Fighting Small Scams To Protect The Big One

The August, 2008, issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance features the following article at page 61:

Taking Aim At Military Scams: The men and women who protect our country are getting ripped off.

The unquestioned assumption, and the scam it promotes and protects, is that being in the military involves protecting the United States. Unless you truly believe that the United States is or ever has been threatened by Iraqis, Serbs, Somalis, Haitians, Vietnamese, Koreans, Panamanians, Grenadans, Dominicans, Filipinos, Spaniards, etc., then you must admit that the military is a tool of imperial force projection, not self-defense.

I'll give the final word on this to Marine Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler:

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.