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I don't think any person with a functioning moral compass would consider the likes of the Taliban to be the good guys , yet that begs the question of whether or not it's the role of the United States to act as the moral guardian of the globe .
After all has our intervention in Afghanistan led anyone at all down the path of morality ?
Isn't it also the duty of the Afghan people themselves to depose the Taliban if they truly do not desire to rule over them ?
In short is it moral to force morality upon a people belonging to an entirely different cultural sphere than us at gun/bomb/military drone point ?
Is it really true that if the USA pulled its military out, the world will plunge into chaos?
Yes, it is.
In 1944, at Breton Woods, the US guaranteed free trade for all countries. The US had the only navy left afloat and had defeated both Japan and Germany, so the expectations was, The US would divide the spoils and rule all defeated countries.
USA did not. They guaranteed free trade to and from all countries and that guaranty applies to this day. That is why Somalian pirates must deal with America, and why unarmed ships sail wherever they want on the high seas without danger of piracy.
Breton Woods has gotten old and expensive and not understood. We will probably completely abandon it in the near future and pull our forces back. America is one of the very few places on earth where ample food can be grown and ample energy exists. As the world population declines during the next few hundred years, America will take less and less interest in world affairs.
There will be chaos, but not in North America. https://www.twelvebooks.com/titles/m...9781455583669/
The Taliban were the rulers of that country. You may not have liked their policies, but they were the law of the land and ensured stability. Personally, I believe intentionally destabilizing a country causing thousands of deaths based upon a sense of revenge is evil. Because they believed the Taliban were bad guys, we no justification for that war. I'm sure the Taliban saw the U.S. as bad guys. So, who is right or wrong? Everyone sees themselves as the benevolent hero in conflicts.
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In terms of Europe, it's the usual nonsense in relation to Ukraine.
Macron is going around suggesting that we are not too hard on Putin, and allow him a face saving way forward.
Whilst Germany refuses to get too involved and hedges it's bets on better relations with Russia in the future, whilst the German re-armament plan seems to have slowed down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Telegraph
The divisions don’t stop there. For example: is Putin a partner, or pariah? Emmanuel Macron keeps telephoning him and occasionally warns the rest of Europe that Russia cannot be “humiliated” or be seen to “lose face”. Estonia’s prime minister has responded directly. “Putin can save face by going back to Russia,” she said on her recent trip to London. “I don’t see any point in really talking to him if we want to get the message through that he’s isolated.” Poland’s president is even ruder, asking if anyone worried about saving Hitler’s face.
Then comes Germany. Olaf Scholz, its newish chancellor, initially talked a tough game – pledging to spend €100 billion more on defence, buy American F-35s and abandon the newly-built Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Russia. But the arms Germany promised have been slow in coming. Seven PzH 2000 howitzers, pledged at the start of May, were delivered this week. But there is still no sign of the promised rocket artillery and anti-aircraft tanks and Germany has vetoed attempts by Estonia and Spain to send their own German-made kit to Ukraine.
There is growing suspicion in Berlin that Scholz is trying to play both sides, angling for a more Putin-compatible solution to the crisis. One of his senior advisers said this week that we should think as much about relations with Moscow post-conflict as we do arms supplies to Ukraine.
In a big political speech this week, Scholz said that Putin should be thwarted – but stopped short of wishing Ukraine victory. Perhaps part of him feels that Zelensky is doomed which raises the question: why prolong the agony? Why carry on with this jingoistic charade? And why put Germany through an avoidable winter of misery?
It’s not just that Ukraine is finding it difficult on the battlefield, losing up to a thousand troops a day. The economic war may be about to turn, with Putin ending up on the offensive. The surge in energy prices has meant a windfall for the Kremlin, with €20 billion (£17 billion) from Germany in the first four months alone.
This was, from the offset, the flaw in the sanctions plan. If Germany has no alternative to Russian oil and gas then it was always going to keep buying – funding Putin’s war machine as it went. But at far higher prices.
Those prices would be lower (and the Kremlin a lot poorer) if the Saudis played ball, pumping more oil to keep world prices down as they did in the 1980s. But Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince, is not picking sides. He conspicuously failed to condemn the invasion of Ukraine and has a Macron-style habit of picking up the phone to Putin. When the Saudi energy minister went to the St Petersburg economic summit last week, he declared his country’s relations with Russia to be “as warm as the weather in Riyadh”.
So much for starving Putin’s war machine. Had Germany stopped buying Russian gas, the sanctions might have been debilitating. But they weren’t. Now Putin has found new customers and new ways of getting his hands on most other things he needs. The sanctions will cause massive pain: Russian inflation is high and its economy will have a downturn comparable to the 2008 crash. But with huge cash reserves and most of Russia’s army in Ukraine, it’s not hard to see a situation where Putin ends up winning.
He’s already getting ready, inviting Europe to imagine a winter where he’s in control – and turning off Europe’s gas taps. He has made small cuts in his supplies to Europe in the last few days, to see who squeals. He hasn’t been disappointed. Robert Habeck, Germany’s deputy prime minister and energy minister, said yesterday that the “throttling of gas supplies is an economic attack”. It doesn’t sound like a country ready to break from Russian gas any time soon.
It was the Soviet and Mongolia really that liberated China's Northeastern province in 1945. Consequently, Japan lost their fishing rights at Kuril islands. Look up the history.
If the US hadn't fought Japan island to island and obliterated their military, then the Soviets wouldn't have been in a position to get involved.
No it won't. It be a gain for the US. AFter all the bases overseas:
1) The costs: an estimated $51.5 billion in 2017 — nearly two times the State Department’s budget. Add troops on installations abroad and the total reaches more than $150 billion. Imagine what we could do with a fraction of the billions spent to maintain this robust overseas infrastructure. Imagine how we could repair crumbling domestic infrastructure, including transportation, electric grids, and ventilator supplies.
2) Bases abroad have fueled a hyper-interventionist foreign policy. Overseas installations simply make it too easy to wage war overseas. Since 1980 U.S. presidents have used foreign bases to launch wars and other attacks at least 25 times in 15 or more countries in the greater Middle East alone. The wars have killed, wounded, and displaced tens of millions.
3) Overseas bases are technologically outdated: rapid response forces can deploy anywhere on Earth fast enough to be based in the continental United States. Increasingly accurate ballistic missiles have made foreign installations into sitting ducks for enemies.
4) Overseas bases destabilize regions and increase the likelihood of future wars: hundreds of U.S. bases surrounding Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea encourage their leaders to boost their own military spending and activity. Imagine how U.S. citizens would feel if Russia or China built a single base near our borders. The calls for a military response would be swift.
5) OBRACC experts agree that bases in the Middle East have fueled radicalization, anti-American propaganda, recruitment by militant groups like al Qaeda, and deadly attacks, such as those of September 11, 2001.
6) Rather than spreading democracy, U.S. bases are found in and support at least 40 countries led by dictators and other undemocratic regimes, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Niger, and Turkey. Bases in colonized U.S. territories are a major reason Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana and Virgin Islands, and American Samoa have neither gained full independence nor full U.S. citizenship rights.
7) Overseas bases are bad for the environment. Domestic installations are too, but overseas, the military often ignores domestic environmental standards, resulting in the dumping of hazardous materials, toxic leaks, and daily damage during training.
8) Bases abroad almost always generate protest against U.S. forces. Unsurprisingly, people tend not to like their countries occupied by foreign militaries. Locals also tend not to appreciate crimes committed by military personnel, deadly accidents, environmental harm, and thriving sex work industries supported by bases.https://responsiblestatecraft.org/20...-u-s-security/
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Quote:
Originally Posted by herenow1
No it won't. It be a gain for the US. AFter all the bases overseas:
1) The costs: an estimated $51.5 billion in 2017 — nearly two times the State Department’s budget. Add troops on installations abroad and the total reaches more than $150 billion. Imagine what we could do with a fraction of the billions spent to maintain this robust overseas infrastructure. Imagine how we could repair crumbling domestic infrastructure, including transportation, electric grids, and ventilator supplies.
2) Bases abroad have fueled a hyper-interventionist foreign policy. Overseas installations simply make it too easy to wage war overseas. Since 1980 U.S. presidents have used foreign bases to launch wars and other attacks at least 25 times in 15 or more countries in the greater Middle East alone. The wars have killed, wounded, and displaced tens of millions.
3) Overseas bases are technologically outdated: rapid response forces can deploy anywhere on Earth fast enough to be based in the continental United States. Increasingly accurate ballistic missiles have made foreign installations into sitting ducks for enemies.
4) Overseas bases destabilize regions and increase the likelihood of future wars: hundreds of U.S. bases surrounding Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea encourage their leaders to boost their own military spending and activity. Imagine how U.S. citizens would feel if Russia or China built a single base near our borders. The calls for a military response would be swift.
5) OBRACC experts agree that bases in the Middle East have fueled radicalization, anti-American propaganda, recruitment by militant groups like al Qaeda, and deadly attacks, such as those of September 11, 2001.
6) Rather than spreading democracy, U.S. bases are found in and support at least 40 countries led by dictators and other undemocratic regimes, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Niger, and Turkey. Bases in colonized U.S. territories are a major reason Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana and Virgin Islands, and American Samoa have neither gained full independence nor full U.S. citizenship rights.
7) Overseas bases are bad for the environment. Domestic installations are too, but overseas, the military often ignores domestic environmental standards, resulting in the dumping of hazardous materials, toxic leaks, and daily damage during training.
8) Bases abroad almost always generate protest against U.S. forces. Unsurprisingly, people tend not to like their countries occupied by foreign militaries. Locals also tend not to appreciate crimes committed by military personnel, deadly accidents, environmental harm, and thriving sex work industries supported by bases.https://responsiblestatecraft.org/20...-u-s-security/
I agree with a lot of the points you have raised however in terms of Overseas bases in Europe, most are there to facilitate rapid reaction and are already logistics and supply hubs, airlift wings, refuelling, ports and naval support or other military support.
The bases also support US radar and ballistic missile early warning, missile defence, satellite tracking and reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and a multitude of other roles.
if the US and other western countries would stop interfering in other countries affairs those countries could evolve at their own rate and in their own time. concern ourselves in domestic matters at home and mind our own business in other countries own domestic issues.
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