Peloni: It is impossible to ignore the fact that as NATO is willing to fight in Ukraine to the last Ukrainian, the Europeans are decidedly poised to fight in Europe to the last American. While the grift referenced by Stephen below is in part funding huge profits for the US Military Industrial Complex (MIC), this will not translate into American popular support for war in Europe. But then again, as America has recently demonstrated a lack of interest in accepting electoral results, it would appear that only the American Elites and Oligarchs would need to be swayed to come to Europe’s defense, thus demonstrating the racket to which Butler cited in his well documented complaints a hundred years ago. Indeed, if Europe enters a war with Russia, their only hope is to see this racket continue, and I doubt the war weary Americans will be so compliant as the were the war weary Ukrainians as the expendable commodity in the continuation of this rack.
Expanding NATO is risky for the United States
Stephen Bryen | Weapons & Strategy | Sept 6, 2024
Maj. General Smedley Butler
In 1935 retired Marine General and two-time Medal of Honor winner Smedley Butler published a 55 page pamphlet that caused a sensation. It was reprinted in Reader’s Digest assuring a mass circulation. The pamphlet was called “War is a Racket.”
Butler summarized his argument this way: “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.”
Read more…
