WAR IS A RACKET by General Smedley D. Butler:
Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2026 6:04 pm
Tuesday
03.10.2026
1:04 p.m.,
Chicago, Illinois time:
Dear Global Forum Members and Readers:
WAR IS A RACKET was a speech and a short booklet by Major General Smedley D. Butler in
1935. Amazing what rings true today, except multiply the costs discussed here for the
current costs of War Materials and Profits at least a hundred fold.
Major General Butler was a Major General in the United Staes Marine Corps. He was awarded
two Congressional Medals of Honor, 1914 and 1917, and a Distinguished Service Medal, 1919.
Major General Butler: "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
lives lost."
Premiere Mussolini: "And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and
the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes
neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace...War alone brings up to its highest
tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage
to meet it."
Napoleon Bonaparte once said: "All men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger
for them. I have discovered that men will die for medals and ribbons."
Major General Butler: "It would be far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American
who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like
bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations
is always transferred to the people - who do not profit."
"The shipbuilders felt they should comein on some of it, too. They build a lot of ships that
made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But...
$635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float. The seams opened
up - and they sank. We paid for them though. And someone pocketed the profits."
"It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost
your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual
war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. This is how 21,000
billionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite
a tidy sum. And it went to very few."
"But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill."
thoughts...
best...
bb.
03.10.2026
1:04 p.m.,
Chicago, Illinois time:
Dear Global Forum Members and Readers:
WAR IS A RACKET was a speech and a short booklet by Major General Smedley D. Butler in
1935. Amazing what rings true today, except multiply the costs discussed here for the
current costs of War Materials and Profits at least a hundred fold.
Major General Butler was a Major General in the United Staes Marine Corps. He was awarded
two Congressional Medals of Honor, 1914 and 1917, and a Distinguished Service Medal, 1919.
Major General Butler: "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
lives lost."
Premiere Mussolini: "And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and
the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes
neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace...War alone brings up to its highest
tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage
to meet it."
Napoleon Bonaparte once said: "All men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger
for them. I have discovered that men will die for medals and ribbons."
Major General Butler: "It would be far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American
who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like
bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations
is always transferred to the people - who do not profit."
"The shipbuilders felt they should comein on some of it, too. They build a lot of ships that
made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But...
$635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float. The seams opened
up - and they sank. We paid for them though. And someone pocketed the profits."
"It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost
your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual
war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. This is how 21,000
billionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite
a tidy sum. And it went to very few."
"But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill."
thoughts...
best...
bb.