War is a Racket

As a patriot and nationalist, he (Butler) ‘fervently opposed actions which might lead to American military involvement abroad.’ When World War II broke out in 1939, he declared that the U.S. did not have ‘one solitary blessed thing to do with the making of this mess over there, and there is no possible sane and logical reason why we should feel any impulse to take a hand in it.’ Yet he supported a strong military rather than disarmament. The U.S., he insisted, should build an ‘iron-clad defense a rat couldn’t crawl through’.”