On 2010-11-06, at 5:52 PM, Somebody Somebody wrote:
> Carrol,
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> The speech was given by Senator George Frisbie Hoar, Republican from Massachusetts. You can read it in full here:
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> <http://www.bartleby.com/268/10/25.html>
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> Here's a quote:
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> "You have sacrificed nearly ten thousand American lives—the flower of our youth. You have devastated provinces. You have slain uncounted thousands of the people you desire to benefit. You have established reconcentration camps. Your generals are coming home from their harvest bringing sheaves with them, in the shape of other thousands of sick and wounded and insane to drag out miserable lives, wrecked in body and mind. You make the American flag in the eyes of a numerous people the emblem of sacrilege in Christian churches, and of the burning of human dwellings, and of the horror of the water torture."
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> I believe the water torture of which he speaks is none other than the water boarding that the U.S. reintroduced in the last decade.
Reminds me of good old Marine Corps Gen. Smedley Butler (ret.) who said:
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class thug for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
His colourful biography is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler