War Is a Racket: General Smedley Butler

Eric Garris, March 30, 2009

I never heard the speech before, it is awesome and timeless. The actor does a great job, he even looks like Butler.

During his 34 years of Marine Corps service, Smedley Butler was awarded numerous medals for heroism including the Marine Corps Brevet Medal (the highest Marine medal at its time for officers), and subsequently the Medal of Honor twice. Notably, he is one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, and one of only three to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.

Watch it:



10 Responses to “War Is a Racket: General Smedley Butler”

  1. Stanley Laham
    March 30th, 2009 at 10:16 pm

    This is a little passage from a little book I authored a few years ago that reflects on some of Smedley Butler’s work in Haiti:

    But the American Occupation also left an ugly legacy of repression of the patriotic opposition tarnished with a bitter dose of racism. The Americans, many from southern states, did not make much of a difference between the shades of color that partitioned Haitian society. One Marine Commandant, upon observing deliberations in the National Assembly, wrote back home: “imagine that, a bunch of niggers speaking french!” The Haitian nationalists who fought in the resistance movement were called the Cacos and, by 1920, both of their leaders, Charlemagne Peralte and Benoit Batraville, had been assassinated by specially trained Marine hit squads sent into the hills for that purpose… President Wilson ordered official investigations and there were Senate hearings on reports of abuse, torture and summary executions of Haitians by Marines. Below are parts of an article in the Nation, by American journalist Herbert J. Seligman, that caused a sensation in the summer of 1920.

    “Five years of American Occupation, from 1915 to 1920, have served as a commentary upon the white civilization which still burns black men and women at the stake. For Haitian men, women and children, to a number estimated at 3000, innocent of any offense, have been shot down by American machine-gun and rifle bullets; black men have been put to the torture….theft, arson and murder have been committed almost with impunity…by white men wearing the uniforms of the United States.”

    Alarm also came from Haitian intellectuals who accused the occupation forces of “butchery of women and children, massacre of prisoners, use of man-eating dogs…” in their counterinsurgency campaign. We have always taken such anecdotes from long ago with a grain of salt, knowing the Haitian propensity for exaggeration. But again, the revelations by the great investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, on the horrors at Abu Ghraib, replete with pictures of terrorized, naked prisoners tied to iron cell bars with American soldiers sticking ferocious dogs upon them and inflicting terrible wounds, lend a lot of credence to the stories of old.

  2. Brad Smith
    March 31st, 2009 at 3:29 am

    Great clip. To hell with War!! Right on. I loved the part where he talks about the medals. For anyone who has served it’s easy to see how motivational this is while your in service. It becomes a justification for almost anything (Good dog here is your treat). It makes it all seem somehow worthwhile, untill you get home and realize it’s all a farce. I got good and drunk one night started a bonfire in my backyard and burnt all my orders and awards. My family thought I was nuts, I think it was the beginning of sanity.

    Isn’t it amazing how war the most destructive of all enterprizes can somehow supposedly become great for the economy? We destroy capitol, production, lives and future prosperity and believe it’s somehow for our own good. What a great joke, to bad the joke is on us.

    Peace!

  3. Randy Wade
    March 31st, 2009 at 4:51 am

    Watch what? The clip never showed.

  4. liberranter
    March 31st, 2009 at 6:30 am

    I got good and drunk one night started a bonfire in my backyard and burnt all my orders and awards.

    That’s been on my “to-do” list for a long time too. I’ll have to be sure to act on it next time I do a brush burn in my backyard.

  5. Strider
    March 31st, 2009 at 6:32 am

    Good video, but having “Gen. Butler” (who died in 1940) standing in front of a 50-star flag is more than a little incongruous.

  6. Charles Featherstone
    March 31st, 2009 at 7:36 am

    And four months!

  7. minion
    March 31st, 2009 at 8:57 am

    You humans think small. This planet will not last the next century. Your futile insignificant acts are never noticed. I’m suprised to see this particular race live as long as today, it is truely amazing to see how the homosapien race has multiplied and advanced this far. Though, the longer your race continues to exist, the more destructive and dangerous your people become. Your species will destroy themselves 1,000 times over, it has been seen by your inhabitants current nature and behavioral patterns. You have been warned. You do not deserve a place in this universe if you do not learn to co-exist

  8. Orville H. Larson
    March 31st, 2009 at 10:05 pm

    Major General Smedley (“Old Gimlet Eye”) Butler, USMC was a stellar light in a Corps that’s known for the quality of its officers. Alexander Vandegrift, Lemuel Shepard, Merritt
    (“Red Mike”) Edson, Lewis (“Chesty”) Puller, Lew Walt, Victor (“The Brute”) Krulak et al. were fighting men’s fighting men.

    When a man like “Old Gimlet Eye” Butler talks about the depravity of war (and those who profit from it), you’d better listen up.

  9. Lester Ness
    April 1st, 2009 at 2:14 am

    Yep, both Haiti and Phillipines got the full make-over treatment from the US, and neither is at all the better for it. Oligarchy at the best.

    Lester Ness
    Kunming
    China

  10. Strider
    April 2nd, 2009 at 7:22 am

    I wonder if Gen. Butler ever burned or otherwise discarded his medals as well. I only compiled a few during my 8 years in the USAF, and to this day I don’t know what I ever did with them. I gave some of my uniforms, rank insignia & name tags to a cousin who was still in the USAF, since they were of some use to someone. About the only memento I still have is the most important — the honorable discharge form.