Needless to say, military action is not the only way to exercise control. The US government has always mess up with the political life of every country in the world, but I'm brining this example because I'm interested in US citizens opinion in this matter. USA is supposed to be a democracy, and I don't believe that interfering with the political situation in Bolivia(just an example) is the will of the majority of the US citizens.

I haven't found much information in English about the subject, here is an article: http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/105065-0/

So, What is your opinion on the subject?

America (my country) holds no sympathy for democratic or autonomous nations unless they give in to any demand we request (i.e. use of their natural resources by setting up a puppet government)...

If you haven't noticed, America has been trying to take over the world since it was founded with it's "manifest destiny", it's just more subtle now. Instead of murdering thousands of people we claim "were helping the people by ending an oppressive government and bringing democracy and unfortunately there will be collateral damage"

I don't know about the situation in Bolivia but unless the people or the government specifically request America's help for a justified reason then any action taken is another load of hypocritical bullshit in hopes of controlling the world.

MRKitty, Of course I share your views.
When you say "America", does that includes you? My question is, since America is a democracy, then if the government take actions to control the world, is because the mayority of the people wants this. Is this the case?

The US isn't going to actually intervene in any meaningful way. Not yet anyway. Just at bit of diplomacy but Russia will continue to do the wrong thing in Georgia, as the US and UK did when they bypassed the international community and invaded Iraq and how no-one bothers to intervene in Zimbabwe or Sudan or Palestine. Thats the way the cookie crumbles i guess.

No, America the country operates independent of my thought and belief system. I am a human being who happens to live in America and unfortunately be categorized with other individual humans who live in the same make believe political boundaries as I do. Of course I have "American" aspects in terms of my personality but I prefer the basis of my identity to be what I make it, not where I live or who I live with.

Its hard to say, the people who do want America to control the world don't even realize it. Those are the stereotypical Americans who hang flags on their porches and want our country to be the "greatest superpower". However, they don't realize that in doing so, it requires an empire.

I think most people don't really care either way, as long as they aren't personally inconvenienced. However, what they don't seem to understand because of our history and how our government operates we rely heavily on foreign imports and sometimes the only way of getting them is to violently intervene. Most people are naive and don't understand how our government operates, we know what it does, but we get the sugar coated version and miss the part where we murder civilians and install dictators over a free state autonmous of American intervention.

For example most people thought we were promoting democracy in Iraq when we invaded and even after the WMD thing turned out to be false people at said "At least we got rid of evil Saddam" completely overlooking the small fact we supported what he was doing and WE put him in power.

What are you talking about? Manifest Destiny wasn't some plot to take over the world. We bought most of our territory from European countries that were already here. We didn't even take Mexico when we could have.

I'll concede that we have done some bad stuff, but it's kind of hard to characterize the nation as imperialist because we forced Japan to open up a hundred years ago.

I wouldn't describe it as "just a bit of diplomacy"

Uh....

Year Country Reason Given Actual Reason
1949 Syria Communism Elected government against USA political interests and pro-Palestinian.
1949 Greece Communism Elected government against USA political and economic interests.
1952 Cuba None Elected government against USA business interests.
1953 Iran None Elected government against USA oil interests.
1953 British Guyana None Access to sugar and bauxite.
1954 Guatemala Communism Elected government against USA business interests.
1955 South Vietnam Communism French backed leader replaced by USA backed leader.
1957 Haiti Haiti is near the USA Previous government against USA business interests.
1958 Laos None Pro-USA government wanted.
1959 Laos None Pro-USA government wanted.
1960 South Korea Communism Previous leader not strong enough for USA.
1960 Laos None Pro-USA government wanted.
1960 Ecuador Communism Previous government too independent in foreign policy.
1963 Dominican Republic Business Interests Elected government against USA business interests.
1963 South Vietnam None Previous leader's policies led to televised suicides.
1963 Honduras Communism Pro-USA government and access to resources.
1963 Guatemala Communism Military government was about to allow elections.
1963 Ecuador None Elected government too independent.
1964 Brazil Communism Access to resources and cheap labour.
1964 Bolivia Communism Previous government too independent in foreign policy.
1965 Zaire None Access to cobalt, copper and diamonds.
1966 Ghana None Previous government too independent in foreign policy.
1967 Greece None Military bases.
1970 Cambodia None Previous king against USA political interests.
1970 Bolivia None Country took ownership of its oil and tin.
1972 El Salvador Communism Elected leader against USA business interests.
1973 Chile Communism Elected government against USA business interests.
1975 Australia None Elected government had unsuitable foreign policy.
1979 South Korea None Pro-USA government wanted.
1980 Liberia Democracy Pro-USA government wanted.
1982 Chad None Pro-USA government wanted.
1983 Grenada Democracy Pro-USA government wanted.
1987 Fiji Democracy Previous elected government supported nuclear-free Pacific.
2002 Venezuela None Disagreed with foreign policy of elected government.
2004 Haiti Fraudulent elections Disagreed with economic policy of elected government.


Also have you ever heard of the Iraq War? Invading a country because an oppressive dictator might have weapons...Well

1.) We put him there illegally

2.) We gave him those weapons

3.) He no longer had them

4.) We made lies to invade that country to set up a pro-American regime

So what about all of this isn't imperialist?

Oh and Manifest Destiny? We DID STEAL MEXICO. Get your facts straight, we invaded Mexico in 1848 and seized what is now Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California. Not to mention we literally wiped out the native American population intentionally...

America and imperialism are essentially the same term. I knew you were dogmatic in your beliefs but I never realized you were completely ignorant of reality.

[quote=MR.Kitty55;10354188]

What the fuck?
What are you trying to prove?
Ok? What does the fact that a government was elected against USA interests have to do with America being an imperialist power?
Saying that something happened that we didn't like doesn't prove that we are imperialists.

Having a few spies in a country doesn't make us imperialists or prove that we are on a warpath trying to take over the world, nor does it make us different from any other country on the planet.


Which Saddam agreed to get rid of.

No one knew that.

We didn't lie.


No, we didn't start that war. Texas declared independence and wanted to join us. We didn't steal Mexico. The Mexicans ceded California, etc. And we paid for it. We could have stolen all of Mexico since we marched almost the entire length of it, but we didn't. If we were in the stealing territory business, we could have easily done so.

You can argue that we should do this or that, give money to certain groups in X country. That's fine. I personally disagree, but that is besides the point. The fact is that if that is imperialism, then that means that nearly every country in the world is imperialist since they are working under the table to do what is in their best interests. And if every country in the world is doing it, it would be fucking retarded to not protect our interests.

George Washington warned against entagling alliances because we could afford to do so. We had the Atlantic Ocean to protect us and Europe was too busy fighting itself to do much. If it would have been in our interests to studiously endear ourselves to Spain, George Washington would have been all for that. It is not in our best interests to ignore what other countries are doing and analyze how it will affect our country.

[quote=Zman;10354317] We overthrew democratic or governments with politics we didnt agree with and killed civilians for our political gains. Thats basically the definition of imperialism? So, thats my point. If you don't agree with facts that we did that, then I'm sorry. But we are an imperialist country...


You're really in denial? Well okay, read the book "Hubris" it documents everything. Basically the CIA told the White House the yellow cake thing was a fraud and they still went on and used it as the primary fuel to push us into war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_uranium_forgeries

This is one of about 930 falsified reports that were usen by Bush. Read them here: http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

Semantics, whatever. Texas, a Mexico state occupied by Americans wanted to be part of America so we took it. Imperialism.


This is a great point and I agree with you. Its naive to ask our country to be what most people deem moral. I think Hobbes said something about how a natural state of war only exists in nature and between governments. However, its frustrating when America preaches integrity and acts hypocritically. And its even more frustrating when people like YOU deny it. Besides, we don't have to kill and destroy other people's lives, our country could take a isoloationist policy. Not to mention that because of things like Imperialism shit like 9/11 and economic crisis occur. Thats why we shouldn't do it.