“1 From whence come wars and
fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your
members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot
obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.”
James 4:1-2
I was in the
army reserves. I joined back in 2007, and went to Kapooka, did some infantry
specific training at my company headquarters, and did the weekly and monthly training
for a couple of years. I did not serve overseas, I did not serve in any combat
role, and I want to make that clear. I had great admiration for the soldiers I
knew back then who did serve, and I still do. I think they are some of the
noblest men our country produces. In fact, this is why I joined the army, I
wanted to be among such company. I want to be around men who were willing to
fight to defend our country. I wanted to be one of them.
Eventually
my chosen profession took away the nights and weekends I needed to be a
reservist, and so I left the army reserves. I share this so that it is clear
that my perspective does not come out of a bias against the military, or a
life-long or even current dedication to pacifism. I am not a pacifist. I think
Australia should have a well equipped and deadly-capable armed forces. I am not
an idealist, I recognize that we live in a dangerous world, and therefore we
cannot all be like the Mennonites who shun arms completely. I also think war is
a racket.
Because war
is a racket. It is a money-making adventure. Not every war has this as its
primary objective. Sometimes nations are provoked into war. Sometimes nations
are tricked into war. Sometimes nations are led by people who believe they have
a righteous cause, often they are wrong, sometimes they are right. Most of the
time, there is some form of greed or avarice behind the war, “1 From whence
come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that
war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and
cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not” (James
4:1-2). Even for wars that are not motivated by greed, they are supplied and
maintained by it. Often they are spurred on and financed by those who stand to
gain the most wealth and power from them. This is even true of many of the
so-called “righteous” wars that people think were necessary.
But don’t
take my word for it, listen to Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler, who fought
in World War one, held command positions, and gives first hand evidence of how
much of a racket war is, in his short and powerful book, War is a Racket.
“CHAPTER ONE
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.”[i]
Butler goes
on to highlight some of the reasons why it is a racket,
“CHAPTER TWO
Who Makes The Profits?
The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost
the United States some $52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every
American man, woman, and child. And we haven't paid the debt yet. We are paying
it, our children will pay it, and our children's children probably still will
be paying the cost of that war.
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States
are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits -- ah!
that is another matter -- twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even
eighteen hundred per cent -- the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear.
Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.
Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is
dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all
put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and
skyrocket -- and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few examples:
Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people -- didn't
one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won
the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the
war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du
Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but
the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly
profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year
profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of
normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per
cent.
Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically
shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war
materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came
the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions
making. Did their profits jump -- or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well,
their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!
Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings
during the five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad.
Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for
the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.
There you have some of
the steel and powder earnings. Let's look at something else. A little copper,
perhaps. That always does well in war times.
Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the
pre-war years 1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918 profits
leaped to $34,000,000 per year.
Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the
1910-1914 period. Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the
war period.
Let's group these five, with three smaller companies. The
total yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000.
Then along came the war. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed
to $408,300,000.
A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.
Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren't the only ones. There are still
others. Let's take leather.”[ii]
You may say,
of course companies profit, war costs a lot of money for governments. It’s not
their fault some people and companies are in the right industry at the right
time. Well, let’s see a little more of what Butler says.
“But here's how some of the other patriotic industrialists
and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.
Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with
abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies.
Perhaps, like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold
to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether it comes from Germany or from
France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam
35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers.
Eight pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only one
pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in existence. They
were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a matter of 25,000,000
pairs left over. Bought -- and paid for. Profits recorded and pocketed.
There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people
sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry.
But there wasn't any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this
leather, however. Somebody had to make a profit in it -- so we had a lot of
McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.
Also somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your
Uncle Sam 20,000,000 mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas. I
suppose the boys were expected to put it over them as they tried to sleep in
muddy trenches -- one hand scratching cooties on their backs and the other
making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one of these mosquito nets ever got
to France!
Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure
that no soldier would be without his mosquito net, so 40,000,000 additional
yards of mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam.
There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those
days, even if there were no mosquitoes in France. I suppose, if the war had
lasted just a little longer, the enterprising mosquito netting manufacturers
would have sold your Uncle Sam a couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant
in France so that more mosquito netting would be in order.”[iii]
In times of
war patriotic fever rises to the highest possible levels and those who seek to
critically analyse either the war or how the war is being fought, or how people
are profiting off of the war are branded as dangerous, or traitors. During war
the con man is given his best possible market, a populace who frowns upon
critical thinking, governments and media that together stoke up hatred for the
enemy, and a spirit of “lets just do something”, because nothing is worse than
not doing something, so doing something becomes doing anything, and certain
businesses just happen to be able to find a way to monetize those somethings
and anythings. War is Racket. I encourage you to read Smedely’s book by that
title, you can read it for free here.
Many people
call for war, but they are not really aware of what they are calling for, who
is pushing for them to call for it, and why we need to do everything in our
power to avoid every possible war that we ever can. Partly, because war is a
racket.
[i]
Smedley Butler (1935, 2003), War is a Racket Feral House Publishing, https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdfButler,
p1-2.
[ii]
Butler, p3-4.
[iii]
Butler, P5.
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