Americans Should Be Far More Wary of War

Bad habit of seeing no evil abroad and believing we will always be insulated from it.

My younger brother recently went on a fishing trip with a group of guys, including a retired Navy Seal who told the group about his adventures abroad. My brother related these stories to me, and they reminded me of decorated Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler’s reflections in his book War is a Racket:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

We the People should be far more wary of war than we are. Major General Butler wrote his book because his conscience was bothering him, but moral scruples are now just one reason to be wary of U.S. wars abroad.

The other reason is that America’s adversaries—or what we are told to regard as our adversaries—possess far more military capability than Mexico, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic of Butler’s day. Indeed, given that the Russians did most of the fighting against the Germans in World War II, it’s tough to say if the United States has ever actually won a war against a peer adversary on the battlefield (as distinct from annihilating the enemy’s cities and civilians with aerial bombardment).

Whoever is running the U.S. government does not seem to worry too much about the unintended and uncertain outcomes of seeking and supporting war abroad. This reminds me of the 1998 film ELIZABETH, when the young English queen is being pressured by her counselors to send the English army to Scotland to counter French influence in that country. To these men she replies:

I do not like wars, they have uncertain outcomes.

The most superficial review of history reveals that hawks and their scheming war planners almost always overestimate their ability to predict a war’s outcome. We often lionize Winston Churchill for his soaring oratory during the Blitz, and forget his catastrophic Gallipoli campaign during World War I, when with an estimated 27,000 French, and 115,000 British and dominion troops were killed in the most futile and wasteful assault since Union General Burnside’s profligate charge against Confederate batteries at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862.

The old men (and now women such as Victoria Nuland) who love war never count the cost of it, and never seem to sober up from their losses and resolve to be more prudent.

As we head to the polls, we should remember that Donald Trump has never shown interest in war and did not start any new wars during his four years in office. If Kamala Harris is elected, we can reasonably expect more Neocon militarism abroad, even though it does nothing for the security and prosperity of the American people.