Rebuilding is not the same as building. What was supposed to happen in Iraq was a complete start from scratch politically and culturally, which is why it was never going to work.
I don’t think any Americans were killed rebuilding Japan and Germany. Condie Rice brought up German resistance in the form of the “werewolves” to draw a parallel with the insurgancy in Iraq but she, and she have been educated enough to know better, based that on urban myths as no Americans were killed in Germany after WW2 by hostile action based on some fact checking after her silly comments.
I think you have to remember the US was pretty broke post Revolution. The FFs may or may not have acted as we do, but the fact of the matter is that they couldn’t have even if they wanted to. We struggled to build a handful of ships to fight the Barbary Pirates under Jefferson, for example, we weren’t going to help rebuild anything.
I’m guessing the Kurds are happy Saddam isn’t in power anymore. At any rate, at least our goal was to make the ME better. It may or may not have worked out depending on your perspective, but that was the purpose. That was not the purpose of British expansion.
Sure they had a choice. Don’t fly planes into buildings. Don’t bomb Pearl Harbor in the Middle of the Night. Don’t ignore UN resolutions. Don’t gas Jews. I see lots of choices.
I think most of the world is generally pro-America. Everyone has haters when they’re on top.
Hardly. Bringing technology isn’t providing Aide. They starved Indians to death in mass in order to take their crops for themselves.
Kinda hard to enjoy technological advances brought to you by Big Empire when you’re dead.
In early US history America needed aide. We didn’t have money or resources to give. I don’t think the FFs could have possibly foreseen the US becoming the sole Super Power of the world. So, I think it’s a bit silly to try and say the FFs wouldn’t have provided aid in the form of nation-building. The first real-time America was put in that position was the early 20th century well past the age of the FFs. Maybe they would have. Maybe they wouldn’t have.
From your link. We got scammed. And we should be pissed.
“The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West.”
How do you think intelligence gathering works? Do you think Saddam teleconferenced then President Bush and was like “Grab your map lemme give you these gps coordinates for our mustard gas”.
Intelligence suggested active chemical weapons were there prior to the invasion. Maybe there weren’t any anymore, but I doubt it. My guess is they’re somewhere else or we just didn’t find them.
Most of the war-time documents are heavy redacted or still classified.
Yeah, intelligence with all the caveats ripped out of it and then sold as a certainty to the public. We KNEW where those programs and active stockpiles were! Bullshit, they KNEW shit.
And then we get to adopt the dysfunctional Iraqis.
What I’m saying is even if they could have, they almost certainly wouldn’t have.
It was? I thought the goal was revenge for 9/11. I don’t remember anyone talking about making the ME better when we started turning towns into parking lots
So the citizens of Japan made the choice to bomb Pearl harbor? The same way Americans citizens made the choice to drop the atomic bomb?
Iraqs/afghanis decided to take down the twin towers? Here I was thinking most of the 9/11 terrorists were from a country we refused to touch
Of course it is. If you want to say England did more harm than good, I’m totally sold. If you want to say they provided no aid, I’m not.
And we accepted plenty of help. To my knowledge, none of it was provided by a military occupation.
I’m open to an example of the FFs being in favor of militarily occupying a nation for their own good. Doesn’t have to be America. Any support of any foreign occupation would suffice.
That was the catalyst for the invasion of Afganistan not Iraq.
Then you should do some googlefu because we didn’t remove Saddam because of 9/11.
The citizens of Japan did bomb Pearl Harbor. The emperor didn’t fly all those planes himself.
American citizens helped build it. Our civilian leadership voted into office by us, decided on our behalf to drop the bomb as the best way to end the war.
Maybe we have a fundamental disagreement about what government is. I see it, generally, as just an extension of collective selves.
Gonna have to agree to disagree I guess.
The situations we’re talking about didn’t happen to the US…
We militarily occuped everything west of the Mississippi… A good chunck of that happened in the late 1700s early 1800s.
Sorry, I’m not going to shed a tear for rich guys playing a kid’s game, because the owners don’t want said super duper privileged rich guys from making a political spectacle out of their kid’s game-business. They don’t have a right to the field.
Edit: There is no compulsory patriotism, either. They could literally hate the country and never stand for an anthem again, yet still get paid a shit ton to be adults playing a game.
1st world friggen problems. Man, I’m grouchy today.
Based on a history of rebelling against being militarily occupied
Riiiiiight
I didn’t say we did. We removed Saddam because he wouldn’t do what we said.
I agree wholeheartedly. But let’s not pretend like government actions are a reflection of the citizens will. More often than not, they’re a reflection of someone’s will and a whole lot of laziness
Yea, and we didn’t lie to ourselves and tell everyone we were making the natives a better world. We saw, we took.
They didn’t really rebel because of military occupation, though. They rebelled over many things, but mostly over-taxation and a lack of representation in parliament.
Mkay, we didn’t invade Iraq because of 9/11…
Sure, but I believe we are ultimately responsible for the actions of the men and women we elect to represent us.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but sans military occupation a rebellion isn’t even necessary.
Could you not eliminate any single “reason to rebel” except the military occupation part and chances are very good the rebellion still happens? Guess maybe the taxation thing could have brought us in line if they caved, but idk
Agreed
That comment was in reference to “militarily occupying” everything west of the Mississippi.
It’s not like killing off the natives and stealing their land was about “nation building” unless you count our own, but that feels fundamentally different than normal nation building
