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"Our boys were sent off to die with
beautiful ideals painted in front of them. No one told them that dollars
and cents were the real reason they were marching off to kill and die."
(General Smedley Butler, 1934)
World War I was supposed to be the "war to end all wars."
It wasn't.
During World War II, millions of young Americans signed up to fight
German fascism and Japanese imperialism. But the goals of the strategic
planners in Washington were far less admirable.
They had imperial ambitions of their own.
In October 1940, as German and Japanese troops were marching in Europe
and Asia, a group of prominent government officials, business
executives, and bankers was convened by the U.S. State Department and
the Council on Foreign Relations to discuss U.S. strategy. They were
concerned with maintaining an Anglo-American "sphere of influence" that
included the British Empire, the Far East, and the Western hemisphere.
They concluded that the country had to prepare for war and come up with
... [24]
"... an integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for
the United States."
[Fatcat businessmen say:] Yes! yes! Yes!
Of course, they didn't say this publicly.
"If war aims are stated which seem to be
concerned solely with Anglo-American imperialism, they will offer little
to people in the rest of the world ... The interests of other peoples
should be stressed ... This would have a better propaganda effect."
(From a private memorandum between the Council on Foreign Relations and
the State Department, 1941) [25]
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