ON MONDAY, WE CELEBRATED Presidents’ Day, with the traditional tire and mattress sales, enhanced this year by the public debates over who fathered Anna Nicole’s baby and why Britney shaved her head. Given all of this, I found myself reminiscing about some of our past presidents. I harkened back to George Washington. (I didn’t really “harken,” but you get the idea.) During Washington’s farewell address in 1796, he warned the nation against the dangers of “foreign entanglements.” Iraq, it seems to me, is the epitome of a foreign entanglement. In 1961, Dwight Eisenhower, also a former general, warned about the dangers of the “military industrial complex.” Haliburton, it seems to me, is the poster child for the military industrial complex. So I’m counting the days until George W. Bush’s farewell address, assuming he’s not impeached first. He might warn the nation about the dangers of “not shopping.” Maybe Darwin was wrong?
Another former general always intrigued me, especially after I read Jeff Bridges wanted to do a movie about his life. (No, I’m not talking about the “Big Lebowski.”) I’m refer-ring to the most decorated Marine in history — Gen. Smedly Butler. I realize his name sounds like an animated character from “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” a brilliant TV show as it happens. I never thought I’d write “Rocky & Bullwinkle” and a real-life general in the same sentence, but I guess I just did.
In 1898, Butler was only 16 and lied about his age to join the Marines. When he retired in 1930, he had won the Medal of Honor twice, the Army Distinguished Service Medal, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal and the French Order of the Black Star. (Bush, on the other hand, was lucky if he showed up for a Reserves meeting.) Gen. Butler lived and fought with his men, and in return, they were devoted to him. But during his retirement, he reflected on his career. He painfully concluded that not a single war he had participated in had been justified. (He died before WWII.) He reasoned that none of these wars had benefited the troops or the citizens at home. No war had made Americans safer, but all had made many millionaires.
Tired of seeing his soldiers die in their role as “Wall Street’s policemen,” Gen. Butler came to the tragic assessment that “war is a racket.” Actually, the word “racket” seems tame given what’s going on today. We’ve spent $350 billion in Iraq on our way to two trillion. But of merely the $60 billion independent auditors have had access to examine, $10 billion has disappeared. Gone, vanished, left the building without a trace... meaning it’s sitting in some Swiss accounts. (For a lark, type “War is a racket” in your browser and see what you think.) Butler was the author of some remarkable quotes.
“I made Mexico safe for American oil,” he said ruefully, “Haiti and Cuba for the National City Bank, Central America for Wall Street, Nicaragua for international bankers, the Dominican Republic for sugar companies and Honduras for fruit companies... Looking back, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few tips. The best he could control was three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.”
Dark humor aside, Butler finally resigned because he had too often seen his men die in an ignoble cause. I wish Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara had done the same during Vietnam. In the documentary “Fog of War,”he admitted that he and President Johnson knew the war was lost as early as 1966. The comparison to Iraq is inescapable. The more things change, the more they stay insane.
Among those supporting the Congressional Resolution against Bush’s escalation of the war was Congressman Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania, an Iraqi war vet. As he spoke, he never raised his voice, though it cracked, as he named friends who had served with him in the 82nd Airborne and never made it home.
“If there was a time for more troops, it was four years ago,”he said quietly.Of the Vietnam Memorial, down the hill from the Capitol and a short walk through the snow, Murphy said, “Half the soldiers listed on that wall died after our leaders knew it could not be won.”
As I end, I apologize for not shedding light on tire and mattress sales, or Anna Nicole’s baby or Britney’s bald head. I did confirm Jeff Bridges’ interest in the life of Gen. Butler. So any movie producer out there with $25 million, feel free to e-mail me. What’s $25 mil? It’s only 1/400th of what has disappeared in Iraq so far.
If the past is any indicator, who knows, next President’s Day I may be writing about the missing money in the war against Iran?
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 23, 2007. Read the original PDF.