The US has been at war for most it’s existence.
Someone made a search tool to see how many years the US had been at war for, and then ran it on Wikipedia.
Interestingly, France performed worse (assuming one doesn’t like war), though being involved in things like ‘The 100 years war’ skews things a little.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_Oil_Pipeline
This has been an unfortunate truth for the US and USSR before it (and other empires before that). For a depressing insight into how little we have learned, Boys in Zinc by Svetlana Alexievich is a good read.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Squ...
We'd then "steal" those supplies, thus allowing the US to avoid breaking non-aggression treaties, and (as you mentioned) the ire of some of its citizenry.
Not much profit in theft.
Even if Roosevelt's goal wasn't to sit back and make a profit, he ran on that platform as the country did want that.
Not wanting to spill their blood, not wanting to enter a conflict which (at the time) seemed only to aid old, dying empires (eg France, UK), means the goal in not entering the conflict, was all about profit?
What a twisted viewpoint.
Meanwhile, if the US does enter a conflict, the goal is always claimed by some, to be exploitation.
Thus, whatever the US does, the goal is selfish, evil, cruel? Sure, that sound reasonable, fair.
I cannot find an easy source for the history lesson I learned in school. Take it or leave it as it stands.
>Thus, whatever the US does, the goal is selfish, evil, cruel? Sure, that sound reasonable, fair.
That is what it means to be an empire. There's no "good" empire, they all exist to prop themselves up to greater heights.
Even if Roosevelt's goal wasn't to sit back and make a profit, he ran on that platform as the country did want that.
You've actually claimed that Roosevelt ran on a platform of "Let's sit back and not do anything, so we can make a profit". Come on! Give it a rest, please!
Further, the average American (re: the voter) didn't give a rat's ass about some corp they worked for, turning a profit thanks to war profiteering. And many Americans even wanted to enter the war! You know how voting works.
On to your other comment.
If there is no "good" empire, then there is no "evil" empire. You cannot remove moral labels on only one side, yet leave them on the other. Ergo, you've essentially stated that Nazi Germany has no justified, negative moral connotation to it?
Sorry, there are empires that revolve around a negative, evil premise. And those which revolve around a positive, good premise. But let's step back from this a bit, and do what some might find sensible.
Look at historical empires, comparatively, and assess the US against them.
Is the US perfect? Certainly not! However, are you? I? Nope.
Yet compare the US to other empires. Especially world spanning empires. Whilst the UK, France, all the way back to Rome, Greece, were not superpowers, they were "known world" spanning. World impacting.
Now assess the policies of these empires. Comparatively? The US is the most benign empire ever. EVER. Assess its strength, versus countries it invades. If the US behaved as the UK, the entire planet would be under its boot! If it behaved as Nazi Germany, can you even imagine?
It sickens me to have to defend the US, for I do indeed know it is not perfect. The US rolls over in its sleep, and crushes parts of Canada's economy. Yet I don't seem to recall post WWII US threatening to invade Canada, if we didn't pass copyright laws it likes. I don't recall the US capturing Iraq, and hauling off "undesirables* to concentration camps by the millions. I don't recall the US invading countries, and maintaining control after the fact -- for hundreds of years.
Oh sure, yes "Well, the US did this, corporate that, it's all for this and that" so what. We're comparing empires here.
So please, show me a world spanning empire, ever, which behaved with as much restraint as the US has. And bear in mind, the US literally could overthrow 90% of the planet in a matter of 20 years.
Just... it sickens me to see the US's own citizens, denigrate her so.
Now... do I respect your desire to reign in the US? Keep it restrained? Under control?
YES! By God yes, I do. But why on Earth make up contrived stuff, like the US was a land of profiteering, sniveling, hand wringing people, staying out of a war because PROFIT.
Please stop! Please!
Our first century of nonintervention was unquestionably based on the thought that entangling ourselves in European wars would drain us dry. Saying an element of that doesn't still remain is just incorrect, it is broadly the same idea as "Make America Great Again."
"Much of America" supported it, I never said all.
>If there is no "good" empire, then there is no "evil" empire. You cannot remove moral labels on only one side, yet leave them on the other
Trying to be an empire in itself is evil. Being the "least evil" empire is not something to be proud of.
>Yet I don't seem to recall post WWII US threatening to invade Canada, if we didn't pass copyright laws it likes.
Yet they have done basically that with Mexico and many other South American countries.
>. I don't recall the US capturing Iraq, and hauling off "undesirables* to concentration camps by the millions
Only thousands, while killing many many more.
>. I don't recall the US invading countries, and maintaining control after the fact -- for hundreds of years.
Literally all of America, Puerto Rico, and this ignores that setting up puppet governments and economic domination are also methods of empire building.
>Please stop! Please
No. I see your point of view as accepting the blatant propaganda taught to us our entire life. The US denigrated itself, and just tries to make people think it's noble.
There is a vast difference between "drain america dry" and "stay out of the war to profiteer". Vast. Immense. The motives are entirely different.
I cannot continue this conversation, when you keep making these sorts of assertions. There's no common ground. Nothing we can realistically discuss, for, you aren't even discussing the same things when you reply.
Outside of all of this, bear in mind I'm a Canuck. No, I'm not all "rah-rah America', nor is my viewpoint skewed by propaganda. You guys drive me nuts at times. I frankly view your country as a brother, one I wish well for, yet often sit gobsmacked, and even sad, when you I see how my brother is behaving.
I think you're trying to discuss things, with the view that I'm going to respond to US political talking points. Or perhaps culture viewpoints.
Anyhow.
Have a good one. We're not going to agree here, so there's no point.
Besides the political reason stated for doing so, name one difference. Both involve profiting by staying out of the war, and using that money to further your own ambitions.
We are discussing the same things, you just label them differently than I and think that justifies them. Like claiming the US has never invaded and occupied a country for centuries, as if the First Nations somehow wouldn't count.
I hope you also have a nice day.
Wilson ran for reelection promising not to enter WWI. Upon winning, he immediately broke that promise. When USA entered the war, it had already ground to a stalemate after three years of carnage. The various warring parties had been open to a negotiated peace. As soon as American lives were on the line, France, Britain, and Italy discovered a determination to see the war to its bitter end, which took another 1.5 brutal years and millions more human lives.
Wilson claimed to prefer reconciliation to punishment of Germany, and initially during peace negotiations he reined in the worst French and British excesses. Then he got Spanish Flu, suffered severe mental decline, and functioned as a doormat for the remaining "negotiations". The French and British somehow concocted such draconian penalties that they created brutal fascist dictatorships not only in their enemy Germany but also in their ally Italy. Hitler's and Mussolini's empowerment, not to mention the transfer of Germany's Chinese colony to Japan, guaranteed a conflict like WWII.
https://www.history.com/news/woodrow-wilson-1918-pandemic-wo...
It is a complex topic that for some reason we don't talk about much. I find the theory really interesting because hind sight we haven't had major wars like we did in the past. But clearly this leaves the US wanting to use its military (though that's the basis of the theory in the first place).
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/22/iraq-war-...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/11/28/m...
Folks inside the CIA knew that the yellow cake uranium was a lie and at best, did not make any of this knowledge public as the justification for war was coming together. That silence resulted in the loss of at least one hundred and fifty thousand human beings needlessly and a war that has lasted decades.
> I have witnessed the CIA justify those wars
to
> the CIA knew that the yellow cake uranium was a lie and at best, did not make any of this knowledge public
?
Isn't that a bit of a... large jump?
Also, do/should intelligence agencies generally come out and make public announcements of intelligence at all? I mean, maybe you can argue they should do that (for the public good), but unless they already do this in similar situations (or are normally instructed to), to show they actually acted in bad faith is going to need a lot more than arguing they didn't explicitly go out of their way to do so.
Btw, here's what I'm reading they apparently reported: https://fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd.html
> Moderate Confidence: Iraq does not yet have a nuclear weapon or sufficient material to make one but is likely to have a weapon by 2007 to 2009. (See INR alternative view, page 84).
> We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources. [...] Intelligence information on whether nuclear-related phosphate mining and/or processing has been reestablished is inconclusive, however.
(To be clear: none of this is to suggest I'm a fan of the entities involved...)
As they say, technically correct, the best kind of correct.
> Also, do/should intelligence agencies generally come out and make public announcements of intelligence at all?
They did so pretty frequently during the Trump administration. Whistleblowers spoke up when someone came in claiming to want to end the war on terror, they didn't feel the need to do so in 2001 when that war was getting started.
Just gonna point out that non-Americans are human beings as well, and millions have died - directly as a result of this silence.
The fact that Biden played a key part in enforcing this silence at various stages is particularly galling, and it's beyond fucked-up that he isn't held to account for it.
150k is the most conservative estimate I could find for Iraq. US and Iraqi deaths included. Some estimates are in the millions but I try to be as generous as possible to the other side of a argument I am making.
It is the lowest I could find. It also has quite a list of criticisms attached to it. The Iraq body count project counts more just from reported deaths alone.
I wouldn't be surprised if the ORB study showing in excess of 1.2 million is closest to the truth. especially since it ended in 2006 i think and it's not like people stopped dying since then.
There's been a bunch of opinions since then that they were actually just misrepresented, but their own words from 2002 speak for themselves, IMO.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/259216899/Iraq-October-2002-NIE-o...
> Iraq is continuing. and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.
> If left unchecked, [Iraq] probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade. (See INR alternative view at the end of these Key Judgments.)
> [State/INR Alternative View] The activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq may be doing so, but INR considers the available evidence inadequate to support such a judgment.
So basically the CIA is saying:
- The INR (separate agency) doesn't believe this is enough to start a war over.
- The other agencies (presumably including CIA) do.
However, their justifications in the bullet points seem to rely on a fair bit of speculation about motivations behind things, not as much actual concrete evidence as you'd hope. Whereas the INR evaluated the same evidence and said they aren't confident enough in this yet.
OK, so I'm with you here so far. Now the question to me is: did the CIA really lie here, or did they (and other agencies) really fail at their job? If it was a lie, are we using that to mean a falsehood, or does it refer to omission of critical information that they were reasonably confident about? On the face of it, it looks like they really just failed spectacularly, not that there was malice per se, but I don't have more details. (Though I guess that means we should listen more to the INR in the future?)
[1] https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB129/nie.pdf#page=13