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1. On August 15, 2021 at 9:58 pm, Bradlley A Graham said:

   The graveyard of empires claims another victim.

2. On August 15, 2021 at 11:24 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

   @ Herschel

   Re: “I’ll say again what I’ve said before many times. We should have dropped the Rangers and Marines at the Pakistan border, and let General Dostum round up every last Taliban and kill them. And then put him in charge and left.”

   “Instead, we played nation-building so that Halliburton, KBR, and defense contractors everywhere could get rich. And the CIA too, presumably getting a cut on the opium market.”

   At the time of his death, U.S.M.C. General Smedley D. Butler (1881-1940), was the most-decorated Marine in the history of the Marine Corps. Over thirty-four years of service, he fought in the Mexican Revolution and World War One, and also in campaigns in the “Banana Wars” and other conflicts throughout Central/South America and around the world, including service in the Philippines, China, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and elsewhere.

   Butler is one of nineteen men to have received the Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest military award for valor – on two separate occasions: first at Veracruz in 1914, and the second in Haiti in 1915.

   Butler ultimate arose to general officer’s rank. After being passed over for Commandant of the Marine Corps, Butler retired in 1931 – having been the senior Marine officer on duty in China.

   In 1933, Butler was approached by a group of wealthy businessmen whose intent was to stage a coup deposing U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. It was implied that Butler would be appointed in Roosevelt’s place as a military dictator. Instead, Butler helped foil the plot and see that the would-be revolutionaries were brought to justice. Butler later testified before Congress on the matter, which became known to history as the “Business Plot.”

   In 1935, Butler penned a slim-but-influential book (which is still in print today) entitled “War is a Racket,” and launched a nation-wide speaking tour in support of it and his new-found views on the waging of just war, pacifism and other matters. Many now-famous quotes originated in the book, including:

   “War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of 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 masses.”

   “The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.”

   “War is a racket. 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.”

   Re: “This is why I called for a complete end to our presence years ago, as did Michael Yon and Tim Lynch.”

   Ten years ago, I published on Memorial Day, an op-ed entitled “A Trillion Dollar Bridge to Nowhere,” which later appeared in print and on the internet. In it, I echoed many of the same points you made here, and asked why we were still in Afghanistan. As it turns out, my accounting was somewhat off – since it cost around $2.2 trillion dollars and not $1 trillion. I could gloat over being proven right by events, but that isn’t my style, and anyway, my heart is too heavy with the knowledge of all of the fine young men who will never come home again, and the many others who will -although they survived – will never be whole again.

   Re: “I know men whose son died in that war. Two $ Trillion and 1000 lives later, here we are.”

   “Just War” theory and doctrine go back a thousand years or more, within Christianity and western civilization, to figures like St.Thomas Aquinas and others. In brief, this body of thought and moral precept sets forth the criteria for helping to distinguish wars which are just from those which are not, and how -once the decision is made to go to war – that war is to be waged.

   Amongst the many precepts listed within those pages are that it is a moral crime of the highest order to enter into an unnecessary war, and that it is also an equally-serious moral transgression to enter into a war that one has no intention of winning. In other words, if a national leader and his people are not prepared to do everything in their power to win, then they have no business going to war in the first place.

   We know from Butler’s writings and other sources, that many – perhaps even most – wars are unnecessary and need not be fought. Within the political science/history community, such elective wars are termed “cabinet wars.” Before we the people throw our support behind any leader or war he is proposing, the foremost questions in our minds ought to be – Is the war necessary? Is it just? Do our national and military leaders have a plan for securing victory? Are they determined to win?

   Butler, whose credentials as a professional warrior were impeccable, had strong views on when/where the people ought to take up arms or not, saying:

   “There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.”

3. On August 16, 2021 at 1:20 am, Jimmy the Saint said:

   But wait…according to the internet from 2001-pretty recently, the whole purpose of invading Afghanistan was just to build a pipeline. Surely, they couldn’t all have been wrong.

4. On August 16, 2021 at 6:37 am, Fred said:

   Did we win?

5. On August 16, 2021 at 7:10 am, Wes said:

   @Fred Classic question I first saw in a couple of Mauldin’s Willie & Joe panels. Something about history not repeating, but maybe it rhymes?

6. On August 16, 2021 at 11:30 am, BRVTVS said:

   @Georgiaboy61

   Smedley Butler associated himself with the socialist party in his later years. I get the impression that his accusations of the Business Plot held about as much water as the leftist claims about the “January 6th Insurrection” do in our current year.

7. On August 16, 2021 at 12:54 pm, Pat Hines said:

   Say what you will, but the Taliban know women should not vote or hold office.

   https://youtu.be/II5CGK8NzVA

8. On August 16, 2021 at 9:14 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

   @ BRVTVS

   Re: “Smedley Butler associated himself with the socialist party in his later years. I get the impression that his accusations of the Business Plot held about as much water as the leftist claims about the “January 6th Insurrection” do in our current year.”

   I’m not sure the evidence points to that. There was a concerted campaign to discredit Butler once he decided not to play ball with the plotters against Roosevelt, one of whose common themes was that Butler had lost his mind in his dotage and gone socialist.

   I’m sure the big-shots believed that having so richly-rewarded General Butler with medals and high rank, he would not turn upon them as he did in retirement. They misjudged him, for he was an honest man of great moral rectitude who genuinely cared for his men and the nation. He was loyal to the president and acted on that basis (Roosevelt, unlike the current occupant of the Oval Office, had been elected legitimately).

   Gee, a general officer who actually honored his oath…. wonder how we can bring back that attitude to the present day armed forces??

   It is germane to note that in that time (1930s), a movement swept America that we ought to tend to ourselves and our problems at home, and not involve the nation in foreign adventurism or wars. Having come to Europe’s aid in the Great War and having counted the costs of doing so, many Americans – across party lines – adopted an attitude which came to be labeled variously as “pacifism” and/or “isolationism.”

   Some conflated, incorrectly, these “keep American out of the war” sentiments as socialism, but that’s a fallacy. There were plenty of traditional, rock-ribbed American patriots who – having taken the measure of our involvement in World War One – did not want us involving ourselves in Europe’s geopolitical affairs again so soon.

   Butler’s critics attempting to tar-baby the charge of socialism onto him, when all he had really done was to tear the lid off of how many American corporations operated abroad, and how Wall Street tended to call upon Washington, D.C. to enforce its will upon the natives. And the human rights abuses of which many of these firms were guilty.

   Some allies of the plotters even denied that there was a plot in the first place. Congressional investigation confirmed some aspects of Butler’s story, and other parts remained unsubstantiated. But why would Butler make up such a thing? He had no reason whatsoever for doing so.

   General Butler’s “real” crime, in the eyes of the Wall St.-Washington D.C. deep-state, was to expose the inner workings of their war-racketeering for the first time, for all to see. Since Butler’s military credentials were impeccable, they attacked him instead along ideological grounds, with the charge of socialism.

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