War is a billionaire’s extortion racket, baptized in the blood of impoverished teenagers.
Smedley Butler (1881–1940) American Marine Corps officer, war hero, anti-war activist
(Spurious)
Widely circulated in social media, this is less of a quote than a paraphrase of various anti-war statements Butler made, including in his book War Is a Racket (1935), itself an expansion of a lecture series by Butler in the early 1930s.
