Former U.S. Marine Confesses To Taking Part In Atrocities

[Rakhmetov]

Over his life, "Wild Bill" Gandall witnessed more than his share of vicious behavior. As an 18-year-old U.S. Marine in Nicaragua, he had even dished it out. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Gandall joined a force of 3,000 Marines who invaded Nicaragua in 1926 to crush a rebellion by Augusto Sandino--the namesake of the country's current Sandinista party.
More than 50 years later, Gandall confessed regretfully in public forums and in unpublished memoirs that he and his fellow Marines "missed no opportunity to prove that civilization was a thin veneer." A bantam rooster in fatigues, he answered only to his superiors, swaggering drunkenly through two years in Nicaragua as if the country was his private playground.
For decades, Gandall was haunted by memories of participating in gang rapes, burning villages and standing by while soldiers tortured and disemboweled rebel prisoners. He left the Marines in 1928, soon after an incident in which he joined a group of drunken soldiers at a party in Managua's main cemetery, cavorting with prostitutes and scattering the bones of the dead.


7 pages long


http://articles.latimes.com/1991-04-13/news/mn-170_1

[Pretty Flaco]

It's all pretty disgusting. It reminds me of a memoir I read in school about a soldier that was in the Vietnam war, and how he and his fellow soldiers would gang rape vietnamese women in villages they were in.

[gorillafuck]

Next up: Bears shit in the woods.

But seriously, that is pretty horrifying. I suppose coming out and denouncing it is the next best thing to deserting in the first place.

[RED DAVE]

Nothing new under the sun:

War Is a Racket - by former Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Smedley 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. 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."

...

"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 muscle man 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."
(emph. added)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

RED DAVE

[Pretty Flaco]

Nothing new under the sun:

War Is a Racket - by former Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Smedley Butler

(emph. added)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

RED DAVE

That actually looks like it could be a pretty interesting read.

[Robocommie]

Smedley Butler is awesome.

[dawt]

Ohwow, only heard of him now... and the Business Plot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot). How has this not entered common knowledge by now?! :blink: Yeah, the Bushs were somehow involved with the Nazis and a bunch of their capital was seized or something along those lines... but I had absolutely no clue of what was really going on back then.

Might also be of interest, haven't listened to it yet though. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml