If you're tired of the Imperialist cheerleading of the USA corporate press, you will find this item interesting. If "Heartbreak Ridge" is the version of events you have, this is required reading. There's quite a different perspective when you're on the receiving end of aggression rather than the aggressor who gets to write the "history".
Matt Peppe has written under a Creative Commons License
Twenty five years ago, before dawn on December 20, 1989, U.S. forces descended on Panama City and unleashed one of the most violent, destructive terror attacks of the century. U.S. soldiers killed more people than were killed on 9/11. They systematically burned apartment buildings and shot people indiscriminately in the streets. Dead bodies were piled on top of each other; many were burned before identification. The aggression was condemned internationally, but the message was clear: the United States military was free to do whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted, and they would not be bound by ethics or laws.
[...]U.S. government officials needed to put the world on notice. At the same time, President George H.W. Bush's needed to shed his image as a "wimp"(PDF). So they did what any schoolyard bully would: pick out the smallest, weakest target you can find and beat him to a bloody pulp. The victim is irrelevant; the point is the impression you make on the people around you.
Panama was an easy target because the U.S. already had a large military force in 18 bases around the country. Until 1979, the occupied Panama Canal Zone had been sovereign territory of the United States. The Panama Canal was scheduled to be turned over to Panama partially in 1990 and fully in 2000. The U.S. military would be able to crush a hapless opponent and ensure control over a vital strategic asset.
[...]Washington began disseminating propaganda about "human rights abuses" (NYT paywall) and drug trafficking by President Manuel Noriega. Most of the allegations were true, and they had all been willingly supported by the U.S. government while Noriega was a CIA asset receiving more than $100,000 per year. But when Noriega was less than enthusiastic about helping the CIA and their terrorist Contra army wage war against the civilian population in Nicaragua, things changed.
"It's all quite predictable, as study after study shows," Noam Chomsky writes. "A brutal tyrant crosses the line from admirable friend to 'villain' and 'scum' when he commits the crime of independence."
[...]The documentary The Panama Deception demonstrates how the media uncritically adopted U.S. government propaganda, echoing accusations of human rights violations and drug trafficking while ignoring international law and the prohibition against the use of force in the UN Charter. The Academy Award-winning film exposed what the corporate media refused to: the lies and distortions, the hypocrisy, the dead bodies, the survivors' harrowing tales, and the complete impunity of the U.S. military to suppress the truth.
[...]the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning the invasion. But the United States--joined by allies Great Britain and France--vetoed it. American and European officials argued the invasion was justified and should be praised for removing Noriega from power. Other countries saw a dangerous precedent.
[...]The stage was set for the even more horrific invasion of Iraq the following summer. Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia, the NATO bombing of Serbia, Iraq (again), and the Bush and Obama interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq (a third time), Pakistan, Libya, Somalia (again), Yemen, Iraq (a fourth time) and Syria would follow.
Related Stories
Raw Story summarizes a New York Times report that Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as "trigger warnings," explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans.
The debate has left many academics fuming, saying that professors should be trusted to use common sense and that being provocative is part of their mandate. Trigger warnings, they say, suggest a certain fragility of mind that higher learning is meant to challenge, not embrace. "Any kind of blanket trigger policy is inimical to academic freedom," said Lisa Hajjar, a sociology professor, who often uses graphic depictions of torture in her courses about war. "Any student can request some sort of individual accommodation, but to say we need some kind of one-size-fits-all approach is totally wrong. The presumption there is that students should not be forced to deal with something that makes them uncomfortable is absurd or even dangerous."
Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said, "It is only going to get harder to teach people that there is a real important and serious value to being offended. Part of that is talking about deadly serious and uncomfortable subjects."
A summary of the College Literature, along with the appropriate trigger warnings, assumed or suggested in the article is as follows: Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" (anti-Semitism), Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" (suicide), "The Great Gatsby" (misogynistic violence), and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (racism).
Note: The Raw Story link was provided to provide an alternative to the article source, the New York Times, due to user complaints about the NYT website paywalling their articles.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Indy_Muad'dib on Saturday December 20 2014, @11:53AM
sorry, i thought this site was about science, technology and general interest.
didn't know it was about liberal revisionist history.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @12:12PM
Yes you're in the wrong place if that does not interest you. And I find your handle ridiculously clashing with your comment.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Saturday December 20 2014, @12:13PM
Indeed. Apparently your view of "general interest" and "science" doesn't match everyone else, so instead of just skipping the article it is vitally important to leave the whole site.
FYI: Revisionism [wikipedia.org] is a re-examination of facts, potentially from a different view-angle, which is science (as opposed to repeating common perception). If you intended to use "liberal" as a way to reduce it's credibility, it probably says more about you than about the outcome of the re-examination. If you believe the results are unjustified, maybe you should check the facts and give some counter-arguments (which would be appropriate for a site you agreed to be focused on science).
The way it is, your comment sounds more like the statement of a conservative, whose nerve was somehow hit.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Interesting) by BsAtHome on Saturday December 20 2014, @12:16PM
There is a general interest in reporting, especially when we now live in a society that has readily access to information. The point here is that the flood of information does not secure quality of that same information. The media has been complicit in telling fiction and they still are complicit by repeating anything uncritically. Let us just hope that SN keeps a high standard...
However, your accusation of "liberal revisionist history" is totally uncalled for. The article in question has quite a few good points and is supported by objective history. The fact that the USA has been a bully for a long time cannot be ignored. That said, they are not the only bully in the world (Russia and China are some obvious bullies too), but it does not excuse the USA for their behaviour.
History has always shown that when you behave like a dick, you will get paid (at least) double in equal currency. It may take a while, but eventually, you'd wish you had behaved.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Saturday December 20 2014, @01:19PM
Combining these two findings leads to the conclusion that current history books only tell us that everyone getting a beating is painted as having been a bully afterwards. Maybe most of them actually were bullies, but until we start revising the history openly and based on now freely available historical documents, we won't know.
I'm not a native English-speaker, but at least according to wikipedia the term "revisionism" refers to re-examination of facts, not to falsifying facts. I know that the term revisionism is used for some Nazis disclaiming the holocaust, and the term revisionism got a bad connotation by that, but to my understanding the term "revisionist history" is actually accurate in this context. Using the word "liberal" to try to give it a bad touch should backfire, and probably will outside the US where "Liberal" is not necessarily seen as a negative.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Sunday December 21 2014, @04:29AM
Well "revisionist history" just means it's changed from what it was previously. It may closer to the truth, or it may not [talking about the term and it's general usage, not this particular story].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @02:47PM
Soylentnews has a politicial bias to it. It's politics versus video ads. It's just how things turned out. Hopefully, it will not get any worse.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday December 20 2014, @05:14PM
You should read more. Like you, I found such reports shocking. The idea that a leader like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was a good guy, as asserted by an independent reporter, Greg Palast, was difficult to credit, what with all the negative reporting about him nationalizing whole industries, reneging on debts, and so on. And Noam Chomsky came across as a lunatic from the fringe, completely deluded. I didn't want to believe that the US was behaving badly, could behave so badly. The idea that the entire mainstream media could be captured and turned into propaganda organs all parroting the same messages seemed improbable. They were too diverse, too numerous and too independent for that to happen, weren't they? Weren't they? But the more I read, the more I saw that it could be true.
The War of Choice really blew their cover. The mainstream media was revealed as at best too complacent and uncritical. When no Weapons of Mass Destruction turned up, they were looking bad. It got worse when the crash of 2008 happened, and they reported that Occupy Wall Street was just a bunch of disorganized youths who didn't have a coherent message, a laughably bad attempt at smearing the protesters, as the message certainly was coherent. Showed just how completely private corporate ownership has taken them over. When presidential candidate John McCain sang "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran", that alone should have finished him, but it was passed off as a joke, much like Reagan's "... I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." Some jokes aren't funny, not in the mouth of someone who has a good chance of actually gaining the authority to turn a joke like that into grim reality. At least Romney's comment that 47% of us were just moochers went big, though there too the media displayed its habit of waiting until the blood is in the water before beginning the feeding frenzy. Conservative were celebrating Romney's "victory" in the first debate, and while Obama did very badly, what ultimately rose to the top was Romney's mean, heartless, and pointless threat to cut Big Bird. Then at the end was the spectacle of the Romney campaign deluding themselves about their impending victory, claiming that polls that showed otherwise, even if they were big and very reputable, were biased and unscientific.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by frojack on Saturday December 20 2014, @07:56PM
Why is so much critical assessment reserved for the world press, but then you and gewg put Noam Chomsky on a pedestal as a bastion of truth. The man is a perpetual lier and twister of facts. He still denies the Khmer Rouge holocaust, even when shown the bone piles. He's been doing this for years [paulbogdanor.com], and gullible "progressives" lap it up, not once harboring the thought that it is far more likely one man can lie for his entire career than the world press can be made to forever publish lies.
Some of us actually read newspapers from around the world, there is this thing called an internet you know.
The weapons of mass destruction DID show up. The nerve gas shells WERE recovered. The missiles did go through the port of Rotterdam as scrap metal. The liberal press DID hide these facts from you. Not a whimper of complaint out of you for that?
The press in north america (as well as most places) has hopelessly liberal bias. Conservative voices are seldom aired, except to be mocked. Yet, you come along and accuse them of being totally in the control of conservatives? What planet are you living on?
But hey, Noam says something, by god it must be true.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday December 22 2014, @03:25PM
When we can't agree on the facts, we can't get anywhere. Is Chomsky a liar? The person you quoted, Paul Bogdanor, says Chomsky is a liar.
But is Bogdanor a liar? I read a few of Bogdanor's points about Chomsky, and I can see they're twisted. So can others. http://bigwhiteogre.blogspot.com/2011/06/response-to-paul-bogdanors-top-200.html [blogspot.com]
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday December 20 2014, @06:12PM
Your beloved America - ALWAYS RIGHT! I see.
Because, if you really looked impartially at facts in evidence from an ideologically neutral stance, you'd soon see that Putin's Russia hasn't A SCRATCH on the US domination, invasion, destruction and murder of innocents. But Hey!
I guess "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of OTHER PEOPLE'S patriots."
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @02:53PM
Your beloved Noam Chomsky - ALWAYS RIGHT! I see.
Who knew that the entire world press was working in collusion, and only good old Noam was the one honest man without an ax to grind.
I guess "The tree of common sense must be refreshed from time to time with the virtual intellectual spanking of DIPSHITS LIKE YOU."
Just remember, if things don't appear to jibe with what you believe, that is a sure-fire sign that THERE IS A MASSIVE COVERUP!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @06:28PM
Why are score 2 posts below the parent hidden, and the parent, a nothing added to the conversation, score 0, post visible? There is not a single visible post that does not lean pro-USA official propaganda.
I saw the summary, and thought wow! Amazing this was posted. And, we need more of this since these are the sorts of actions that make the US hated the world over, which leads to terrorism, which leads to the laws rapidly creating a police surveillance state in the U.S.
This is a root cause of the issue of U.S. state surveillance of electronic communications. Root cause analysis is always relevant.
At that moment, I was very hopeful about this site, but then read the comments. The first visible post was the parent, a score 0, nothing added to the conversation comment visible. While several score 2, thoughtful and relevant replies below it were hidden from view.
How does this site's moderation system work anyway?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday December 20 2014, @08:05PM
1. I see all the comments both pro and anti, can't say why it doesn't display for you but it sounds like it might be the value for Threshold and/or Breakthrough. I'm logged in and browsing at -1 Threshold and -1 Breakthrough with Improved Nested and Oldest First (as I always am). If you posted AC but are actually logged in maybe you've done something to your preference settings for displaying comments? It could always be a bug (or maybe the default for AC's is bad) so try changing things both to solve and then to recreate the issue (note down the settings you have now) and let the people running the site know if you find anything.
2. It is unclear to me exactly what you think the root cause is and how it is connected. I am not saying it isn't or couldn't be whatever it is.
3. If you ask me this site would be dead without different opinions and disagreements. I'm glad people disagree and more glad they argue about it and hopefully it makes everybody think and question both themselves and others. It's not like anyone is flawless. I'm glad there are people with all sorts of weird and controversial opinions here (including me) both those I agree with and those that make me despair, and gewg manages to do both on different occasions but neither of them this time :D
[I could spend much more time here (and I think of that as high praise) but have enough trouble keeping up with the rss feed. I would also like to avoid my brain exploding: I need time to think (and then there's everything else).]
3.b Imho hope is the last terror and the worst evil out of Pandora's box, not a remedy but a greater curse than everything else. Let's try not to be hopeful :) (sometimes I forget that myself).
4. Moderation isn't perfect (and probably never can be) but the default (as originally used on the other site) works by random assignment of moderation points, some of that system has known flaws. This site is experimenting and maybe we've already started with the experiment where everyone that has an account gets five points each 24 hours (or something like that, going by memory) and where almost all negative moderation doesn't actually have any consequences.
5. I'll never feel sorry for Noriega nor for Saddam no matter how much I've grown to dislike, despise, or outright hate the US government for being 100% un-American and spreading their own disease and corruption elsewhere as well. Noam Chomsky has as much credibility as Barack Obama in my opinion, that is none. Fuck Castro too btw :)
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 21 2014, @11:19PM
1) browsing anonymous
2) When you are a bully, eventually. "the chickens come home to roost." That is how it is connected. I lived in Guatemala as a child, and the US completely fucked Guatemala starting in 1954 (overthrew its second democratically elected president, and installed a bloody right-wing dictator, triggering a bloody civil war--, and continuing through the 80s into a genocide against the indigenous which was supported by the Reagan administration. No Guatemalan terrorists, but anybody living through the hell the US created there has every right to come to the US and blow up a few buildings-- at the least.
3) Agreed, but it wasn't a differing opinion. Parent stated the post shouldn't have been accepted at all. Of course, the parent was also claiming "special facts". Disregarding factual evidence with nothing offered other than a snide smear. If parent had said, "this report from the U.N., disputes the statements" or some such, that would have been a contribution to the discussion.
4) It just seemed odd / broken that (at the time) score 0 post was visible, and several score 2 replies below it were hidden. Again, I was just browsing without logging in. Now the parent has a score 4.
5) I suspect if you read and traveled more extensively your opinion might change (i.e., you sound fairly reasonable). My awaking came as a child, in Guatemala. With a second awakening while hitchhiking across the middle east and North Africa. Beautiful people we are murdering over there. Some of the kindest, warmest, most welcoming people I have ever met. US propaganda is only that.
A couple anecdotes from both reading, conversing with other travelers, and maintaining an open mind.
The station manager of a radio station in Berkeley sneaked into Cuba to report on the revolution. He ended up fighting along side Fidel Castro. He tells of hiding in the hills after battle, and how Fidel would insist that the wounded prisoners get the best and largest portions of the available food. The prisoners would get the beds, even if his own troop had wounded. Word spread that the government reports about the devils in the mountains were untrue. When they finally marched on Havana, the government soldiers just stood to the sides of the streets and saluted them. To this day, if you go to a poor village anywhere in the world (including the US), the doctor there was likely trained for free by a Cuban program that provides free medical school to the poor, on a single condition, that they return to their poor communities, and practice there. Meanwhile, the US harbored the admitted terrorist who bombed a commercial airliner full of civilians flying into Cuba from Venezuela-- killing all aboard.
Another is a story about Hồ Chí Minh. An "evil evil man" per the US. I would love to have an American president with even half the honor of this man. When he finally vanquished the invading, massacring* Americans, and was shown to the presidential palace, he went into the gardeners hut, and said, "This will do." He turned the mansion into an orphanage.
* The Mỹ Lai Massacre was only one of many many many many like it. The officer who led that massacre, the one who, in his trial, it came out that he personally pulled a crawling baby girl out of the ditch of dead bodies by one arm, threw her deeper into the mass grave, then fired a bullet through her head. Was welcomed by the US as a hero. Jimmy Carter even pardoned the mass murderer.
As for Noam Chomsky, I don't think you have read much of his writing (reading about his writing doesn't count-- there are some extreme Zionists who think he is the devil, and create all kinds of strawmen to attack, while claiming to be destroying the positions of Chomsky). It is pretty hard to find any factual fault in any of his political writing (I disagree with some of his positions in linguistics, as they pertain to non-human animals though).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @05:06AM
I had lost track of what happened to Lt. William Calley.
He slipped from the scene quietly.
His partial pardon came in 1974, so it wasn't Carter who granted that (Nixon).
The name that comes to me regarding the "Kill Anything That Moves" thing imposed on the peasant farmers and peasant fishermen of Vietnam is journalist Nick Turse. [wikipedia.org]
"A My Lai a Month" [thenation.com]
What "hero" John Kerry really did in Vietnam also makes for interesting reading. [counterpunch.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday December 22 2014, @05:00PM
I don't really have anything to add to 1 to 4 even though we might see things differently; when/if I disagree I accept your points of view and/or also that I might be wrong.
But 5 and the rest... it riles me up :D Hopefully it doesn't feel to personal to you in any wrong way.
I'm sorry but you're saying nothing I haven't heard and seen a thousand other people say. I'm sorry but I find it strange that you find your own words convincing. This might be mutual of course.
I've lived on different continents and been in/stayed in several countries on both. I have some military experience (My Lai was part of the curriculum when it got around to the Geneva conventions, which by the way are not universal in nature as some people like to pretend). Nothing big or dangerous: been a boot camp instructor, acting platoon commander, have had NATO military police & civilian police authority. Those things could sound impressive if one has nearly no knowledge: they are not (but a tad unusual). I've been a teacher of various computer-related subjects and have a little bit of real academic experience, including mild amusement at finding Slashdot.org and Wired on the bachelor degree curriculum, but all of it failures really :) And of course there's been various jobs, also fairly different.
Most of all I'm a really big loser and maybe crazy (the doctors never say so though, so maybe I'm crazy and dangerous :D). If I could I might have been in Novorussiya now but maybe that's just self-gratifying bluster.
Some of the smartest most impressive people I've met happened to be muslim, I even shared lodgings with the one that was the most religious. Very nice person. I don't have to like or approve of or “stop hating” islam just because of that. I don't have to choose to be naive (because it comes so natural to me lol joking). I don't have to pretend I don't know that in a trip from Morocco to Egypt every single non-Berber and non-Copt I meet is the descendant of imperialist and colonialist invaders who replaced nearly all the original population through genocide. Chew on that one please :)
The point would be that I've seen a number of fairly different environments from the inside. I'm not a USian or in the US, never have been and likely never will be. Of course there's also the whole free software and open software thing that most people around here have some connection to.
I've been behind the Iron Curtain while it existed, eaten a delicious lunch with Soviet soldiers a few tables away in a very pretty country, but none of that changes the facts about the horrors of the Soviet Union any more than your experiences changes the fact that most Americans are perfectly decent people or that the Caliphate is as bloody and uncompromising as it is.
Chomsky? Please, he's perfectly able of dooming himself like we all are, he doesn't need any help with that. I despair at the continued dogmas and idolatry of socialism and communism which so many seem to run towards. I bet Karl Marx would hate it all too for that matter, I doubt it's what he wanted. These things are not opposites to the current US government; it's the same shit in ever so slightly different wrapping exactly like national socialism and fascism or for that matter islam.
Viet Nam, the country which still produces boat refugees. Sure hypothetically I could take a holiday there and enjoy everyone, lots of beautiful people and beautiful culture just like anywhere, people who fit in just as in Cuba or the US, nothing wrong with that, or go back for the family and business like the guy one step up from me in the military chain of command did. But to let that blind oneself from everything that doesn't fit? Why would I do that to myself? Why would I conveniently ignore what took place in the south after the US was defeated politically at home and withdrew? Why would I feel the need to be so one-sided? Exasperation could be part of it, a loss of patience, a lack of possible solutions, too many direct negative consequences if one doesn't, there can be plenty of reasons. I still try and occasionally fail: if I could remove the Middle East I would even though I “know better” (so I know at least some of my own human flaws and have no reason to think well of myself, and that was just one example).
Would it matter to me if Obama is/was a great guy to hang out with and/or if he has/had awesome personal virtues? He probably is and has. Replace Obama with Bush. Now put back the name of Minh. Why is there supposed to be a difference? Why should such things negate and remove other things? Why should one be made saint and another made demon? Why not oppose and/or criticize all of them? Of course I ask because I've failed to do so myself: one has to crush through one's own acquired disbelief and it's hard work. I didn't think the US actually tortured people like has now been clearly documented (and while I don't consider denigration on its own torture I did think there were far too few and lenient consequences from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal but of course that makes sense now: everything was much worse), and at the very beginning I didn't think it was physically possible to do surveillance on such a scale as has now been clearly documented (and unlike torture this is something I'm familiar with).
In the Middle East and Africa and even Europe muslims are killing the same people you're having fond memories of just as much as anyone killed by the US. No matter what one thinks of the US the fact remains that the vast majority of Iraqis that have died the last decade have died at the hands of other Iraqis. Almost every muslim that is killed is killed by another muslim and almost every non-muslim killed is also killed by a muslim. To pretend otherwise would be as equally discrediting as it would be to pretend that the US isn't using torture themselves, directly, just as Cuba does, just as Saddam did, just as Noriega did, and the list is long.
There are too many thoughts for any one person to think but that's a few of mine and they are not perfect.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @08:55PM
The US fucked Latin America backwards and sideways in the 20th century. You can try to dispute it but once you read a little it's plain to see.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @12:18PM
...was about a rescue mission in Grenada in the early 1980's. And it's not even an accurate interpretation of the Corps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @08:42PM
True. I was trying to convey the ginned-up, lagging-presidential-popularity, let's-invade-somebody, pick-an-easy-target tactics we've seen again and again.
The fact that Grenada was an even earlier episode points to the path to USA's current state of permanent warfare.
I would say "war" but that requires an act of Congress and that hasn't been seen since 1941.
...and the necessity of using a personal credit card to get the telephone company to put through a call was not fiction.
It was clear many decades ago that "US" companies have no particular allegiance to the USA.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @09:04PM
I re-read your comment and realize my acceptance of your statements was too broad.
The medical students on Grenada have said repeatedly that they were in no danger [google.com]
...until the US military showed up and started spraying ordinance.
The "rescue" was fiction.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 20 2014, @12:34PM
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Empires retain what they conquer. The United States does no such thing. There are many adjectives good and bad that can be used to describe it but that one is simply incorrect.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Saturday December 20 2014, @01:25PM
Depends. I would think that the US sometimes does install their own puppet government, so while they are not officially embedding the conquered areas into the US, they effectively take control over them, install military bases and make it clear that they can re-conquer the land in case a less favourable government gets to power, or the installed government starts cutting its strings. (Officially embedding them into the US would have some probably undesired consequences, e.g. would (to my limited understanding) each baby born in that country automatically be a US citizen, with all attached rights.)
So maybe imperialism doesn't fit by the letter, it probably fits by the spirit of the term.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday December 20 2014, @01:28PM
Umm... let's see [wikipedia.org]
Does the notion of client state [wikipedia.org] ring a bell?
The concept is as old as the Persian, Greek and Roman empires; even if not US-es invention, US doesn't abstain from using it [wikipedia.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 20 2014, @07:30PM
We built it, why shouldn't we defend the canal?
Panama certainly can't defend it.
Point is, it is open ships of all nations.
You seem to have conveniently skipped over the part where that very same treaty:
. The treaties guaranteed that Panama would gain control of the Panama Canal after 1999,
which directly proves the point that: Empires retain what they conquer. The United States does no such thing.
By your implication every treaty is an implement of imperialism?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:01PM
Heck yes they do. Why do you think there are US military bases in well over half the countries in the world? Sure, they let the local folks run things so long as they go Washington's way, but as soon as the locals decide to do something that Washington cares about and opposes it's time for a regime change!
An incomplete list of the countries affected by these kinds of policies: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Honduras, Guatamala, Nicaragua, Panama (multiple times), Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Cuba, Venezuela, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Congo, Ghana, Poland.
If you're wondering why a lot of people in a lot of these places aren't exactly warm and fuzzy about the United States, that's why. Sure, we don't try to retain control over France or Britain or Germany, but if you're in a poorer country and you oppose US policy in your region you can be sure that the US will let you know.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 20 2014, @08:23PM
No shit? You mean we're acting and advocating for our own best interests like every other nation on the planet? We're terrible, terrible people.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Saturday December 20 2014, @11:58PM
There are plenty of other countries who have been able to secure their interests without trying to take over the world. Finland, for example, is one of the most prosperous and educated countries on the planet, its people generally healthier and happier than Americans, and successfully defended itself against the Red Army when the USSR attacked them.
So why does the US have to be different? What exactly did the citizens of the US gain from all the coups, wars, and other attempts to control other nations?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday December 21 2014, @01:38PM
They gained plenty. Lots and lots of debt, hatred from people in other countries, and a huge pile of bodies. Brought to you by Democrats and Republicans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @03:13PM
Most of those countries secure themselves because they know that the US has their backs via one treaty or another. They don't need to spend a great deal on building up their military, for example, if they are part of NATO. Not since WWII has any European country had to stand alone against Russia/USSR. It is disingenuous to get on one's moral high horse. Do not fool yourself; the Red Army can and could roll all over Scandinavia at will were it not for the threat of reprisal from the US/NATO. Look how easily Russia took over the Ukraine by only sending in small groups of soldiers dressed in civvies.
It is like those douchebags who go on about how superior Europeans are because so many of them are multi-lingual as compared to the US when it doesn't take much to realize when you have small countries surrounded by others that speak different languages, that this arises out of necessity, not some profound philosophy and dedication to educational upbringing. One should not find it shocking that a much larger proportion of people in the US who live in states that border Mexico are bi-lingual as compared to those who live elsewhere.
(Score: 1) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday December 21 2014, @01:36PM
We're advocating for government thugs to play world police while some people pretend they have good intentions, and others pretend they want limited government. Our government is full of worthless thugs who only seek to boss others around. Sadly, people who have principles and morals and don't just believe that "the ends justify the means" seem to be outnumbered.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:05PM
Well, since you want to descend into pedantry(caution: it's a bottomless pit), then I have to ask you, Mr. Expert, where the hell is the Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire(among countless others)?
Oh, that's right. They did not retain what they conquered, hell, they don't even exist except as foornotes in a history book.
If they retain what they conquer, then they must still retain it, so where are they located?
Quit being obtuse.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, you'll just have to overlook everyone calling it a duck.
And for the record, ask the Native Americans what they think about reservations, 'the Trail of Tears', the US gov't. 'Westward Expansion', 'Louisiana Purchase', and 'Manifest Destiny'.
Sounds like your definition of 'Empire' writ large to me.
I have lots of time, so we can play this silly game all day long.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @05:08PM
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, you'll just have to overlook everyone calling it a duck.
Or a goose.
Not that I disagree with your main point, but I really hate thought-terminating "folk wisdom" nonsense.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday December 20 2014, @08:25PM
Thank you for hating idioms <3 glad I'm not the only one (I hate nearly all of them).
This one rhymes too, always watch out for that, it's an old “brainhack”: people find anything that rhymes more plausible than the same content expressed without rhyme (maybe it's just an unfortunate consequence of the human tendency towards pattern matching).
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, it could be surrealist theater :)
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 20 2014, @08:37PM
I am an Indian, budro. Chickasaw even, so the trail of tears is quite familiar to me. You want to know what I think? I think that everyone who wronged my people is long since worm food and I get to argue with you on the Internet instead of over smoke signals. So I'm pretty pleased with how things turned out. Oh, and you can kiss my ass for trying to speak for me. Take that progressive, hippie bullshit and try it with the blacks instead, they seem to eat it up with a spoon.
As for the other nonsense, it is not pedantic to say one of the defining characteristics of an empire is missing for you to call something imperialist. Also, learn English. The only one in the world who thought retain meant eternally retain was you.
Get some logic going on up in that thing between your ears before you try bringing your weak shit to me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @08:49PM
Ooh! Is it identity politics time now? I claim precedence as a disabled queer Asian woman. (This is actually true; I am depressed and also asexual... because of medication side effects.)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 20 2014, @09:08PM
Newp, doofus above brought it up in a spectacularly ill-advised way. I simply corrected him.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fleg on Sunday December 21 2014, @02:35AM
>try it with the blacks instead, they seem to eat it up with a spoon.
really?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 21 2014, @07:22AM
According to the overwhelming majority of them registered Democrat and every exit poll since the 1970s, yes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 21 2014, @01:41PM
People stupid enough to vote Democrat certainly do eat up a lot of authoritarian nonsense, but the evil scumbags in the Republican party also force-feed their idiotic followers plenty of hardcore authoritarian nonsense.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 21 2014, @02:45PM
+9000 Insightful
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fleg on Monday December 22 2014, @02:52AM
ah i see. amidst all the semantics and pedantry i was forgetting the american context of this article. thanks.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Sunday December 21 2014, @02:01PM
LOL!!!
You are not the only injun here, cowboy.
Full-blood Blackfoot here, asshole. I was speaking for myself and mine, not for you. I couldn't care less about you, personally.
And my point about 'retain', is that if you are going to be a pedant, then at least use correct grammar.
Retain is present tense, and you gave no qualifiers to indicate otherwise.
How much time do you have for this silly game?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 21 2014, @03:59PM
Infinitive [wikipedia.org]. This concludes today's grammar lesson.
Given that your replies are so easy to shoot down, I could probably do this as often as you like. Or until I get bored with it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 20 2014, @08:43PM
They did not retain what they conquered
Except they did retain what they conquered. Since we're on this fad of pedantry, "retain" doesn't mean "retain forever". And when was the Roman empire going to willingly relinquish all the territory it subjugated, if it weren't for the vagaries of history?
Quit being obtuse.
Good advice should anyone choose to follow it. But you use it unfairly. The use of the term, "imperialist" isn't meant here in a strict dictionary sense, but to evoke recall of actual empires like the Roman empire. This is a typical example of propaganda.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Sunday December 21 2014, @01:50PM
Go back to school, and actually learn English this time around.
'Retain' (present tense) was used by the OP, not 'retained', or other indications and/or qualifiers that it was meant as past tense.
Had the OP used past tense(or qualifiers to indicate past tense), I never would have brought that item up.
As usual, you just show your own ignorance.
As I mentioned before, this is a bottomless pit...we can keep this pointless pedantry up, or move to the actual discussion.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 22 2014, @05:24PM
As I mentioned before, this is a bottomless pit...we can keep this pointless pedantry up, or move to the actual discussion.
I call your bluff. Let's see where you go with this.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:28PM
On December 15, 1989, the Panamanian general assembly declared that a state of war existed between the US and Panama. On December 16, Panamanian troops opened fire on four American soldiers, killing one and wounding another. The invasion began on December 20.
You can call it imperialism, but there aren't many countries that would tolerate having their soldiers shot by someone who has declared war.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @05:37PM
The Casus Belli of the attack does not mean it achieved only the implied goal. The concept of fighting wars for different goals than the ones stated is as old as civilization.
(Score: 1) by anyanka on Saturday December 20 2014, @07:21PM
And this, of course, happened on the famous border between the US and Panama...
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday December 20 2014, @08:31PM
Are you claiming there wasn't a border between Panama and the US (the Panama Canal) at the time?
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:49PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:52PM
Right. The US simply plays world police and attacks other countries for utterly absurd reasons. Democrat hypocrites pretend to be anti-war, while Republican hypocrites pretend to want limited government. All the while they get us into expensive, unjust wars every two seconds. It's not always the same as imperialism, though sometimes it's pretty damn close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @05:24PM
Countries which get invaded by the US end up economically, politically, and military dependent on the US. Don't kid yourself, they are subject states in all but name.