Re: [casi] Why do we need evidence... ?

[H Sutter <citext@DELETETHISchebucto.ns.ca>]

No evidence is needed for "liberating Iraq" and make
it safe for democracy. It just doesn't sound very
plausible. Would a capitalist country like the US
want to spend 100 to 200 billion dollars on attacking
Irak without expecting a return?

Besides, historical facts reveal other motives.

"The world must be made safe for democracy", President
Woodrow Wilson said in April 1917. And ever since, the US
has been busy making the world safe for democracy - and
American interests.

"War is just a racket" argued Smedley Butler in 1933.
Butler had by then spent 33 years in the US Marine Corps.
He makes his point persuasively:

'War is Just a Racket'

[Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by [4] General
Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC. General Butler was the
recipient of two [5] Congressional Medals of Honor.]

'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 masses....

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the
military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to
point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies,
its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss"
Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a
comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-
three years and four months in active military service as
a member of this country's most agile military force, the
Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned 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 for
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 the members of the military
profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left
the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended
animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This
is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, 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 revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a
dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall
Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped
purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of
Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name
before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for
American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to 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. Looking back on it, I feel that
I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he
could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I
operated on three continents.'

http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm

(Smedley Butler was 16 when he joined the Marine Corps in
1898. The Spanish American War had just broken out.)
###

"Making the world safe for hypocrisy" is more like it,
suggested Thomas Wolfe in 1929:

     "'Where've they got you stationed now, Luke' said
     Harry Tugman... 'At the p-p-p-present time in
     Norfolk at the Navy base', Luke answered,
     'm-m-making the world safe for hypocrisy.'"
     [Look Homeward, Angel_ by Thomas Wolfe. 1929]

Elga Sutter




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