What follows are the first three paragraphs of Major General Smedley Butler’s famous speech, then made into a long essay(1930s). Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Butler said that for many years, while he was a soldier, he suspected that war was a racket. But not until he retired, did he fully realize it. 

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 our day, a few politicians, among them Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, might have penned the same thoughts. Here’s Kucinich on NATO, and current U.S. attempts to bolster rather than eradicate it.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not a benevolent organization. NATO is not about the North Atlantic and it’s not about our collective defense.

NATO is a cost-sharing organization that finances aggressive military action. By hiding behind the claim that the organization provides for ‘common defense,’ NATO allows us to wage wars of choice under the guise of international peacekeeping. The most recent example was the unconstitutional war in Libya where NATO, operating under a United Nations mandate to protect civilians, instead backed one side in a civil war and pursued a policy of regime change.