> "I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure
of
> it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an
original
> thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in
> suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups.
This
> is typical with everyone in the military service."
>
> "Thus I helped make Mexico, and 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 revenue in. I helped in the
> raping of half-a-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of
> Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify
> Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers and
Co.
> in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the
sugar
> interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras 'right' for American fruit
> companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped 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. I was rewarded with honors, medals, and promotion.
> Looking back on it, I feel that I might have given Al Capone a few
> hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three city
> districts. The Marines operated on three continents."
>
> "War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as
> something that is not what it seems to the majority of 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 m*****."
>
> -Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler (former Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps)
>
> ==========================
>
> "How is a military drilled and trained to defend freedom, peace and
> ahppiness? This is what Major General O'Ryan has to say of an
> efficiently trained generation: 'The soldier must be so trained that
he
> becomes a mere automoton; he must be so trained that it will destroy
> his initiative; he must be so trained that he is turned into a
machine.
> The soldier must be forced into the military noose; he must be
jacked
> up; he must be ruled by his superiors with pistol in hand.' This was
> not said by a Prussian Junker; not by a German barbarian . . . but
by
> an American major general. And he is right. You cannot conduct war
with
> equals; you cannot have militarism with free born men; you must have
> slaves, automotons, machines, obedient disciplined creatures, who
will
> move, act, shoot and kill at the command of their superiors. That is
> preparedness, and nothing else."
> -Emma Goldman
>
> ==============================
>
> "...remember that all through history the ways of truth and love
have
> always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time
> they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall..." -
> Mahatma Gandhi
>
> =================================
>
> "War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their
own
> battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another
village,
> stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose
like
> wild beasts against each other." -Thomas Carlyle
>
> ==================================
>
> "Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me
> because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a
> quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him?"
> -Blaise Pascal
>
> ===================================
>
> "Do we owe our freedom to our fighting men? To be drafted is to be
> enslaved. How can we owe our freedom to slaves? They may have fought
> bravely and died with courage, but they haven't given us any
freedom.
> We would have been in their debt if they had refused to fight
> foreigners and instead freed themselves from the American
politicians
> who continue to enslave us."
> -Allen Thornton
>
> ===================================
>
> "YOUNG MEN: The lowest aim in your life is to become a soldier. The
> good soldier never tries to distinguish right from wrong. He never
> thinks; never reasons; he only obeys. If he is ordered to fire on
his
> fellow citizens, on his friends, on his neighbors, on his relatives,
he
> obeys without hesitation. If he is ordered to fire down a crowded
> street when the poor are clamoring for bread, he obeys and see the
grey
> hairs of age stained with red and the life tide gu****ng from the
> breasts of women, feeling neither remorse nor sympathy. If he is
> ordered off as a firing squad to execute a hero or benefactor, he
fires
> without hesitation, though he knows the bullet will pierce the
noblest
> heart that ever beat in human breast.
> "A good soldier is a blind, heartless, soulless, murderous machine.
He
> is not a man. His is not a brute, for brutes kill only in self
defense.
> All that is human in him, all that is divine in him, all that
> constitutes the man has been sworn away when he took the enlistment
> roll. His mind, his conscience, aye, his very soul, are in the
keeping
> of his officer. No man can fall lower than a soldier-it is a depth
> beneath which we cannot go."
> - Jack London
> =================================
>
> "Every gun that is made, every war****p launched, every rocket fired,
> signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not
> fed-those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is
not
> spending its money alone-it is spending the sweat of its laborers,
> the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
> -Dwight Eisenhower
>
> ====================================
>
> "Is a young man bound to serve his country in war? In addition to
his
> legal duty there is perhaps also a moral duty, but it is very
obscure.
> What is called his country is only its government and that
government
> consists merely of professional politicians, a parasitical and
> anti-social class of men. They never sacrifice themselves for their
> country. They make all wars, but very few of them ever die in one.
If
> it is the duty of a young man to serve his country under all
> cir***stances then it is equally the duty of an enemy young man to
> serve his. Thus we come to a moral contradiction and absurdity so
> obvious that even clergymen and editorial writers sometimes notice
it."
> -H.L. Mencken
>
> =======================================
>
> "Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning
is
> nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government's
> ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity,
> common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish
submission
> to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever
> patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery."
> -Leo Tolstoy, Christianity and Patriotism
> ====================================
>
> "[D]iscipline consists in this, that the men who undergo the
> instruction and have followed it for a certain time are completely
> deprived of everything which is precious to a man-of the chief human
> property, rational freedom-and become submissive, machine-like
> implements of murder in the hands of their organized hierarchic
> authorities."
> -Leo Tolstoy, Patriotism and Government
>
> =====================================
>
> "Sure, there were lots of bodies we never identified. You know what
a
> direct hit by a shell does to a guy. Or a mine, or a solid hit with
a
> grenade, even. Sometimes all we have is a leg or a hunk of arm. The
> ones that stink the worst are the guys who got internal wounds and
are
> dead about three weeks with the blood staying inside and rotting,
and
> when you move the body the blood comes out of the nose and mouth.
Then
> some of them bloat up in the sun, they bloat up so big that they
bust
> the buttons and then they get blue and the skin peels. They don't
all
> get blue, some of them get black. But they all stunk. There's only
one
> stink and that's it. You never get used to it, either. As long as
you
> live, you never get used to it. And after a while, the stink gets in
> your clothes and you can taste it in your mouth. You know what I
think?
> I think maybe if every civilian in the world could smell this stink,
> then maybe we wouldn't have any more wars."
> -Technical Sergeant Donald Haguall
>
> ======================================
>
> "Whether the mask is labelled Fascism, Democracy, or Dictator****p of
> the Proletariat, our great adversary remains the Apparatus-the
> bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across
the
> frontier or the battlelines, which is not so much our enemy as our
> brother's enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and
makes
> us its slaves. No matter what the cir***stances, the worst betrayal
> will always be to subordinate ourselves to this Apparatus, and to
> trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and
in
> others."
> - Simone Weil
>
> ========================
>
> Knowing and spreading the TRUTH will set us free
> (from war & the insanely greedy bastards who make them).
> Accepting their lies will keep us in chains.
>
> =========================
>
> "Without sharing there can be no justice;
> without justice there can be no peace;
> without peace there can be no future."
> The World Teacher
> http://www.share-international.org
>
> Nobody is expected to believe the information at the above site, but
> you are
> hereby cordially encouraged to familiarize yourself with the story
> presented there - so you won't be taken entirely by surprise when
it
> breaks. A measure of scepticism is healthy and necessary, but try
to
> keep an open mind!
>
> <><><>
>
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