“What business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy. And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the war to end all wars.”

War is a racket (1935)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies o…" by Smedley D. Butler?
Smedley D. Butler photo
Smedley D. Butler 18
United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor r… 1881–1940

Related quotes

Dorothy Thompson photo

“The communist theory is that a world war is inevitable; that in that war, if they play their cards well, the democracies will be lined up against the fascist dictatorships, and that the result of the war will be the triumph of Communism all over the world. Their chief program now is to get the democracies so lined up.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 17

Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Ratko Mladić photo

“It would have been better if we had fought in Italy and Austria which are really at war against us, instead of allowing them to use our unfortunate Slovenians, Croats and Moslems as bait and cannon fodder.”

Ratko Mladić (1943) Commander of the Bosnian Serb military

From interview with Vreme, May 24, 1993
Interviews (1993 – 1995)

Wilhelm II, German Emperor photo

“England, France, and Russia have conspired...to wage a war of annihilation against us.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

30 July, 1924, quoted in World War I: The Definitive Visual History (United States: Smithsonian, 2014), p. 20
1920s

Alfred von Waldersee photo

“I see a future for us only in a Great War in which we lastingly cripple an opponent, France or Russia. Unless there should be a great war, the only way out of our dilemma will be through internal commotion, preferably revolutions in France or Russia.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 15 October 1885, quoted in Scott A. Silverstone, From Hitler's Germany to Saddam's Iraq

Winston S. Churchill photo

“America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these 'isms' wouldn't today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government — and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Published as having been made in an (August 1936) interview http://www.greatwar.nl/frames/default-churchill.html with William Griffin, editor of the New York Enquirer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Enquirer, who was indicted for sedition http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,773366,00.html by F.D.R.'s http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/fr32.html Attorney General Francis Biddle http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/aboutosg/biddlebio.htm in 1942. In a sworn statement before Congress in 1939 Griffin affirmed Churchill had said this; Congressional Record (1939-10-21), vol. 84, p. 686. In 1942, Churchill admitted having had the 1936 interview but disavowed having made the statement (The New York Times, 1942-10-22, p. 13).
In his article "The Hidden Tyranny," Benjamin Freedman attributed this quotation to an article in the isolationist http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,795133,00.html publication Scribner's Commentator in 1936. However, that magazine did not exist until 1939. He may have gotten the date wrong or might have been referring to one of its predecessors, Scribner's Monthly http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/browse.journals/scmo.html or Payson Publishing's The Commentator http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765655,00.html.
Disputed

Karl Marx photo

“The only possible solution which will preserve Germany’s honor and Germany’s interest is, we repeat, a war with Russia.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, Erste Abteilung, Volume 7, March to December 1848, p. 304. Leopold Schwartzschild, Karl Marx: The Red Prussian, New York: NY, The Universal Library, Grosset & Dunlap, 1947, p. 202

“Our war is not against everybody who is American or British, but against whoever stops us from fighting America and Britain, whether it is Pakistan or even our own people.”

Mullah Dadullah (1966–2007) Afghan Taliban commander

There Will Be No Reconciliation with America before Withdrawal, Apology, and Compensation http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1402, exclusive interview, March 2007.
Targeting collaborators

Chuck Palahniuk photo

“The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security.”

Joseph C. Wilson (1949–2019) American ambassador

What I Didn't Find in Africa (2003)
Context: I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.
But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.

Related topics