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Well here we go again, a new "US is evil" thread. Oh Joy!
The US is not an empire, we are a world power. Because of the status of world power, we get blamed for everything bad that goes on in the world. ISIS? You think religious fanaticism is a new thing? You think that if the US did not exist there would not be evil in this world? That's human nature - to blame things on something, this makes this more of a phycology thread then anything else. but I will take a crack at what historical empires we have to compare it to:
Roman Empire - Featured gladiatorial combat, featuring amongst many things certain religious groups being eaten alive by animals. Favorite method of execution was nailing people on the two cross shaped lengths of wood.
Nazi Germany - In it's 15 years or so of existence it managed to start a World War that resulted in the deaths of about 40 million humans. Specialized in mass extermination of certain religious and ethnic groups, using death factories. I won't even mention the lampshades made out of skin, or it's eugenics experiments.
Mongol Empire - Managed to conquer most of the known world in the 13th and 14th century. They did this by the use of swift horses and terror. To be exact - they killed just about everyone they met. Probably wiped out 10% of the world population of that time. They had a few other tricks - one was to catapult human corpses into seiged towns. Another one was to build pyramids out of human heads.
Soviet Union - No telling how many of his own citizens Stalin killed directly through purges or indirectly through programed famines. 10 million to 60 million.
The Aztecs - This empire dominated Central America. These guys got into human sacrifice. This wasn't some quant custom - these were mass executuions - 20,000 or so a year to "appease the Gods". Skinning people alive, removing organs while they were conscious, buring alive, cannibalism. They did it all.
Japanese Empire in WW2 - Rivaled Nazi Germany. They left a swath of brutality to every country they occupied. Slave labor, "comfort women", brutal experiments, you name it. They just didn't have the Nazi death factories. They did pretty good without it - managed to kill 200,000+ Chinese civilians (more then died in both atomic bombings) using bullets and bayonets in Nanking alone. Imagine an army of psycho Ted Bundy's - that was the Japanese Imperial Army.
I can go on - Vikings, Mao era China, Pol Pot, Tamurlane, Napleon. Ottaman, many of the European powers were pretty bad in it's colonial days, etc.
So, OP, tell me again how evil the "US Empire" is in history.
Now, I am not suggesting we Americans have any intention of stuff like this. I am not sure Baal was even a good God. But does it not say something, that in thousands of years, this thing was able to stand. People came and went. Armies came and went. And somehow no one pulverized it until now.
Sure, this is an Islamic problem. But it's our, American, apparatus that supplied this region with the political vacuum and the weapons to do it. Whatever we have done, we have failed.
Maybe I am not thinking correctly, but when add up how the world looks, it sure seems like we suck at controlling the world. Our country was ill prepared to become a sole superpower and we seem to almost be begging for some other nation to come in take over our responsibilities. Of late, there has been an affinity for british things around here. We have somehow begun to think a nice accent means something. You have to wonder if that is because we wish they would just clean up the mess we have made with their civility.
Well here we go again, a new "US is evil" thread. Oh Joy!
The US is not an empire, we are a world power. Because of the status of world power, we get blamed for everything bad that goes on in the world. ISIS? You think religious fanaticism is a new thing? You think that if the US did not exist there would not be evil in this world? That's human nature - to blame things on something, this makes this more of a phycology thread then anything else. but I will take a crack at what historical empires we have to compare it to:
Roman Empire - Featured gladiatorial combat, featuring amongst many things certain religious groups being eaten alive by animals. Favorite method of execution was nailing people on the two cross shaped lengths of wood.
Nazi Germany - In it's 15 years or so of existence it managed to start a World War that resulted in the deaths of about 40 million humans. Specialized in mass extermination of certain religious and ethnic groups, using death factories. I won't even mention the lampshades made out of skin, or it's eugenics experiments.
Mongol Empire - Managed to conquer most of the known world in the 13th and 14th century. They did this by the use of swift horses and terror. To be exact - they killed just about everyone they met. Probably wiped out 10% of the world population of that time. They had a few other tricks - one was to catapult human corpses into seiged towns. Another one was to build pyramids out of human heads.
Soviet Union - No telling how many of his own citizens Stalin killed directly through purges or indirectly through programed famines. 10 million to 60 million.
The Aztecs - This empire dominated Central America. These guys got into human sacrifice. This wasn't some quant custom - these were mass executuions - 20,000 or so a year to "appease the Gods". Skinning people alive, removing organs while they were conscious, buring alive, cannibalism. They did it all.
Japanese Empire in WW2 - Rivaled Nazi Germany. They left a swath of brutality to every country they occupied. Slave labor, "comfort women", brutal experiments, you name it. They just didn't have the Nazi death factories. They did pretty good without it - managed to kill 200,000+ Chinese civilians (more then died in both atomic bombings) using bullets and bayonets in Nanking alone. Imagine an army of psycho Ted Bundy's - that was the Japanese Imperial Army.
I can go on - Vikings, Mao era China, Pol Pot, Tamurlane, Napleon. Ottaman, many of the European powers were pretty bad in it's colonial days, etc.
So, OP, tell me again how evil the "US Empire" is in history.
Very well said. To me an Empire is one who agressively conquers land to control as much of the world as they can. I agree the US is not an Empire. Its the simple problem of even though the USA stands for good in the world and does do alot to help many parts of the world like in natural disasters that everyone seems to forget all the good the US does. But any nation will have government people take advantage of the system and do bad things within the system which will happen no matter how much we dont want it to. No world power nation will make everyone happy as there will always be many in the world who are evil and just want to kill people and themselfs because of some religion. The US with the Allies fought against evil in WWII as what the Germans and Japanese did were very evil and fighting to stop them was good. Look what the US did after WWII in helping rebuild Europe and Japan as I consider that good and not evil. Its like a Japanese leader said when McAurthor treated the Japanese properly on the Missouri and in his speech he talked of world peace well this Japanese leader said.....I wonder how the Japanese would have treated the US if Japan had won the war ?? Ron
We gave away the Philippines, Panama, the Marshall Islands, and never incorporated a lot of conquests that we could have. By that measure we're not doing very well.
Uh, no. We have laws against putting bullets in people. ISIS murders as a matter of policy. We have laws protecting minorites, ISIS murders theirs as a matter of policy. We are in no way comparable. This is delusional and sad.
Yes, we do have that thing called law. Infact, you could make a case we are also losing the rule of law, in addition to have similar brutality to one of the most angry and militant regimes the world has seen.
I can understand that Americans do not condone murder. However, we certainly look the other way, because thousands upon thousands of us kill each other each year. Even at this very moment, another and separate law enforcer has been murdered.
ISIS could never work here because we would simply kill them all as a matter of our day-to-day existence.
Very well said. To me an Empire is one who agressively conquers land to control as much of the world as they can. I agree the US is not an Empire. Its the simple problem of even though the USA stands for good in the world and does do alot to help many parts of the world like in natural disasters that everyone seems to forget all the good the US does.
We do, do a lot of nice things. We had a very noble founding idea and there are elements of that still alive. However, while we do good things, in say, Hati, a crazy homeless man in your town will be denied the care he so very much needs. While we ship food to Somalia, a young mexican child will be sold as a sex slave in your town.
We may care about ideas and the world, but I'll be damned if care one ounce about ourselves.
We've gone crazy, and the world is paying the price with us.
The United States was built as an empire is built:
Establishment of central government which controls x amount of territory
Expansion via conquest
The US may have bought Louisiana from the French, and forced Mexico to cede the SW, but neither of those nations truly exercised control over the lands that they were losing. At the time of the transfers those territories were still occupied and ruled by the native tribes. US domination was not established by purchase, rather it was accomplished by the deaths or displacement of the natives.
Where the US veered from empire was in the administration of the conquered lands. Rather than giving them subordinate status to the original states and exploiting them, the US colonized the lands with their own people with the understanding that eventually those territories would achieve full and equal status as states in the Union.
The key to the US form of empire building lay in replacing rather than exploiting the conquered peoples.
The issue is not whether ISIS is overblown, but whether they're planning to overblow the rest of us.
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