For the past century,
the United States government, in the service of the capitalist class of bankers
and industrialists, has sent generation after generation to fight in wars in far
off lands.
These military
operations have led to the deaths of millions of people overseas and hundreds
of thousands of U.S. service members.
Today, the U.S. spends
nearly $1 trillion every year on war. Although it is called “defense” spending,
it is not actually for defense. The amount spent by the United States on
“defense” is greater than all the defense budgets of all the countries in the
world combined. Nobody in their right mind thinks that some other country is
going to invade the United States. Those days are long gone. It was exactly 200
years ago that the United States was last invaded. The British invaded during
the war of 1812 and burned down the White House.
Compared to capitalist
Europe, the United States was a latecomer to the scramble claiming foreign
colonies in the 19th century. It was focused on North America. It seized half
of Mexico in the 1848 war and it spent military resources on defeating the
indigenous Indian population in an effort to seize their lands.
The bloody opening of
the 20th century signaled the focus of U.S. corporations on overseas operations
with the seizure by the U.S. of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in
1898-1901 and Panama in 1903.
In pursuit of a new-type of global empire
In spite of the absence
of any threat of invasion or occupation to the U.S. homeland, the Pentagon
arsenal is full and getting fuller by the day—and the scope of its military
operations are without parallel:
- The Pentagon maintains nearly 900 military
bases located in more than 130 countries. - The Pentagon possesses 10,760 nuclear
weapons, with more than 7,000 currently deployed. The U.S. has spent more
than $7 trillion on nuclear weapons since it created the atomic bombs that
incinerated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. - The United States has invaded, occupied or
carried out major bombing campaigns in over a dozen countries since 1945: Korea (starting in
1950), Lebanon (1958), Vietnam (starting in 1962), Dominican Republic
(1965), Lebanon (1982), Grenada (1982), Panama (1989), Iraq (1990),
Somalia (1992), Yugoslavia (1995), Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan
(starting in 2001 till present), Iraq (starting in 2003) and Libya (2011). - In addition to major wars, Pentagon and CIA
covert operations have engaged in secret wars, terrorist actions,
assassinations and the overthrow of sovereign governments in scores of
countries since the end of World War II.
The U.S. military
operation is not about defense of the people but rather the seizure of land,
resources and power for U.S. capitalist corporations.
Marine General Smedley
Butler, the recipient of two congressional Medals of Honor for valor and
courage in battle, tellingly revealed the role of the U.S. military in a famous
speech he delivered in 1935 following his retirement:
“I spent thirty-three
years and four months in active service in the country’s most agile military
force, the Marines. I served in all ranks from second Lieutenant to Major
General. And during that period I spent most of my time being 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 suspected I was just
part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the
military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service.
My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders
of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
“Thus 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 revenue in. I helped in the raping of half-a-dozen Central American
republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I
helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers
and Co. in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the sugar
interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras ‘right’ for American fruit companies
in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way
unmolested.”
The Party for Socialism
and Liberation organizes every day to expose and oppose the U.S. war machine.
Rank-and-file soldiers and marines are working-class people. But the military
in which they serve is an institution of organized violence pursuing the
interests of Wall Street, not the interests of the people of the United States.
