Don’t forgot about all the US dollars we doled out to self-serving war lords happy to say what the highest briber wanted to hear. Though they still focused on their own self-serving agendas.
It gets messy, but from what I hear, it’s been messy over there ever since colonialism started long long ago.
How much calculation went into any of this? Seems profit driven. There sure wasn’t any human calculation going on!
I mean after 9/11 we should have focused on a manhunt for the thugs actually guilty of the setting up the attacks (oh but that would have reached into Saudi Arabia’s royal family. hmmm) - hell we had the whole world on our side for a golden moment. Instead the Republican saw an opportunity they’d been waiting for to make a lot of changes and bring about a lifetime of war that only escalate the hatreds and revenge lust among everyone.
There’s no way that the Cheney/Bush Shock/n Awe War of Convenience wasn’t going to be a continuing cascading disaster for the world. Okay there were the war profiteers and corporate interests dying to use the weapons they’d been stock piling. So yeah for them it was good and it did help create wealth and the political power structure that’s guiding America these days, so what the hey…
All good questions, and good analysis. I was listening to “Democracy Now” this morning on the radio, I’ll try to find it online, the last guy talked on this very subject, how America has shaped war, made it about “how” and not so much about ethics of being there in some foreign country in the first place.
But of course that didn’t happen. As I heard one very old native woman explain why native people didn’t win, “bows and arrows can’t win against guns.” And the Taliban did win because the US had no interest in occupying that land. We were there for retribution not colonization.
Rule number three for warfare: never fight a war on your own soil if it is possible to fight it somewhere else.
The topic is Europeans conquering this continent and setting up governments that are still ruled primarily by descendants of Europeans. You are straying from that, which happens, but you might also be avoiding the issues of the ethics of empires and colonization.
[quote=“ibelieveinlogic, post:84, topic:8173”]
Rule number three for warfare: never fight a war on your own soil if it is possible to fight it somewhere else.
I don’t know where you live, but in my world ;
Rule number one for warfare: never fight a war unless it is for self-defense on your own soil.
I am not against placing a bounty on some war-criminal’s head as long as it is not on my head. You get my drift?
In other words, rule by the majority of the citizens? When can we expect the Democrats to change our government so that the majority does not rule? Let’s see how Pelosi does that in the next few weeks. Have we changed the definition of “democratic” so that a majority vote doesn’t win?
To misquote Spock just a bit, the desires of the many take precedence over the desires of the few. Damn the ethics, reality full speed ahead.
I accept that empires and colonization are the result of one of man’s worst faults, greed, and one of our best qualities, sharing what we value.
One of the challenges in having a discussion with you is the factual basis of your comments. Yes, we changed the definition of democracry in 1787 when we created a government that counted 3/5th of the slaves toward the population that represented the white slave owners. We compromised with those slave owners and gave them the Electoral College. We still give low population states 2 senators. A Republican President has not received a majority vote in 22 years. The “divided” congress does not represent the populace. Rich people control the media and make laws that degrade education. Procedural precedents have been accepted as if they are law, so one person, Mitch McConnell had complete control over what would be voted on in the Senate, including changes to the Supreme Court.
In many ways, America is currently living under minority rule.
The invention and application of gunpowder gave us rule number four for warfare: no fixed position is defensible. Under your rules, you will be defeated. Deployment of offensive nuclear missiles aboard nuclear submarines allowed us to remove those potential targets from our homeland.
BTW, rule 1 is know your enemy; rule 2, and perhaps actually more important, is know yourself.
I doubt you will convince many minority citizens of that, but I do agree with you, up to a point (which I have not defined).
[quote=“ibelieveinlogic, post:89, topic:8173”]
Deployment of offensive nuclear missiles aboard nuclear submarines allowed us to remove those potential targets from our homeland.
Yes, but they are not offensive First-Strike weapons. (NFS doctrine)
IOW , if a country launches a non-nuclear attack on the US, the US reserves the right to retaliate with nuclear weapons.
Interestingly, China is the only country with a NFU (no first use) policy
I would have voted to use nukes on 9/12. Big problem was we couldn’t identify suitable targets. Don’t bet the farm that we won’t use them.
[quote=“ibelieveinlogic, post:92, topic:8173”]
I would have voted to use nukes on 9/12. Big problem was we couldn’t identify suitable targets. Don’t bet the farm that we won’t use them.
I agree, if a country had claimed responsibility, I would have voted to set an example and obliterate that country from the face of the earth.
That is all it would take. After WW II Japan was a peaceful country whereas before the war it had been an expansionist power.
So we did the obvious, start a couple wars of convenience, one against a nation that hated/feared BinLaden more than we did,
in the end we put the truth to the worst rantings of BinLaden about the great white satan, and created many many thousands who are absolutely convinced of America’s evil intentions.
Nothing like starting an endless war to bring peace to the world.
The “point”, as I defined it, is that Congress is elected by a minority of the country, no matter how you slice it. Even if you only count those who voted, they are a minority of the overall voting population. We have a system that includes a good degree of local control, which I’m for, but the current makeup of the federal system does not reflect the population and some states have the same problem.
I am not referring to “minorities”, as in Latinos, or People of Color, or anything else. This is a minority of white people. You can look at polling as well, and see 70% and more support on issues that Congress won’t even take a full floor vote on.
You have to break down the events leading to his power. It’s easy to summarize history to the conclusion of power, but there are numerous elements leading to the perfect storm. The one thing that I see people not understanding is that we look to major events in history as reoccurring due to lack of knowledge. In fact, we have the US so hell-bent to be sure that the WW2 genocide never happens again that people have become seemingly blind to other alternatives to such atrocities. Look for the groups within your society that are regarded as heroes who use violence to justify their cause. Those are the ones you have to look out for. Turn a blind eye to justified violence and you’ll see new horrors committed in the name of social justice.
It’s going to happen regardless of what I say. This forum is too small to make a difference and it takes more effort to convince a person they’ve been lied to than to convince them of a lie. Being nice and inclusive to radicalized groups is a good indication of where the cracks are, but people are too afraid to call it out lest they become ridiculed for their opinions. With a few fuzzy parts of the in-betweens, I see how it’ll work out. If I’m wrong, then thank the all-powerful Visnu Atheists. I’d rather come to the realization that I’m wrong in a good world than being right in a screwed-up world, but honestly am I the only one that sees the signs?
18th-century quote lives strong to this day. " hope for the best, but prepare for the worst."
There are things to come, whether I’m wrong or right, but the question is, where will we all be 10 years from now, or better yet, where do you see the world heading and where you will be in it? The reality is, none of it will matter to the future if we all die and are written in history books as victims or maybe better yet, perpetrators. What’s going to come will happen, and be sure to note that it’ll be coming from the direction you least expect.
When I was 10 years old I knew not to rob/steal from people. I’m even so willing to admit that I’m so far right that at the age of 10 I knew that murdering people was a bad thing. So as not to judge you as a person, do you recall how Al Sharpton justified his clients actions due to “black rage?” How do you feel about that justification?
They were indeed quite prolific in gaining land from other Indians.
John Wesley Powell first became acquainted with the Utes along the White River in northwestern Colorado in the fall of 1868. During his expedition five years later, his photographer, Jack Hillers, captured this photograph of a young girl accompanied by a warrior, whose body, painted with yellow and black stripes, is marked for battle.
After the Utes acquired horses, they started to raid other Native American tribes. While their close relatives, the Comanches, moved out from the mountains and became Plains Indians as did others including the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Plains Apache, the Utes remained close to their ancestral homeland.[10] The south and eastern Utes also raided Native Americans in New Mexico, Southern Paiutes and Western Shoshones, capturing women and children and selling them as slaves in exchange for Spanish goods. They fought with Plains Indians, including the Comanche who had previously been allies. The name “Comanche” is from the Ute word for them, kɨmantsi , meaning enemy.[40] The Pawnee, Osage and Navajo also became enemies of the Plains Indians by about 1840.[41] Some Ute bands fought against the Spanish and Pueblos with the Jicarilla Apache and the Comanche. The Ute were sometimes friendly but sometimes hostile to the Navajo.[10]
People don’t look 2 feet into history to question it’s roots so long as it makes them feel good about themselves. This is just another case of be happy feel happy.
BTW Who here lives on land that had been once owned by the Native Americans?
I’m guilty here in southern California.
What land do you live on stolen from the Indians?
ptsss…I hear not all of them were so nice as history wants to make them out to be.