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Thursday, August 29, 2019
Reading List: War Is a Racket
- Butler, Smedley D. War Is a Racket. San Diego, CA: Dauphin Publications, [1935] 2018. ISBN 978-1-939438-58-4.
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Smedley Butler knew a thing or two about war. In 1898, a little
over a month before his seventeenth birthday, he lied about
his age and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, which
directly commissioned him a second lieutenant. After
completing training, he was sent to Cuba, arriving shortly
after the end of the Spanish-American War. Upon returning
home, he was promoted to first lieutenant and sent to the
Philippines as part of the American garrison. There,
he led Marines in combat against Filipino rebels. In 1900
he was deployed to China during the Boxer Rebellion and
was wounded in the Gaselee Expedition, being promoted to
captain for his bravery.
He then served in the “Banana Wars” in Central
America and the Caribbean. In 1914, during a conflict in
Mexico, he carried out an undercover mission in support of
a planned U.S. intervention. For his command in the
battle of Veracruz, he was awarded the Medal of Honor. Next,
he was sent to Haiti, where he commanded Marines and Navy
troops in an attack on Fort Rivière in November
1915. For this action, he won a second Medal of Honor.
To this day, he is only one of nineteen people to have twice
won the Medal of Honor.
In World War I he did not receive a combat command, but for
his work in commanding the debarkation camp in France for
American troops, he was awarded both the Army and Navy
Distinguished Service Medals. Returning to the U.S. after
the armistice, he became commanding general of the Marine
training base at Quantico, Virginia. Between 1927 and 1929
he commanded the Marine Expeditionary Force in China, and
returning to Quantico in 1929, he was promoted to Major General,
then the highest rank available in the Marine Corps (which
was subordinate to the Navy), becoming the youngest person
in the Corps to attain that rank. He retired from the
Marine Corps in 1931.
In this slim pamphlet (just 21 pages in the Kindle edition
I read), Butler demolishes the argument that the U.S. military
actions in which he took part in his 33 years as a Marine had
anything whatsoever to do with the defence of the United States.
Instead, he saw lives and fortune squandered on foreign adventures
largely in the interest of U.S. business interests, with
those funding and supplying the military banking large
profits from the operation. With the introduction of
conscription in World War I, the cynical exploitation of
young men reached a zenith with draftees paid US$30
a month, with half taken out to support dependants,
and another bite for mandatory insurance, leaving less
than US$9 per month for putting their lives on the line.
And then, in a final insult, there was powerful coercion
to “invest” this paltry sum in “Liberty
Bonds” which, after the war, were repaid well below
the price of purchase and/or in dollars which had lost
half their purchasing power.
Want to put an end to endless, futile, and tragic wars?
Forget disarmament conferences and idealistic initiatives,
Butler says,
The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations [sic] manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation—it must conscript capital and industry. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories 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 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 [I think “mayors” was intended —JW] pay half their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds. Why shouldn't they?
Butler goes on to recommend that any declaration of war require approval by a national plebiscite in which voting would be restricted to those subject to conscription in a military conflict. (Writing in 1935, he never foresaw that young men and women would be sent into combat without so much as a declaration of war being voted by Congress.) Further, he would restrict all use of military force to genuine defence of the nation, in particular, limiting the Navy to operating no more than 200 miles (320 km) from the coastline. This is an impassioned plea against the folly of foreign wars by a man whose career was as a warrior. One can argue that there is a legitimate interest in, say assuring freedom of navigation in international waters, but looking back on the results of U.S. foreign wars in the 21st century, it is difficult to argue they can be justified any more than the “Banana Wars” Butler fought in his time.
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