Citaat:
Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door C uit W
Zou dat kunnen komen door beperkingen in de wapenhandel edm opgelegd door de overheden?  |
Daar zou ik sterk aan twijfelen, lees bijvoorbeeld "War is a racket" (
link), geschreven in 1935 door Majoor-Generaal Smedley Butler, een non-interventionalist en een van de twee enige mariniers die tweemaal de Medal of Honor (De hoogste militaire decoratie in de VS) gekregen heeft.
een mooie quote uit deze zeer interessante tekst:
(over WO I)
It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.
Weer een mooi voorbeeld van de effectiviteit van het oh zo belangrijke herverdelingsmechanisme waar de staat voor staat.
verderop vertelt hij ons ook:
Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of another have been nullified. We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences. And what happens?
The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command. Both mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot be for limitations of arms. And at all these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war. They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.
Een andere quote van hem overtuigt je misschien van wat Shirley Bassey al zong: It's all just a little bit of history repeating...
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.