@iamsoandso .....Tecumseh Sherman was wiser than most of his peers.
Smedley Butler had an epiphany in his latter years. And he was right of course.
"If forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you."
"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will."
"In our Country... one class of men makes war and leaves another to fight it out."
"It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell."
"The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war. "
-William Tecumseh Sherman
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"For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it."
"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."
"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."
"War is a racket. It always has been... A few profit - and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war."
"I helped make Mexico, 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."
"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 is just a racket... I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else."
-Smedley Butler