Foreign interventions hardly about promoting freedom and democracy

"I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag."

Who on Earth would say something like that?

I'm sure at first glance, it looks like something George McGovern ... or Cindy Sheehan ... or some filthy hippie might have said.

Actually, the man who said it was one of the greatest military men America ever produced, one of only a handful to win the Medal of Honor twice and the kind of general Dugout Doug MacArthur only dreamed of being.

Smedley Butler served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1898 to 1931, and if you look at that quote again, he pretty well nailed what we're doing in Afghanistan and Iraq these days.

In the eight years we have spent in those two countries, American businesses have made tens of billions of dollars in profits "supplying the army with the tools of the trade," as Country Joe McDonald put it.

Maybe I'm naive when it comes to big money, but shouldn't there be a point at which Blackwater or Halliburton or the other suppliers say "OK, we've made enough money in Iraq?"

We're certainly not there for altruistic reasons. The chances of turning Iraq into say, New Jersey, are pretty much slim and none. If we leave and let the Iraqis decide their own destiny, they'll say "Islamic republic" faster than you can say "Joyce Kilmer Rest Area on the Jersey Turnpike."

Afghanistan is even worse. We've kicked the crap out of the Taliban and chased almost all the Al Qaedas into Pakistan, so what the heck are we still doing there?

Afghanistan is even less a candidate for New Jerseyhood than Iraq. Probably the best we can hope for there is to turn it into South Central Los Angeles.

But there's money to be made, and a good chunk of that money winds up in campaign funds for both Republicans and Democrats.

I felt kind of sick when President Obama justified his "surge" in Afghanistan as he picked up his Nobel Peace Prize by saying sometimes you have to stand up against evil.

Who exactly is "evil" in this scenario? Who is the modern Adolf Hitler?

Osama bin Laden gave two reasons for 911, and only one of them might be considered evil. He said America should stop its support of Israel (OK, evil) and should withdraw its troops from the holy land of Saudi Arabia.

Saddam Hussein was a pretty bad guy, but he might not have even made the top 10 of evil foreign leaders. There were -- and still are -- plenty of really bad guys running countries in Africa and Asia who never get more from us than tough words.

But Saddam had the misfortune of being out one day shooting at some food when up through the ground came a bubblin' crude.

Oil, that is.

Black gold.

Texas tea.

The next thing you know, ol' Saddam was swinging from the end of a rope and Dick Cheney was bathing every night in 10w40.

Don't kid yourself. America might once have been an altruistic nation -- the Marshall Plan, Point Four, etc. -- but these days we have a new national motto.

"It's all about the Benjamins."

Smedley nailed it.