Letter to the editor: TO HELL WITH THE WAR!

Published on August 28, 2024 at 12:00 PM

Smedley Butler was a U.S. Marine for 33 years, from 1898 to 1931. He became a major general—the highest rank in the Marines at that time. Four years after his return, Smedley Butler wrote that he had been a GANGSTER for American CAPITALISM, that he had robbed Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and China. He wrote a book in our local library called “WAR IS A RACKET.” He said, “I suspected for years that war was a racket, it wasn’t until I returned to civilian life that I fully realized it.” Smedley Butler ended his book with “TO HELL WITH WAR.”

A boy told me that he would kill in the war, because in the war you can kill without getting into trouble.

A soldier who had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor told his son that if he ever found himself in combat, he should get himself killed rather than live in the hell of the memory of killing another human being.
A World War II veteran said he had daily nightmares in which he remembered the faces of young German soldiers in the gunsights, just before he exploded their faces and heads. He could not shake those images.

WHEN would it be RIGHT for a nation to MURDER OUR FAMILIES? If it NEVER happens, how can it be RIGHT for the UNITED STATES to MURDER THEIR FAMILIES?

Colin Powell was very high up in the US military and government. UNFORTUNATELY, Colin Powell had the BLOOD on his hands of MILLIONS of people in the Vietnam War, the Gulf War against Iraq, and the later US war against Iraq under George W. Bush. Colin Powell grew up in New York City. Many of the kids in his neighborhood became violent street gang members. Many of them murdered and died on the streets. Many went to prison. The TERRIBLE BLOODY TRUTH is that Colin Powell was heavily involved in the BLINDING, PARALYZING, and MURDER of FAR MORE people than all of those violent street gang members COMBINED! But because Colin Powell exercised his tremendous EVIL violence as a top brass in the US military and government, millions of whites and blacks consider Powell a success, a hero, a model of African American achievement. No one is born EVIL! Colin Powell was NOT born EVIL! He gradually became a WAR CRIME because many people cheered him on. SADLY Colin Powell celebrated the acceptance and promotion of black people into the MOST AMAZING GANG in the United States—the U.S. Army. MANY WHITE AMERICAN PRESIDENTS AND GENERALS ARE ALSO WAR CRIMINALS! For thousands of years ALL EMPIRES celebrate when former VICTIMS of empire become PARTNERS in the atrocities of empire. The U.S. Empire celebrates when blacks, Chicanos, Native Americans become soldiers to ROB and MURDER, especially people of color in smaller countries.

Watch the powerful documentary “Vietnam: American Holocaust” narrated by Martin Sheen – on YouTube and DVD. How the US MURDERED over 3 million women, men and children in Vietnam. Real video of Presidents Johnson and Nixon and their gangs talking about mass murder in Vietnam WITHOUT CONSCIENCE as if they were killing rats or cockroaches.

Watch the excellent documentary “Sir! No Sir!” on YouTube and DVD about the thousands of AMERICAN SOLDIERS who protested the Vietnam War and helped STOP it!

As an AGAINST ALL WARS person, I did 2 years of NON-military community service from 1969 to 1971 under the draft in Arizona and Albuquerque. I have paid NO federal income taxes for 45 years! ⅓ to ½ of all federal income taxes pay for America’s WARS – past, present and future. I REFUSE to pay to train and equip America’s youth, largely low income and people of color, to become PROFESSIONAL HIRE ASSASSINS to kill on command without conscience.

-Don Schrader

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