Is the US a warlike country?

[Ned]

Spiffor, I really liked your opening post. It describes my attitudes about the US quite well. We are a force for good in the world and have a "duty" not a right to make the world a better place. If we need to use force to remove a barbarian butcher from power, we should. If the forces of fascism are on the march (Saddam for example) we are there to oppose them.

There are, though, people in the US who have always opposed America's use of force. The people generally have been from the Northeast and today find themselves in the Democrat party. The more "aggressive" Americans are sons and daughters of pioneers, the people who long ago moved away from the comforts of the Eastern cities and into the wilderness to extend civilization. These people have self confidence and a vision of the future that is full of hope and optimism. These are the people the rest of the world know as Americans.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by GePap
First, "intervention" is not the same as war- going in an having a coup is not warmongering. Not even sending in troops is "warmongering"-sending troops to Haiti in 1994, or to Lebanon in 1983 was not "warmongering"

I've left out all the US directed coups in all my posts, for the sake of argument. However when thousands are killed as the result of a coup, as in Chile, or up to a million as in Indonesia in 1966, those who engineered the coup have blood on their hands.

So now you're going to pick and choose which military interventions are bad and which are OK? Typical liberal. I certainly don't agree with your characterization of those adventures as legitimate.

"Warmongering" is not the term used in this poll. It's "warlike". The US IS a warlike nation, given the definition of the term and the history of the US in modern international relations.

India has been involved in as many shooting wars as the US in the last 50 years:

US: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Iraq
India: Pakistan, China, Pakistan, Pakistan

India has also intervened in various local conflicts- do you call India a warmongering state?

India has had 3 wars with Pakistan, the result of the British engineered partition of it's former colony. It was attacked by China in a Himalayan border dispute in the early '60's. You forgot its' conquest of the Portugese colony of Goa as well.

However, your list of US "shooting wars" is pretty short. Cambodia, Laos, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Somalia, Grenada, Yugoslavia, and lots more, all involved shooting.

Are Britain and France warlike as well? Probably. The 3 countries are together responsible for 90% of the world's aggression (based on the lists above). All are all neo-colonial powers.

But we are nowhere even close to being responsible for the mayority of human beings slaughtered in war- Heck, the Ethiopia-Eritrea war lead to more dead that the first Iraq war, and the ethnic conflict and then state fighting in the Congo has killed millions.

We haven't even gotten into the US involvement in the wars in Ethiopia or Congo. We can, if you like.

I certainly agree that the US has countless time for self-interested reasons interfered in the politics of minor states for its own selfish reasons- the US has and does though mainly out of the fact IT CAN than any cultural situation. Any state will mess with weaker neighbors if it can for its own interests- if only a few nations do it frequently and worldwide, its because only a few nations are capable of doing so.

You admit that the US has interfered "countless times" in the affairs of "minor states". Is it "because it can" or is there a deeper reason? I don't think it's cultural at all. It's economic and political. It has to do with the interests of the corporations that control Washington. If the American people have any responsibility at all, it's that they're easily fooled.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by techumseh

"Warmongering" is not the term used in this poll. It's "warlike". The US IS a warlike nation, given the definition of the term and the history of the US in modern international relations.

bull****! You yourself posted the following definition of warlike:

"Definition
warlike
adjective FORMAL
often involved in and eager to start wars:
It has often been said, perhaps unfairly, that they are a warlike nation/people."

eager to start wars? What kind of blind trolling would allow someone to insist that the US population is eager to start wars. Every friggin time there is a war since the civil war at the latest, the US population has shown reluctance to go to war and has viewed any decision to go to war as a matter of being forced to for lack of options that the public believes will lead to less bloodshed. Whenever an administration has failed to convince the public of this there has been an outcry. I wouldn't think someone using the canadian flag could belive the US public eager to start wars. Where do you get your impression of this? A handful of border crossing high school rednecks you are acquainted with or does it come from trolls in forums like this that guys like MWHC used to post to get a rise out of the polytubbies?

Originally posted by techumseh
You admit that the US has interfered "countless times" in the affairs of "minor states". Is it "because it can" or is there a deeper reason? I don't think it's cultural at all. It's economic and political. It has to do with the interests of the corporations that control Washington. If the American people have any responsibility at all, it's that they're easily fooled.

If a people are constantly fooled into believing propaganda which disguises corporate interests involved in starting wars as being about defending 'freedom' or 'defeating terrorism' that hardly qualifies them as warlike according to your definition now does it?

[PLATO]

What an incredibly interesting thread! Thank you Spiffor!

My take is very similar to GePap's.

The US must have an underlying moral reason for going to war. The question that remains, even among Americans, is weather or not a particular war meets that moral justification. This opinion can even change over time as it did in Vietnam.

Americans are a very impatient people. We are always looking to solve things "faster" and make them more "efficient". Perhaps we don't give diplomacy the years it requires at times.

Iraq could be a good example. No one wanted Sadaam in power. The biggest objection that I have seen is that we "didn't give the inspectors time to finish their job." Maybe several years or decades of continued diplomacy would have produced a free and democratic Iraq. Americans just aren't willing to wait for that process. The problem with that is that it may now take years or decades for Iraq to be free and democratic.

[GePap]

Originally posted by techumseh
I've left out all the US directed coups in all my posts, for the sake of argument. However when thousands are killed as the result of a coup, as in Chile, or up to a million as in Indonesia in 1966, those who engineered the coup have blood on their hands.

In the end, the man fault for those coups lies with the local elites- no state can out of the blue engineer a coup- yes, the US gave Pinochet help, but in the end of the day, that coup occured because reactionaries in the government wanted it to occur. And yes, the US gave help in the repression, but again, it was the locals who did the killing-the US did not order the Chilean MIlitary to bomb the palace, or to kill 3000 people. The US did not order 500,000 people in Indonesia murdered- Suharto did. Facilitators have their place in hell, but lets not confuse them with those trully responsible. No coup can be engineered if there is not a local gorup able, ready, and willing to act.

So now you're going to pick and choose which military interventions are bad and which are OK? Typical liberal. I certainly don't agree with your characterization of those adventures as legitimate.

The question is not legitimacy, but what constitutes war mongering- you brought about definitions- Intervention =/war. You can;t argue with that point.

"Warmongering" is not the term used in this poll. It's "warlike". The US IS a warlike nation, given the definition of the term and the history of the US in modern international relations.

Warlike is not fundamentally different from warmongering- in the end, the idea is the active and willing partaking of war, and again you run into the fact that war=/intervention.

India has had 3 wars with Pakistan, the result of the British engineered partition of it's former colony. It was attacked by China in a Himalayan border dispute in the early '60's. You forgot its' conquest of the Portugese colony of Goa as well.

And the Brits acted because there were plenty of Muslim afraid of a Hundi dominated India-so it was NOT just a British invention-and even then, India Itself was a British invention-never in its histoiry did one single crown or state control the same space- so what if the Brist drew new lines? The single Colony of India was no more a natural border than the situation that came into existence afterwards. That India as Pakistan kept fighting wars was a result of their own bickering, not The fault of the Brits. As for the Chinese invasion-does that make China warlike?

However, your list of US "shooting wars" is pretty short. Cambodia, Laos, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Somalia, Grenada, Yugoslavia, and lots more, all involved shooting.

And so did most of those French interventions-shooting does not equal war either.

We haven't even gotten into the US involvement in the wars in Ethiopia or Congo. We can, if you like.

And how was US involvement fundamentaly different from that of other interested powers?

You admit that the US has interfered "countless times" in the affairs of "minor states". Is it "because it can" or is there a deeper reason? I don't think it's cultural at all. It's economic and political. It has to do with the interests of the corporations that control Washington. If the American people have any responsibility at all, it's that they're easily fooled.

Then you don't believe the American peoiple are warlike-only that the political system that dominates them is warlike-that is a huge distinction.

[Kuciwalker]

Hell, Britain and France (not to mention Germany) fought quite a few outright wars of conquest! The only ones that really qualify for us are the Mexican-American war and just the general subjugation of the Indians.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by GePap
Then you don't believe the American peoiple are warlike-only that the political system that dominates them is warlike-that is a huge distinction.

Bingo!

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned
Spiffor, I really liked your opening post. It describes my attitudes about the US quite well. We are a force for good in the world and have a "duty" not a right to make the world a better place. If we need to use force to remove a barbarian butcher from power, we should. If the forces of fascism are on the march (Saddam for example) we are there to oppose them.

There are, though, people in the US who have always opposed America's use of force. The people generally have been from the Northeast and today find themselves in the Democrat party. The more "aggressive" Americans are sons and daughters of pioneers, the people who long ago moved away from the comforts of the Eastern cities and into the wilderness to extend civilization. These people have self confidence and a vision of the future that is full of hope and optimism. These are the people the rest of the world know as Americans.

I am always amazed at the Nedaverse.

It was those pioneer folks that were the staunchest isolationists-the South has always been a hotbed of militancy, but never the Midwest, now west- the point of the pioneer was to remake onself and find their won corner of the world and riches-that precludes much militancy and militarism.

Oh, and it was the industrious eastern coats folks that kept the country humming, passed the generous federal bills that hgave away the west for free, AND created the image the rest of thre world has of the US- New York admen selling to impoverished Europeans had more to do with the creation of the American image to the world than some homesteader deep in Wyoming.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by techumseh


Bingo!

You should have said that from the beginning. Political leadership in general tends to be warlike, and the more power at their disposal to wage war the more warlike they seem to become.

[techumseh]

How come you can write "Bull****" and I can't write "**** and Bull"?

[GePap]

I am still digesting Ned's quotes- there is so much there I want to argue with!

What did the US do to spread freedom prior to 1917?

Take half of Mexico? Yes, that helped freedom along quote nicely.The Civil War? Well, that nice, except that we were one of the few states that allowed slavery still at the times anyways- committing genocide against the prior inhabitants? (no other word even comes close to what was done)

Manifest Destiny ended at the Pacific- the Monroe Doctrine was about keeping Europeans well away from us, but had nothing to do with spreading democracy (the US was strongly against the second revolutuion in the America's, Haiti)

Only in the Victorian period, when the Europeans were deeply involved in the notion of White Mans Burden ( a notion created though by an American) and once American had consolidated its territory (the fronteir declared closed in the 1890's) did the US start looking outwards seriously (thought Southern Planters had imagined a carribean empire) And of course the centers of this outward thought were progressive centers in the northeast, men like Theodore Rooselvelt, of a fine New York Family. It was men like Teddy that got the US trully involved in the international scene, a scene we had only really gotten involved previously for Commercial reasons , like Forcing the Japanese to open up to our trade, intervention to topple the Hawaiian monarchy by private American citizens, or even our very first foreign entanglements against commerce raiders in Algiers.

And we tried in a much smaller scale than Europe, with our spoils form the Spanish War being our little lab- but the first true notion of spreading American values came from Wilson, and as we all know, he got cut off at the knees by his fellow contrymen as much as by the greedy European victors.

It was only after the other great powers demolished themselves that the US really thought like Ned says- but the last 60 years, the last 60 unnatural years, hardly American history make.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap




I am always amazed at the Nedaverse.

It was those pioneer folks that were the staunchest isolationists-the South has always been a hotbed of militancy, but never the Midwest, now west- the point of the pioneer was to remake onself and find their won corner of the world and riches-that precludes much militancy and militarism.

Except when it came to them Injuns, 'course (I agree with you, basically)

[techumseh]

I can tell that I let you off the hook too easily, since you're now feeling free to respond to Ned's drivel.

Originally posted by GePap


In the end, the man fault for those coups lies with the local elites- no state can out of the blue engineer a coup- yes, the US gave Pinochet help, but in the end of the day, that coup occured because reactionaries in the government wanted it to occur. And yes, the US gave help in the repression, but again, it was the locals who did the killing-the US did not order the Chilean MIlitary to bomb the palace, or to kill 3000 people. The US did not order 500,000 people in Indonesia murdered- Suharto did. Facilitators have their place in hell, but lets not confuse them with those trully responsible. No coup can be engineered if there is not a local gorup able, ready, and willing to act.

Of all the liberal BS that's been spouted on this forum, this takes the cake! These coups have been initiated, planned and organized in Washington and Langley, not Santiago or Jakarta or wherever. If it wasn't for the US, few, if any, of these coups would hav ocurred at all. The US is COMPLETELY responsible for these violations of democracy and human rights. Rationalize away, GePap.

Then you don't believe the American peoiple are warlike-only that the political system that dominates them is warlike-that is a huge distinction.

Let me try this again. If your country interferes/invades other countries as often as the US does, and thousands of people die, and if you consider your country a democracy, what is your responsibility as a citizen? This is a serious question.

I have friends in the US, mainly guilty liberals who don't know whether to apologize or rationalize. (Sounds familiar!) Others I know believe the US is justified in doing whatever it's leaders think is necessary. (Also familiar) The failure of US liberals to take clear and courageous stands leads to the victory of the neocons time and again. John Kerry is only the latest example.

[Odin]

Originally posted by techumseh

I can tell that I let you off the hook too easily, since you're now feeling free to respond to Ned's drivel.

Of all the liberal BS that's been spouted on this forum, this takes the cake! These coups have been initiated, planned and organized in Washington and Langley, not Santiago or Jakarta or wherever. If it wasn't for the US, few, if any, of these coups would hav ocurred at all. The US is COMPLETELY responsible for these violations of democracy and human rights. Rationalize away, GePap.

Oh sh!t, the tin-foil-hat brigade is out.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by techumseh
I can tell that I let you off the hook too easily, since you're now feeling free to respond to Ned's drivel.

Of all the liberal BS that's been spouted on this forum, this takes the cake! These coups have been initiated, planned and organized in Washington and Langley, not Santiago or Jakarta or wherever. If it wasn't for the US, few, if any, of these coups would hav ocurred at all. The US is COMPLETELY responsible for these violations of democracy and human rights. Rationalize away, GePap.



Let me try this again. If your country interferes/invades other countries as often as the US does, and thousands of people die, and if you consider your country a democracy, what is your responsibility as a citizen? This is a serious question.

I have friends in the US, mainly guilty liberals who don't know whether to apologize or rationalize. (Sounds familiar!) Others I know believe the US is justified in doing whatever it's leaders think is necessary. (Also familiar) The failure of US liberals to take clear and courageous stands leads to the victory of the neocons time and again. John Kerry is only the latest example.

If you're going to climb on a soapbox and wax all preachy and patronising to us, you can at least give us some details. What exactly shall our misguided cowardly liberals do to win back your respect oh most wise and benevolent prophet of true pacifism?