October 20, 2020

A disparate conglomeration of peace proponents — combat veterans, libertarians, and a Republican Party candidate for U.S. House — gathered at the grave of Gen. Smedley Butler in Oaklands Cemetery in West West Chester Monday, calling the federal government to “Bring Our Troops Home.” The event was held on the 19th anniversary of the day U.S. troops — 200 Army Rangers — parachuted into Afghanistan.

Dan McKnight, founder of BringOurTroopsHome.us, and who served with the Marine Corps and did an 18-month deployment in Afghanistan, spearheaded the event.

“This is 19 years of perpetual war,” McKnight said to the crowd of about 50 people. “We have kids fighting in a war that started before they were born.”

The mission that then-President George W. Bush gave to the military was to track down, kill or capture anyone who planned or took part in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, and get anyone who provided any aid or support for the attackers, McKnight explained.

“That mission was accomplished by February 2002, with the exception of getting Osama Bin Laden. But he was killed in 2011,” he said.

While Congress members, both in the House and Senate, say they oppose ongoing wars, there’s no Congressional oversight because there was never a declaration of war, said McKnight, who wants U.S. troops brought back home.

“We must not pass this war onto another generation,” he said, “The military can’t maintain fighting in 49 different countries. We can’t maintain the pace with constant redeployment.”

He continued, saying, “We don’t know what we’re doing…We must return to an ‘America first’ foreign policy.”

Scott Horton, the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and the author of “Fool’s Errand,” spoke at length about the U.S. involvement in the Middle East, dating back to the 1953 coup in Iran when America and Britain helped overthrow the duly elected prime minister and installed the Shah of Iran. It was that action that ultimately led to the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis of 1979.

Horton went into the lengthy history of our involvement in the Middle East from 1953 to the present, addressing how the United States later goaded the former Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan and, by backing the Mujahadeen, got the Soviets to become bogged down there in what was called “the Soviet’s Vietnam.” The Mujahadeen ultimately became al Qaeda led by Bin Laden.

He spoke about how our foreign policy urged and supported Saddam Hussein of Iraq to go to war with Iran. When that war ended in a stalemate and left Iraq strapped for cash, our policy allowed Hussein to invade northern Kuwait, but he then decided to move into the south as well, Horton said.

He continued his history lesson to the present day, leading to a lie about our involvement.

“We’re told that we fight terrorists there, so we don’t fight them here. That’s false. It’s about American dominance. Fighting a war on terrorism is just an excuse.”

And he said our 19-year involvement in Afghanistan is being orchestrated by al Qaeda who learned how to manipulate U.S. foreign policy by learning how we did that to the Soviets.

John Emmons, the Republican Party candidate for the 6th Congressional District of the U.S. House of Representatives, said Butler “told it like it was. He showed true leadership. He talked about profiteering…Not many people want to talk about that today.”

Emmons said, “We need to stop the extended wars, the needless wars. Nineteen years is too long. Ten years is too long. We must end the multiple deployments. It’s a disservice to all involved. Don’t send troops into endless wars.”

While the date was chosen because it was the anniversary of the start of the Afghan War, the site was chosen because of Smedley Butler’s history, culminating in his writing “War Is a Racket.”

“War is a racket,” the retired major general wrote in 1935. “It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious…It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

Butler — born and buried in West Chester — received two Congressional Medals of Honor during his 34-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps and, after retirement, wrote the essay “War is a Racket.” At the time of his death in 1940, he was the most decorated Marine in United States history. In addition to the two Congressional Medals of Honor, he also received 16 medals, five for heroism, and the Marine Corps Brevet Medal.

Danny Sjursen, a 2005-graduate of the United States Military Academy who served two combat tours — one in Iraq and another in Afghanistan — also taught history at the academy. He taught his cadets about Butler and said the general should be considered a prophet.

Butler spoke out against the military-industrial complex 25 years before President Eisenhower ever mentioned it in his farewell address, Sjursen said. In the mid-1930s, Butler helped prevent a coup against then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, despite being opposed to Roosevelt.

But Butler has been a forgotten man, Sjursen said, because he spoke out in course barracks language, saying things that “made powerful people uncomfortable.”

Butler even referring to himself as “a racketeer and gangster” after he came to realize why the United States had gone to fight in Latin America, actions collectively referred to as The Banana Wars” because their goal was to protect American commercial interests in the region.

Butler, a Quaker, was known as The Fighting Quaker. But he recognized there were legitimate reasons to fight. He has been quoted as saying: “There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.”