[PAA-Discuss] Ron Paul: It's Time to Leave Afghanistan

[Rick _lux]

Ron Paul: It's Time to
Leave Afghanistan
http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2009/12/11/its-time-to-leave-afghanistan/




War
is Peace
Freedom
is Slavery
Ignorance
is Strength



George
Orwell
1984



"Of
all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps, the most to be

dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every
other. 
War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts
and taxes …
known instruments for bringing the many under the
domination of the few.…
No
nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

--James Madison





The
Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism
It
does not matter if the war is not real, or when it is real, it does
not matter if victory is not possible.....The war is not meant to
be won, it is meant to be continuous.....The essential act of
modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labor....
A hierarchial society is only possible on the basis of poverty
and ignorance...In principle the war effort is always
planned to keep society on the brink of starvation.....The war
is waged by the ruling group against it's own subjects, and
it's object is not victory over Eurasia or East Asia ( or Korea,
Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Iran) but to keep the very structure
of society intact.



George
Orwell
1984






We live in a
Welfare/Warfare/Wall
Street State.
I'd
like to share two Great Myths of the false left-right paradigm of the
twin wings of the Ruling Party that I have discovered over the course
of my awakening and independent studies. I think that they can help
begin to explain why our world is on the precipice of annihilation
and subjugation by totalitarian government.
Myth
#1: Fascism and communism are polar opposites.
They
are both branches of the same Marxist tree--and this Myth has been
thoroughly discredited by a great many scholars
and intellectuals.
For an exceptional examination of this very subject, check out the
insightful documentary film "The Soviet
Story".
Myth
#2: Only leftists are opposed to interventionist war, the
police/surveillance state, and completely arbitrary violations of the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Today,
to espouse a non-interventionist foreign policy is to commit the
alleged sin of "isolationism" according to the grand
mentioners in the media, intelligentsia, and government "leaders"
and/or to identify oneself as a so-called left-liberal. Yet, the real
diplomatic isolationists are those that perpetuate an interventionist
foreign policy of agressive, undeclared war, empire, and arbitrary
abuses of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The real right is
in favor of the absence of these abusive and dictatorial government
powers and the presence of justice according to nature's law.
Justin
Kapacinskas






WAR
IS A RACKET




by
Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient
Major
General Smedley D. Butler - USMC Retired




CHAPTER
ONE 

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.
Again
they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand
side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement.
Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for
the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish
Corridor. 

The
assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia]
complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies,
were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But
France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking
ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die
– only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.
There
are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen
and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.
Hell's
bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?
Not
in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being
trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the
other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the
publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:
"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."
Undoubtedly
Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his
great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war –
anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary
in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried
mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the
assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe
too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.
Herr
Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more
and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France
only recently increased the term of military service for its youth
from a year to eighteen months.
Yes,
all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe
are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back
in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends
the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international
bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against
the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China
mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the
Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the
Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and
industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of
less than $200,000,000.
Then,
to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these
private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we
would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that
might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands
of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of
physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.
Of
course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit –
fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be
piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders.
Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.
Yes,
they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays
high dividends.
But
what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their
mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it
profit their children?
What
does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge
profits?
Yes,
and what does it profit the nation?
Take
our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the
mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a
little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally
minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father
of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about
"entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside
territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of
our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped
to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the
twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a
purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and
that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.
It
would have been 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.
 
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.
For
the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central
Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a
year. Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit of $15,000,000,
a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That's all. The General Chemical
Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a
little over $800,000 a year. Came the war, and the profits jumped to
$12,000,000. a leap of 1,400 per cent.
International
Nickel Company – and you can't have a war without nickel – showed
an increase in profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to
$73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.
American
Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three years
before the war. In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.
Listen
to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on
corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits
of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49
steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25
per cent were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made
between 100 per cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during
the war. The Chicago packers doubled and tripled their earnings.
And
let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone
had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships
rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to
stockholders. And their profits were as secret as they were immense.
How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know,
because those little secrets never become public – even before a
Senate investigatory body.
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.
Airplane
and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just
profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs.
So $1,000,000,000 – count them if you live long enough – was
spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that never left the
ground! Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion dollars worth
ordered, ever got into a battle in France. Just the same the
manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100, or perhaps 300 per
cent.
Undershirts
for soldiers cost 14¢ [cents] to make and uncle Sam paid 30¢ to 40¢
each for them – a nice little profit for the undershirt
manufacturer. And the stocking manufacturer and the uniform
manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet
manufacturers – all got theirs.
Why,
when the war was over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment – knapsacks
and the things that go to fill them – crammed warehouses on this
side. Now they are being scrapped because the regulations have
changed the contents. But the manufacturers collected their wartime
profits on them – and they will do it all over again the next time.
There
were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.
One
very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch wrenches.
Oh, they were very nice wrenches. The only trouble was that there was
only one nut ever made that was large enough for these wrenches. That
is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara Falls. Well, after
Uncle Sam had bought them and the manufacturer had pocketed the
profit, the wrenches were put on freight cars and shunted all around
the United States in an effort to find a use for them. When the
Armistice was signed it was indeed a sad blow to the wrench
manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to fit the
wrenches. Then he planned to sell these, too, to your Uncle Sam.
Still
another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in
automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One has probably
seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some
6,000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels! Not
one of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war
profit.
The
shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built
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 somebody 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. That is how the
21,000 billionaires and millionaires 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 a very few.
The
Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its
wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has
scratched the surface.
Even
so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying
"for some time" methods of keeping out of war. The War
Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The
Administration names a committee – with the War and Navy
Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall Street
speculator – to limit profits in war time. To what extent isn't
suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 per
cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would be
limited to some smaller figure.
Apparently,
however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses – that
is, the losses of those who fight the war. As far as I have been able
to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier to the
loss of but one eye, or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two
or three. Or to limit the loss of life.
There
is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 per
cent of a regiment shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than
7 per cent in a division shall be killed.
Of
course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.
 
CHAPTER
THREE
WHO
PAYS THE BILLS?
Who
provides the profits – these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300,
1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them – in taxation. We paid
the bankers their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at $100.00 and
sold them back at $84 or $86 to the bankers. These bankers collected
$100 plus. It was a simple manipulation. The bankers control the
security marts. It was easy for them to depress the price of these
bonds. Then all of us – the people – got frightened and sold the
bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers bought them. Then these same bankers
stimulated a boom and government bonds went to par – and above.
Then the bankers collected their profits.
But
the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.
If
you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the
battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the
United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am
at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen government
hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed
men – men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The
very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee,
where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality
among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at
home.
Boys
with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and
factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were
remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face";
to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to
shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We
used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at
all of killing or of being killed.
Then,
suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about
face" ! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans
[without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and sans
nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we scattered
them about without any "three-minute" or "Liberty
Loan" speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young
boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make
that final "about face" alone.
In
the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are
in pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars and wires
all around outside the buildings and on the porches. These already
have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't even look like human
beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good
shape; mentally, they are gone.
There
are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and more are
coming in all the time. The tremendous excitement of the war, the
sudden cutting off of that excitement – the young boys couldn't
stand it.
That's
a part of the bill. So much for the dead – they have paid their
part of the war profits. So much for the mentally and physically
wounded – they are paying now their share of the war profits. But
the others paid, too – they paid with heartbreaks when they tore
themselves away from their firesides and their families to don the
uniform of Uncle Sam – on which a profit had been made. They paid
another part in the training camps where they were regimented and
drilled while others took their jobs and their places in the lives of
their communities. The paid for it in the trenches where they shot
and were shot; where they were hungry for days at a time; where they
slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain – with the moans and
shrieks of the dying for a horrible lullaby.
But
don't forget – the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bill
too.
Up
to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize system, and
soldiers and sailors fought for money. During the Civil War they were
paid bonuses, in many instances, before they went into service. The
government, or states, paid as high as $1,200 for an enlistment. In
the Spanish-American War they gave prize money. When we captured any
vessels, the soldiers all got their share – at least, they were
supposed to. Then it was found that we could reduce the cost of wars
by taking all the prize money and keeping it, but conscripting
[drafting] the soldier anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain for
their labor, Everyone else could bargain, but the soldier couldn't. 

Napoleon
once said,
"All
men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger for them."
So
by developing the Napoleonic system – the medal business – the
government learned it could get soldiers for less money, because the
boys liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there were no medals.
Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made
enlistments easier. After the Civil War no new medals were issued
until the Spanish-American War.
In
the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept
conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join the
army.
So
vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it.
With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill,
kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side...it is His will that
the Germans be killed.
And
in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the
allies...to please the same God. That was a part of the general
propaganda, built up to make people war conscious and murder
conscious.
Beautiful
ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was
the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make
the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they
marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war
profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot
down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them
that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed
by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told
it was to be a "glorious adventure."
Thus,
having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make
them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of
$30 a month.
All
they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones
behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy
(when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill...and be killed.
But
wait!
Half
of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a
laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day) was
promptly taken from him to support his dependents, so that they would
not become a charge upon his community. Then we made him pay what
amounted to accident insurance – something the employer pays for in
an enlightened state – and that cost him $6 a month. He had less
than $9 a month left.
Then,
the most crowning insolence of all – he was virtually blackjacked
into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made
to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on pay days.
We
made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back –
when they came back from the war and couldn't find work – at $84
and $86. And the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these
bonds!
Yes,
the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays too.
They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they
suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel
burst about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly –
his father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his
sons, and his daughters.
When
he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind
broken, they suffered too – as much as and even sometimes more than
he. Yes, and they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of
the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and the
manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty
Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the
Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond prices.
And
even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken
and those who never were able to readjust themselves are still
suffering and still paying.
 
CHAPTER
FOUR
HOW
TO SMASH THIS RACKET!
WELL,
it's a racket, all right.
A
few profit – and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You
can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by
peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't
wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by
taking the profit out of war.
The
only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry
and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month
before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation –
it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers
and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament
factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our
airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that
provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the
speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as
the lads in the trenches get.
Let
the workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers,
all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all
bankers –
yes,
and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all
politicians and all government office holders – everyone in the
nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that
paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let
all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those
workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay
half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk
insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.
Why
shouldn't they?
They
aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies
mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy
trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!
Give
capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you
will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the
war racket – that and nothing else. 

Maybe
I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital
won't permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people –
those who do the suffering and still pay the price – make up their
minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not
that of the profiteers.
Another
step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited
plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared. A
plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those who would be
called upon to do the fighting and dying. There wouldn't be very much
sense in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the
flat-footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-eyed
manager of a uniform manufacturing plant – all of whom see visions
of tremendous profits in the event of war – voting on whether the
nation should go to war or not. They never would be called upon to
shoulder arms – to sleep in a trench and to be shot. Only those who
would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should
have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should
go to war.
There
is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many
of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote. In most,
it is necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote. In
some, you must own property. It would be a simple matter each year
for the men coming of military age to register in their communities
as they did in the draft during the World War and be examined
physically. Those who could pass and who would therefore be called
upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote in a
limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to have the power to
decide – and not a Congress few of whose members are within the age
limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to bear arms.
Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.
A
third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make
certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.
At
each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations
comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are
always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart.
They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on
this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be
known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day,
these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy
will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like
that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight
the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.
Then,
incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense.
Uh, huh.
The
Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the
Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred
miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even
thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.
The
Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression
to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as
pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly
discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war
games off Los Angeles.
The
ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by
law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in
1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never
would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain
with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the
opinion of experts, for defense purposes. Our nation cannot start an
offensive war if its ships can't go further than 200 miles from the
coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from
the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never
leave the territorial limits of our nation.
To
summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
We
must take the profit out of war.
We
must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide
whether or not there should be war.
We
must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.
 
CHAPTER
FIVE
TO
HELL WITH WAR!
I
am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past. I know
the people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we cannot
be pushed into another war.
Looking
back, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform
that he had "kept us out of war" and on the implied promise
that he would "keep us out of war." Yet, five months later
he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
In
that five-month interval the people had not been asked whether they
had changed their minds. The 4,000,000 young men who put on uniforms
and marched or sailed away were not asked whether they wanted to go
forth to suffer and die.
Then
what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?
Money.
An
allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly before the
war declaration and called on the President. The President summoned a
group of advisers. The head of the commission spoke. Stripped of its
diplomatic language, this is what he told the President and his
group:
 
"There
is no use kidding ourselves any longer. The cause of the allies is
lost. We now owe you (American bankers, American munitions makers,
American manufacturers, American speculators, American exporters)
five or six billion dollars.
If
we lose (and without the help of the United States we must lose) we,
England, France and Italy, cannot pay back this money...and Germany
won't.
So..."
Had
secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and
had the press been invited to be present at that conference, or had
radio been available to broadcast the proceedings, America never
would have entered the World War. But this conference, like all war
discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When our boys were sent
off to war they were told it was a "war to make the world safe
for democracy" and a "war to end all wars." 

Well,
eighteen years after, the world has less of democracy than it had
then. Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany
or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or
monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is
to preserve our own democracy.
And
very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the
World War was really the war to end all wars.
Yes,
we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms
conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the
results of another have been nullified. We send our professional
soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to
these conferences. And what happens?
The
professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral
wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command.
Both mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot
be for limitations of arms. And at all these conferences, lurking in
the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister
agents of those who profit by war. They see to it that these
conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.
The
chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not been to
achieve disarmament to prevent war but rather to get more armament
for itself and less for any potential foe.
There
is only one way to disarm with any semblance of practicability. That
is for all nations to get together and scrap every ship, every gun,
every rifle, every tank, every war plane. Even this, if it were
possible, would not be enough.
The
next war, according to experts, will be fought not with battleships,
not by artillery, not with rifles and not with machine guns. It will
be fought with deadly chemicals and gases.
Secretly
each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of
annihilating its foes wholesale. Yes, ships will continue to be
built, for the shipbuilders must make their profits. And guns still
will be manufactured and powder and rifles will be made, for the
munitions makers must make their huge profits. And the soldiers, of
course, must wear uniforms, for the manufacturer must make their war
profits too.
But
victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of
our scientists.
If
we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish
mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have
no time for the constructive job of building greater prosperity for
all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we can all make more
money out of peace than we can out of war – even the munitions
makers.
So...I
say,
TO
HELL WITH WAR!
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SOLDIER?" 

LEARN
YOUR CONSTITUTION IF YOU WANT THE REPUBLIC TO SURVIVE.
YOUR
NEXT MISSION - SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT:
Now that you have read 'War Is A Racket' please accept this challenge
- Cut and paste this address http://www.WarIsARacket.com
and email it to 12 friends with an urgent request that they read it
and send it to 12 of their friends. 12 to the eighth power =
429,981,696 which is more than the total US population. Repeat as
necessary. Also remind them to read the Constitution
again and again until they understand who should be Impeached and
Removed, and who should be replaced in the next election cycle. Don't
vote for anyone who doesn't uphold their Oath to the Constitution.
Remind all your elected servants that they are bound by the
Government
Code of Ethics. 





Kucinich
Resolution to End the War 

http://www.infowars.com/kucinich-resolution-to-end-the-war/



 		 	   		  
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