I really don't think the US is imperialistic TBH. Just because a few countries got bombed for oil doesn't make you imperialistic. Read a bit of history about what empire building countries/kings/tyrants were actually like.
Close to a century of no war on the homeland, close to two on the mainland; not too shabby. Yes, we have problems. But enemy tanks aren’t one of them.
If you bomb country for oil it makes you a fucking bandit and war criminal.
We went into Afghanistan because the Taliban harbored the organization that committed 9/11 and refused to turn them over.
We went into Iraq primarily because a group of Neoconservatives were drunk on the unipolar moment and believed the US could spread democracy at the barrel of a gun and remake the Middle East. Haliburton definitely made money in Iraq, but we did not go in for oil.
The invasion of Iraq was based on the fact that Bush and Cheney were neoconservatives, which means essentially liberal Trotskyites. They believed that human rights were universal and it was legitimate to uphold them by force. So in their logic, Saddam Hussein was a bad a guy and Iraq was a good candidate for showing that the US can start rolling into places and giving the people their freedom, just like that.
The basic assumption was that stable democracies grow on their own once you get rid of the dictator. So show up to a country, get the dictator, rinse and repeat. Now you have nice democracies all throughout the world. In that view, not invading is immoral because it means you’re condemning millions of Iraqis to live under Saddam’s dictatorship.
The basic lesson from this is that countries don’t act out of material self-interest as much as armchair cynics assume. Instead they’re frequently operated on an emotional or ideological basis.
Ah sorry. All valid and noble reasons. No crime here. Dead, mutilated, starved, displaced and otherwise abused Iraqis salute you.
Also message outlining your honorable goals should be directed to the parent to whom I was replying. Was not my claim that the US did it for oil.
Absolutely. When my home country declared independence, Pakistan engaged in genocide to stop it. Having been disarmed the British, the independence fighters had to steal Pakistani weapons: https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/bangladesh-liberation-...
> Most of the weapons used by the Mukti Bahini were taken from defeated soldiers. Then, there were homemade bombs, knives and even instances of the use of bows and arrows…
> The better equipped Pakistani army used imported guns, automatic weapons, mortars, artillery trucks, armoured personnel carriers, tanks, airplanes, and ammunition.
Eventually, Bengali regiments of the Pakistan military defected. Even then, independence wouldn’t have been possible without India joining the war against Pakistan.
That is just untrue. Historically, especially before the advent of nationalism, national hatred, ethnocentrism and ethnic cleansing ( so from mid to end 19th century to mid 20th century) conquest very rarely meant death. It was a different set of powerful and rich men on top, but the peasants were usually.. not really impacted that much. They were certainly more impacted when the war passed through their lands ( plunder, rape, etc.). Slaughtering the enemy civilians was rare and only done in specific cases ( like the Mongols, sone Vikings, earlier Anglo-Saxons).
What about neighboring tribes? You think they always traded berries and had a happy life? Do you know anything about Native American tribe life before Europeans arrived? How about African tribes even recently?
What are you even on about? Nationalism has nothing to do with violence when compared with any other system of organisation.
But just take a look at chimps and how they treat someone from another tribe (hint: they literally tear them apart). Do chimps have nationalism?
God this “everything was ok before western culture” crap is getting really tiring and ridiculous
It has nothing to do "western culture", but with the evolution of warfare from the "Cabinet wars" to nationalistic "total wars". Colonial wars were often with brutal consequences, but again, massively slaughtering the native population was the exception, not the norm ( Herero and Namaqua genocide). The vast majority of humans conquered in the last few centuries weren't slaughtered en masse for the sake of it.
You can either defend yourself, and possibly survive, or you can die. That's generally the choice throughout history, because hardly any country has ever always been the aggressor.
Violence is at the root of all human existence. To deny it is to live in a fantasy land. In the end violence is what rules, because if you are weak at some point someone stronger will rule over you. That doesn't mean a violent person will always rule, because 2 peaceful collaborators can usually take down a violent ruler, but it still means that at the root of it whoever can dominate the other in some way will win.
And this isn't unique to humans of course, it's how it is in nature and most tribal animals.