Is the US a warlike country?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
Infidels = evil. Kill them = good
Insurgents = evil. Kill them = good

As I said before, good or evil is decided by the perception of the victims, not the motive of the killer

Good or evil in the eyes of the victims is decided by the perceptions of the victims. ANYTHING in the eyes of someone is decided by the perceptions of that someone. This is tautological! You don't have anything beyond your perceptions to go on!

In this case, it's the perception of the motive that matters.

The victims will still be dead. You have a moral and juridical obligation to avoid being thoughtless.

In your eyes, because you see that being motivated solely by wanting the room service, without motivation to care for the safety of others, is evil. But even you would acknowledge that, if the blind person had NO knowledge of the Big Red Button, or even if it was knowledge of a very, very small possiblity (which is the normal state of things) of the Big Red Button, then the blind person wouldn't be an evil monster. Otherwise, every action, even inaction, would be evil, because we can't be certain of its effects.

[techumseh]

GePap-

So, since the US hasn't quite invaded as many countries as the rest of the world put together, they're not warlike?

You keep defaulting to this neo-con ideology theory to explain American behavior. But clearly the pattern existed before neo-con ideology. It existed under liberal Democrat governments. It has been consistent.

I also don't agree with the dichotomy that you're either warlike OR isolationist. Isolationism was a movement from the '20's and '30's. It is not accurate to describe today's anti-war or multi-lateralist views as "isolationist".

BTW, I agree with your assesment of American psychology. It's an interesting combination of altruism and arrogance.

[Kuciwalker]

GePap-

So, since the US hasn't quite invaded as many countries as the rest of the world put together, they're not warlike?

Since the US hasn't invaded quite as many countries as many INDIVIDUAL countries of the world, such as France, England, Spain, Germany, Russia, etc....

[GePap]

Originally posted by techumseh
GePap-

So, since the US hasn't quite invaded as many countries as the rest of the world put together, they're not warlike?

If you take the whole history of the United States, and compare its actions in the last 226 years with those of other states, the US is not even close to the most interventionist state out there-limiting comparisons to the last 50 years is sort of cheating, if the idea is one of some perculiar American mindset. That being the case, perhaps we can call the US warlike-if we call European civlization and its offshoots warlike.

You keep defaulting to this neo-con ideology theory to explain American behavior. But clearly the pattern existed before neo-con ideology. It existed under liberal Democrat governments. It has been consistent.

Yes, I just spoke of the near-universal belief in the US of American exceptionalism.

I also don't agree with the dichotomy that you're either warlike OR isolationist. Isolationism was a movement from the '20's and '30's. It is not accurate to describe today's anti-war or multi-lateralist views as "isolationist".

An isolationist state simply can;t be warlike. But American isolationism goes beyond 1920's and 30's. Wilson won reelection in 1916 by promissing to keep the US out of the European War, and Washington in his fairwell apoke against international alliences.

[chequita guevara]

GePap needs to spend some time outside New York and Chicago before saying Americans aren't warlike. Americans are always talking about we should bomb somebody or another.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Colon
I think what you're describing is very typical to the nation-state. I'd say it was just as common in Europe before the idea got discredited by WWII. Maybe it's rather Europe that's the odd case out there because the idea of being exceptional appears to remain just as lively outside western Europe. (China, Japan, Russia...)

Nothing in Europe is like this attitude, or in east Asia.

Yes, China and Japan both are self-centered, but they do not really think they have any fundamentally universal message to the world- THEY are special, period. Noone else is.

This is the difference-the American "nation" is based on a set of common ideals, NOT blood, NOT ancestral history- and hence Americans do believe them to be universal. Yes, Victorians and Europeans in the late 19th century saw this "White Man's burden", but they never really believed the lower races to be capable of uplift-certainly Americans at the time thought the same, but the notion that American are special never ended, because in the end, it is too central to the American identity. Germans and Britons can remain that and accept that they are not special in any way, just another nation-BUT not the US.

[GePap]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
GePap needs to spend some time outside New York and Chicago before saying Americans aren't warlike. Americans are always talking about we should bomb somebody or another.

I have, and I have heard all that, and for all the bull people say (same morons who say the % of foreign aid in the budget is something like 10%), they rarely push anyone into war, now do they?

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
GePap needs to spend some time outside New York and Chicago before saying Americans aren't warlike. Americans are always talking about we should bomb somebody or another.

No, he's right. The !Kung are warlike people. The Yanomami are warlike people. The Government of Nazi Germany circa the 1940s was warlike. Americans are not "warlike"... bar room chit chat aside.

Warlike implies war for the sake of war, and as Gepap has said, Americans only go to war when they honestly believe it is a last resort... rightly or wrongly so. And only occassionally have they (US) done so for the express purpose of territorial acquisition (unlike most European countries/kingdoms in the past 250 years).

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
GePap needs to spend some time outside New York and Chicago before saying Americans aren't warlike. Americans are always talking about we should bomb somebody or another.

I rarely hear anything like that & when I do the person isn't serious. This includes outside of the big cities.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn


No, he's right. The !Kung are warlike people. The Yanomami are warlike people. The Government of Nazi Germany circa the 1940s was warlike. Americans are not "warlike"... bar room chit chat aside.

Warlike implies war for the sake of war, and as Gepap has said, Americans only go to war when they honestly believe it is a last resort... rightly or wrongly so. And only occassionally have they (US) done so for the express purpose of territorial acquisition (unlike most European countries/kingdoms in the past 250 years).

The US populace was certainly as warlike as your examples until the civil war. After the civil war the population became much less cavalier about warfare and ww1 seemed to validate the new attitudes further. The Us population isn't truly warlike but it certainly was in the beginning.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Pyrodrew


I rarely hear anything like that & when I do the person isn't serious. This includes outside of the big cities.

I would hear that sort of thing sometimes when I was in grade school. I think che might have kept that impression of peoples attitudes from childhood lunchroom conversations.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn

Warlike implies war for the sake of war, and as Gepap has said, Americans only go to war when they honestly believe it is a last resort... rightly or wrongly so. And only occassionally have they (US) done so for the express purpose of territorial acquisition (unlike most European countries/kingdoms in the past 250 years).

Warlike doesn't necessarily imply war for the sake of war. Here's the Cambridge Online Dictionary definition:

"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."

"Often involved in and eager to start wars." The US? Say it ain't so!

Do they resort to force only when they honestly believed it was the last resort? How many of the previously listed examples of American aggression can you honestly say that about?

In Iraq the weapons inspectors hadn't even finished their work. In Haiti the US supported a revolt of the ex-soldiers of former dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier against the elected President before stepping in to "restore order". In Grenada the US peddled a **** and bull story about the leftist government's plans to build a tourist airport being a threat to American security to justify that invasion.

Territorial expansion is no longer the motive. It's access to markets, freedom for capital, and control of natural resources. Colonial administration has been replaced with local regimes installed by the imperial power. It's neo-colonalism.

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.

[Odin]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn


The !Kung are warlike people

The Bushmen are warlike?

Che,

GePap needs to spend some time outside New York and Chicago before saying Americans aren't warlike. Americans are always talking about we should bomb somebody or another.

Around here the only time people said stuff like that was right after 9/11 (myself included) and when everyone was being told Saddam was making nukes by Shrub & Co.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by techumseh


Warlike doesn't necessarily imply war for the sake of war. Here's the Cambridge Online Dictionary definition:

"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."

"Often involved in and eager to start wars." The US? Say it ain't so!

Do they resort to force only when they honestly believed it was the last resort? How many of the previously listed examples of American aggression can you honestly say that about?

In Iraq the weapons inspectors hadn't even finished their work. In Haiti the US supported a revolt of the ex-soldiers of former dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier against the elected President before stepping in to "restore order". In Grenada the US peddled a **** and bull story about the leftist government's plans to build a tourist airport being a threat to American security to justify that invasion.

Territorial expansion is no longer the motive. It's access to markets, freedom for capital, and control of natural resources. Colonial administration has been replaced with local regimes installed by the imperial power. It's neo-colonalism.

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.

It is a total no brainer that the US populace is not eager to start wars. not by any stretch of the imagination. Wars are universally regarded as an aberation amongst americans.

[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"

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?

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.

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.