Confronting American empire

The Daily Caller ^ | 2011-09-30 | Jack Hunter

[Gene Eric]

>> Why? Because democracies do not make war on each other

That should earn you a note in the annals of something...

[JRandomFreeper]

Neg, red rider.

We do honest without imperical threats, foggy bottom be damned.

If you jack with us, we kill you. Period. That's pretty easy.

We would like for you to get your shit all in one box and elect a gooberment, yep. I'll admit to that.

But we're not trying to incorporate Iraq and Afghanistan like we did, say, most of western europe, after we fire bombed it into oblivion.

And we did that. We bombed Desden and killed 100K+ humans. Us. Americans.

We're not imperial, or you would be saluting an American flag.

Instead, salute your own flag, and figure out how to get along without an imperium.

And seriously, don't p(redacted) (redacted) off.

/johnny

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Your definition of imperium is too narrow. Empire does not require occupation as long as the state in question does what you want.

In the example of Yemen, allowing us to blow the hell out its citizens (as well as ours) on its territory, even if by remote control, is fairly subservient and qualifies as being part of a military empire. And we do have boots on the ground there. We do not have to run the civil administration to call it empire as long as that administration is not inimical to our general interests, e.g. communist, islamist etc.

[Teacher317]

we have armies in dozens of countries around the world to make sure those countries and their neighbors adhere to that ideology or else.... Woe to those who hold substantial other interests.

Yeah, because we might threaten to leave, or give them less money, or bribe them with even more money. Woe be unto them! Run for the hills! The American dollars are coming... or going! The American dollars are coming... or going! Eeeek!

Truly, we ought to feel ashamed of ourselves, especially when compared to every other Empire in history. I shall go self-immolate now. /sarc>

This is historically a practical necessity: You are either an empire or you are subservient to someone else’s empire. America proper, as 6% of the world, is far too small to concede the other 94% to someone else’s ideology and interests and remain viable.

Um, almost every previous empire had an even smaller percentage of the global population.

[nathanbedford]

In waging asymmetrical war the inferior power typically tries to provoke the superior power into engaging in self defeating options.

If one considers the effects of the 9/11 strike from the point of view of Al Qaeda, the terrorist act was a resounding success because it caused the United States to expand literally trillions of dollars, cost its economy hundreds of billions of dollars, set it against many of its former allies who are out of sympathy with the its reaction, and sucked it into very difficult quasi-quagmire wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On the other side, it empowered Iran, America's most virulent enemy in the Muslim world, and inoculated it against American or Israeli interfering with its acquisition of the bomb. The American reaction served as a recruiting cry for an Islamist jihad. The aftermath led indirectly or directly to the so-called "Arab Spring" which is rapidly revealing itself to be an Arab nightmare as one relatively quiescent Arab land after another falls into the hands of militant Mohammedans.

All of this was accomplished with relatively small cost to Al Qaeda if one accepts the destruction of its top command and control structure because one sees this asymmetrical war as being conducted by a series of loosely connected amoeba like cells ceaselessly attacking and dividing.

If one sees the battlescape in this context the argument over the definition of empire which seems to concern UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide becomes somewhat beside the point. I say again, the question is are we doing what works, not are we building an empire? In Yemen, it looks like we are. But in Iraq and Afghanistan I would say that the game was not worth the cost, although it might be worse to bugger out now.

Especially is that so, Gene Eric, concerning the war aims in Afghanistan and Iraq to build democracies so they will not make war on us, which, even if democracies are built, would seem be to be several steps removed from what what I agree is a dubious causal connection but one that is reasonably accurate historically.

It seems to me that we had better start making these decisions for ourselves before our fiscal prostration makes them for us.

[Ben Ficklin]

"Empire does not require occupation as long as the state in question does what you want"

That is called hegemony. Preponderant influence or authority esp. of one nation over another. A suzerain is a nation with political control over another nation.

When you measure these terms we rely on the political, cultural, economic, military, or diplomatic influence, control, or authority.

Next, you have to look at it in terms of the foreign policy period. Post WW2 period, Cold War period, Post Cold War period, Post 911 period.

In the transition from Cold War to the Post Cold War periods, under GHW Bush, two doctrines emerged. The Powell Doctrine and the Wolfowitz Doctrine.

The Wolfowitz Doctrine was expanded into the NeoCon Doctrine, and when the NeoCons took over GW Bush's(Post 911) foreign policy, it became the Bush Doctrine. This is why you will hear the term NeoCon Empire Builders.

The US won the cold war, is the last remaining super power, and consequently the world hegemon. Furthermore, world stability cannot be achieved multilaterally via the UN or NATO, and such, but only thru a hierarchy of nations with the US at the top. This is the basis of the term NeoCon Unilateralism.

[expatpat]

Buckley’s point was not that America wasn’t an empire, only that it was right or necessary to be such for a time

Actually, the Brits didn't set out to have an Empire. As a well-known historian once said: "Britain acqquired an empire in a fit of absent-mindedness." What Britain wanted was Trade, and most of the possessions came from actions taken to protect its trade routes and the source of its imports into Europe.

Just like Buckley said re the US.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Democracies do not make war on us because they ARE us.

[Vendome]

Jack Off Hunter is an idiot, can’t write worth a crap and has the intellectual grasp of a newborn.

[Psalm 144]

We are not a classic empire, because empires at least make economic sense, even if they are moral poseurs and economic predators.

We have managed to compound the worst elements of imperial obligations and intermeddling, together with the role of guilt ridden global philanthropist and utopian scold.

It will not last, because our economy will break under the weight of parasites, both foreign and domestic.

[rmlew]

As always a cogent argument. Even if democratization were possible, I don't believe that we can afford it. On the other hand, we cannot afford a nuclear Iran, or Pakistan falling to its internal Islamist elements.

I would however posit that we were an empire from the Treaty of Paris (1783), which granted us the territory to the Mississippi, including control of many native tribes.