OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: Once Upon a Time in America

"War is just 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 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 ... of course it isn 't put that crudely in wartime ... It is dressed into speeches about patriotism and love of country and putting one 's shoulder to the wheel, but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket and are safely pocketed. "

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-NationalisticCapitalism ...

I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps ... And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. "

Others:

"If we go in (to Iraq) unilaterally, or without the full weight of international organizations behind us, if we go in with a very sparse number of allies, if we go in without an effective information operation ... we 're liable to supercharge recruiting for al-Qaida. " <> General Wesley Clark

"It 's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another ...We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started ... "
General Anthony Zinni, former Head of Central Command for U.S. Forces in the Middle East.

Under Eisenhower the richest among us were taxed at more than 90% and corporations at 52%, and against Republican pressure, Ike refused to support lowering those rates. There were also, not then, the offshore tax havens for corporate cheats, like Halliburton, that there are now. Eisenhwoer would never have advocated cutting taxes during war time!! I think he would have considered that treason

Tax cuts for the rich do not fuel our economy, war spending fuels our economy.

I have on the door of my "book on wheels "

Question: Do you believe Congress voted for tax cuts for the rich because

(1) they believe taking in less revenue will help pay the country 's bills,
or
(2) because they like the president are rich, and they, like the president couldn 't wait to get their hands on an extra $90,000 a year or so, and to heck with the needs of the country??

Only the soldiers and their families are asked to make any kind of a sacrifice, while many at the top are enriching themselves from war profits. The tax cuts for the rich that have been one of this administrations top priorities from the beginning, guarantee they will pay even less taxes on their "blood money. " Soldiers now, like soldiers in the past are beginning to see this and resent it.

Stewart Nusbaumer, who lost a leg in Vietnam wrote in "The Cost of War at Walter Reed "

"To this day, some 38 years later, when I hear someone on the radio discuss the World Series in 1967, or some similar remark about 1967, I cringe. That was the year I was fighting in Vietnam. That was the year thousands of young Americans were dying and losing limbs and their minds for, supposedly, their country. But our country was excited about the World Series, and....

"If a war is important enough for soldiers to be maimed and to die for, it is important enough for all Americans to sacrifice something. Something! "

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