Imperialism

[SHRED]

The main thrust of the USA's foreign policy history.
Conveniently left out of the grade school history books.

An ignorant populace is much easier to rally around a flag.

[snappyturtle]

1. If this is True or False....I pick True. n/t

[SHRED]

2. ding ding

:party:

[TwilightGardener]

3. False. Aside from places like Guam, the Phillippines, and other

small tropical islands, what other country have we taken over and colonized? Am I missing something?

[Postman]

4. Yes, you're missing alot.

Read some books.

"A People's History Of The United States"

"Declarations Of Independence"

"All The Shah's Men"

"Against Empire"

"Overthrow"

"Deterring Democracy"

to name a few.

[Tyler Durden]

15. How many of those are taught in public schools?

(cricket sounds)

[1932]

5. Start with Hawaii, end with Iraq.

[TwilightGardener]

6. We're not colonizing Iraq. We're taking their oil, and setting up

some bases--it's not going to be a permanent part of the US. I mentioned small tropical islands. What other countries or LARGE territories have we ever grabbed for good? We've actually been pretty isolationist, for the most part.

[1932]

7. What's the difference?

What's the population of the Philippines?

[TwilightGardener]

10. I don't think the Phillippines makes us permanent imperialists. I think for the most

part we've been pretty isolationist. We rule from sea to shining sea, but that's not really imperialism--we bought a lot of it from France, and the rest we took away from Spain. Manifest Destiny! (Sorry, Native Americans, there just weren't enough of you to stop us.) When we invade Canada or Mexico, let me know--until then, we've LARGELY not been imperialists over the course of our history. Not a perfect record, but not bad compared to France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, etc. And we're not going to keep Iraq either--just their oil.

[1932]

13. We occupied that country for how long? How many died?

We occupied Cuba for about half of the first half of the 20th century.

Someone posted a reading list for you above.

I think the problem here is that Americans just don't know the truth about what the US has been doing for the last 120 years.

[killbotfactory]

8. We used to be 13 states.

We didn't get the rest of America through osmosis.

to start with...

[mmonk]

9. But this is the most ambitious plan.

Not just countries in South and Central America or the occasional middle eastern country or Southeast Asian country. We're talking global domination and hegemony now. No limits or brakes. Every country that makes that final shift loses civil liberties at home and eventually they implode or start giving other countries their sovereignty or wealth back like the way Britain did. Hope we choose the least destructive path as we approach that eventual fork in the road.

[TwilightGardener]

11. I don't think we're after global domination, despite what PNAC says.

Just securing some goodies (Black gold! Texas tea!) from some weak regimes before Russia, China and India can get dibs on them. We don't have an interest in these countries culturally or strategically, besides planting a military base on them to guard the spoils. It's resource hegemony, at best--I made that up! Just now! We don't give a carp about these places otherwise. Or about spreading our democracy, either--even though I'm sure Iraq and Afghanistan would just love to have NASCAR and Hooters and WWF wrestling.

[mmonk]

12. I read the foreign policy documents.

It's a domination strategy. Both earth and space.

[pampango]

14. Resouce hegemony - I like the term.

As colonizers we were definitely second rate compared to Europeans and their efforts in Africa and Asia. We did it in Hawaii and the territories we took from Spain in 1898, but that is pretty weak compared to Britain, France, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. We colonized the Philippines for 44 years from 1898 to 1942 when we were kicked out by the Japanese who then colonized the country until 1945. We stayed for one more year after the war.

The Philippines became independent in 1946 long before most countries in Africa became independent from their European colonizers. Puerto Rico votes periodically on independence, statehood, or continued territorial status and, so far, prefers the latter. The French has to be kicked out of Indochina in the early 1960's (only to be replaced by other fools).

Have countries historically tried to lock up supplies of what they consider to be critical resources, whether it is oil, tea, or spices? Many countries, most famously China, now compete with us to ensure supplies of oil which they consider essential for their economies. (Europe has been accused of favoring the Arab side in the Middle East to ensure their supplies of oil.)

Have we committed egregious errors in our history? We sure have, but my guess is that every country has. Doesn't make it right. Just doesn't make it unusual either. Since WWII we have been the strongest and richest, so our mistakes cause more damage than do those of the Netherlands, assuming they have not achieved absolute perfection.

I agree with you that we are not after global domination. I do think that our powers-that-be would love to see global capitalism, even though China and India have proven that we are not guaranteed winners even if they get what they want.