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War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier

Smedley D. Butler

Paperback | Pages: 79 pages

Rating: 4.29 | 3545 Users | 372 Reviews

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Original Title:	War is a Racket
ISBN:	0922915865 (ISBN13: 9780922915866)
Edition Language:	English

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Major General Smedley D. Butler was a military hero of the first rank, the winner of two Medals of Honour, a true 'fighting marine' whose courage and patriotism could not be doubted. Yet he came to believe that the wars in which he and his men had fought and bled and died were all pre-planned conflicts, designed not so much to defend America as to bloat the balance sheets of US banks and corporations.

War Is a Racket is the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler. In them, Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests commercially benefit from warfare.

After his retirement from the Marine Corps, Gen. Butler made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech "War is a Racket". The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a small book with the same title that was published in 1935 by Round Table Press, Inc., of New York. The booklet was also condensed in Reader's Digest as a book supplement which helped popularize his message. In an introduction to the Reader's Digest version, Lowell Thomas, the "as told to" author of Butler's oral autobiographical adventures, praised Butler's "moral as well as physical courage".

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Title	:	War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
Author	:	Smedley D. Butler
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 79 pages
Published	:	August 1st 2003 by Feral House (first published 1935)
Categories	:	Politics. History. Nonfiction. War. Military Fiction. Philosophy

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Ratings: 4.29 From 3545 Users | 372 Reviews

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Smedley D. Butler, (Maj.Gen. USMC Retired Deceased) was twice awarded the CMOH. His actions taken during the First World War were unquestionably brave, and this makes for a mild understatement to the truth. Ive seen this sort of thing however over the course of my own life and military experience. In reflection of the horrors of war the person of notoriety takes a different stance and has a change of heart, is this something that came with age or his Quaker background I cannot say for certain.

Major General Butler's main point is spot on; war is (predominately) a racket arranged by politicians to achieve their own ends while attempting to disguise their war efforts as defending "freedom." However, the General only demonstrates that certain companies turned a profit while supplying the US government during WWI. He never proves his thesis. The fact that someone turns a profit (whether small or large) is not a problem at all. In a free market, the suppliers who better engineer, market,

This book is most useful as an intro for those in the military (particularly a military involved in interventions), for those who continue to babble such interventions are "fighting for our Freedom", and most definitely those that capitalize the word "Freedom". But for critical readers not indoctrinated by American war propaganda, it is only bitter sweet to read the admission of guilt by a Major General in the US Marine Corp. I mean, he was the Major General to war crimes...

An important message that must be heard. It's a little sad that in our culture it seems only a two-time winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor can say something like this and be taken seriously, but that's the world we live in. On another note I felt a little disappointed that my copy of this book was only 35 pages long. I presume that other versions of this book are supplemented with other writing by Butler, but 35 pages??? That's not a book, that's an op-ed.

A short condemnation of war by a man who spent his life fighting wars. Smedley demonstrates the high public cost and resultant high business profits of war, giving many examples of US companies which greatly increased their profits during WW1. He also describes the waste and corruption inherent in military spending. Smedley makes the amusing (from a detached perspective) observation that in WW1 the US cleverly replaced recruitment bonuses with medals. Giving soldiers medals for service was much

This falls under the category of "Must Read." Butler's argument is that the wealthy elite benefit financially from war while everyone else suffers, either through fighting in the wars or else from paying for the war that the rich get richer from. Part of what makes the book so powerful is Butler's history: he fought in WWI and was the most decorated soldier of his lifetime when he wrote this. For me, that gives him credibility that can never be matched by a politician (who probably never fought

I have to admit, all of the hype I'd encountered before finally getting to this book led me to believe that this would be an articulate and impassioned voice of "right" over "might" from the pen of one the USMC's mightiest warriors. However, Smedley seems to reduce the "cost" of war primarily to its economic terms and goes into the $$$ figures of how much companies make during war-time and preparation for war-time. Smedley died before WWII and all of the statistics and numbers he gives in this