War as a racket

When retired U.S. Marine General Smedley Butler blew the whistle in the thirties on the biggest racket there is, you'd have thought it would make a difference. It didn't, proving that the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

Nevertheless, the question comes up again every so often. Regularly, in fact. If our young men and women can be required to contribute their lives to the prosecution of one of our government's wars, why shouldn't the military industrial complex - and corporate "America" (there are thirty-four other nations in the hemisphere, you know) generally, for that matter - also be expected to contribute? Why should some "Americans" die while others profit? If this war is indeed being fought in order to make our nation more secure against an enemy, why shouldn't Halliburton and the rest donate their produce and services? The answer is incontrovertibly that they should. It's a matter of ethics and ethical government.

But war is a racket. The Iraq version is the most obvious, the most contemptible of the kind. Racketeers don't blow the whistle on their own racket, especially when it's as vicious and contemptible as this one.

It's high time the public demand an end to corporations profiting from the maiming and death of our sons and daughters. I demand it, so should you. Wake the hell up!

Walks-in-Storms