American Imperialism

[den]

I'm growing tired of hearing about American Imperialism and Western Imperialism.

The only land the US has gained in all the wars over the last 100 years are the little plots the soldiers are buried in.

Comments

Thank you very much...

[bigbearpaws.livejournal.com]

I've been very frustrated about the general attitude. Nice to remind people every once in a while.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Mostly true, except that's because we secured the territorial extent we wanted during the wars of the previous 100 years; we went to war with the Indian nations of the west for the purposes of annexing their land, and did; Texas ginned up a war with Mexico that resulted in the seizure of huge tracts of land; we annexed Hawaii and Guam under the excuse of needing them for the Spanish American War, and annexed Puerto Rico as booty from said war. One can deny anything by being able to set an arbitrary time period. It's a cute line, and I'm sure Powell's speechwriter provided him with a stock of such lines, but it doesn't mean anything.

Having pretty much gotten what we wanted, most of our acquisitions since then have been the acquisition of permanent military bases. One could consider Guantanamo, which we required our Cuban puppet goverment (installed after the Spanish American war) to yield to us as the first occasion of that. I expect that's likely to be the plan the neocons have for Iraq; they view it as a base where they can station large amounts of military to dominate the middle east, so they are not dependent on Saudia Arabia.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

What does it say about my mind that when I read that, I started noodling on the discomfort factors of a Coca-Cola high colonic?

Erm...don't answer that question ;-).

[makovette.livejournal.com]

Amen Batty. Thank You!

Mako

[level-head.livejournal.com]

I am very familiar with the history of Texas, and of Hawaii. I would have to assume from your writings that you are not. I am much less familiar with the history of Guam and Puerto Rico, but I am forced to be cautious about your information there without further research.

Hawaii and Texas both have interesting stories. I recommend them.

It's interesting that you used the phrase "ginned up", as this has quite a lot to do with Texas history.

===|==============/ Level Head

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

Thank you.

[targaff.livejournal.com]

As I noted elsewhere (http://www.livejournal.com/community/usmilitary/163592.html), you're paraphrasing a paraphrase of a phrase used by Colin Powell that is widely misquoted.

The thing is that whilst the US isn't in the business of putting their own people into positions of power, they're most definitely in the business of putting people they own in the position of power. The semantic difference is enormous, but the net effect is pretty much the same.

[twoolfe.livejournal.com]

Damned straight Den. I've got a father somewhere down there in your neck of the woods along with the remains of a PT. Also a few companions from Korea.

[twoolfe.livejournal.com]

Hey JW PFC 142***6 USMC 2611/ground radio tech Korea.
I've earned my right to have an opinion.
T

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

I don't recall hearing or reading that phrase anywhere*, unlike "American Imperialism." The term Corporate Imperialism would be better. It's as fasionable to do some Yank Bashing as it is to do French Bashing.

I know the US Government has set up friendly governments in other countries, but those guys seem to turn anti-US within a few years.

I thought you were censored out of that community. 8)


*that doesn't mean I never heard it. I may have caught it from the background telly noise.

[targaff.livejournal.com]

I've been doing Yank Bashing for a long time now, war or no war ;p It's too easy a target.

I wasn't censored out of the community in the sense that the moderator came in and banned me, it was just the one person who didn't like the thought that someone could have a contradicting opinion and was prepared to defend it, so they deleted all the contradicting posts. I can still post freely to the community, afaik.

[raki.livejournal.com]

Maybe you need to get better definitions.. Imperialism occurs by many strategies, the form the USA uses is hegemonic imperialism, which isn't necessarily territorial. And have you forgotten Pine Gap and all the other military bases the USA has gained all over the world? Or its economic clout? Or its ability to ignore and manipulate international organisations at will (don't think for a moment that anyone in the Bush administration has fogotten that France was Iraq's biggest trading partner)?

The decolonisation trend hasn't ended imperialism!