For all the patriotic baloney nations are fed in pre-war time, with grandiose appeals to moral rightousness and complete confidence in their own success, it is little more than powerful, rich men sending clueless (or powerless) poor men to their death.

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

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

Who wrote this? Why, only the highly decorated general Smedley D. Butler, in 1935.

Yeap, that's right, folks. The plot in Inside Man wasn't made up. It was a real plot about a fictional person, crafted on the histories of real people.

Here's another truth ringer:

Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service.

But of course. Who in their right mind would go kill people at the risk of getting killed just so that a few rich men can get richer?