(I was of course speaking about the army's role in principle) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
And in which fictional alternative universe is it ideological to point out that the American military has, at the very least since the last world war, been used in no small part to safeguard the interests of large American corporations from governments who wanted to exercise their sovereignty over the natural resources that those corporations were exploiting?
Both are a matter of public record.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Or! since we're talking fiction, why stick to the present day. Imagine for a second that Japan delayed their Pearl Harbour strike - just enough so that Hitler occupy Britain and silenced USSR. Do I need to draw you a picture as to what would have been the next target ? Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The ideological part is in saying that the army would be subservient to the fatcat oligarchy.
That is not an ideological statement. It is a straightforward observation of fact. Chile, Panama, Viet Nam, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Nicaragua, Colombia and the Philippines are all countries that posed a grave threat to the cash flow of certain well-connected American oligarchs, and no threat at all to the security and prosperity of the American people.
I'd like you to elaborate on this. Popular commitees? A national salvation front?
Trade unions. General strikes. Sabotage against union-busting companies. The French Syndicalists wrote the book on popular uprisings in the 19th century. Worked out well enough for France.
Or! since we're talking fiction, why stick to the present day.
Uhm, because the military-industrial complex did not exist until around the Eisenhower presidency.
Imagine for a second that Japan delayed their Pearl Harbour strike - just enough so that Hitler occupy Britain and silenced USSR. Do I need to draw you a picture as to what would have been the next target?
Congratulations. You just played the Hitler card.
Seriously, though, the USSR reamed Germany a new asshole without much help from the US. By the time the Americans got seriously into the European theatre, the war was all over bar the shouting.
And even if Germany could somehow have pacified all of Russia, it did not have the logistic capacity to mount a serious invasion of the US. And it would not have had that capacity for at least a decade, if not more.
As to Germany, there were stories circulating about intercontinental missiles and even nuclear bombs. But maybe you haven't heard them. Of course USSR and the US built their own nuclear facilities on their own, without any help, like the great nations that they are. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Chile? Allende was a developmentalist - that's a kind of social democrat - with no significant ties to any socialist state. Panama? Noriga was a conservative ex-CIA spy. Niceragua? The Sandinistas were also developmentalists.
Viet Nam? Puh-leese. Viet Nam was not a threat to the security and prosperity of the American people. And the best evidence of that fact is that the Americans lost the war. And not one American lost his life due to Vietnamese aggression upon American interests after the end of the war. A number of wealthy Americans lost not inconsiderable sums of money. But that's neither here nor there.
Lebanon had a more or less functioning democracy until Israel invaded it in 1975, with American support. To say that it "has always been like that" shows a profound ignorance of the history of the Near East.
In Columbia, the government is sponsoring death squads who run around shooting union members and raping nuns. The US supports that government with money, weapons and diplomatic cover (and trains and arms a number of the death squads).
The civil war in Somalia is being sponsored by American-supported Ethiopian forces. It is unclear what legitimate American interests are being safeguarded here: The provisional government that the Americans support has never even attempted to curtail piracy off Africa's Horn. The Islamic Courts, whom the US is fighting against, have with some measure of success intervened against the pirates. What other threats Somalia poses to American safety and prosperity, I do not know. Oh, the Islamic Courts pose a threat to BP's control of certain oil fields and pipelines... But that's oligarch interests.
And the Philippines were an American colony from 1898 to 1946. That's before "communism" became the American excuse for imperial expansion.
Somalia was about fight against islamists, just like Ethiopia. As to Lebanon, it is you who obviously ignore what even children know from school manuals: Lebanon was amongst the countries who invaded Israel in 1948, in order to destroy it. Lebanon was in civil war from many causes, certainly less because of Israel and more because of the arab fundamentalists obsession with making war on Israel. Calling this an example of US army acting to protect the oligarch is absolutely stupefying. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Allende was a recognized Marxist,
Not by Allende. Nor, for that matter, by the Soviets. One would think that they had a certain amount of expertise in such matters...
and the sandinistas were anything but angels of the 3rd world development.
You do not have to be an angel to not be a communist... And you do not have to not be a communist in order to not have any material ties with the Soviet Union.
Oh, and when compared to what came before and after, yes they were.
Vietnam was the backyard of communist China.
Um... so what? The US lost. Domino effect failed to materialise. Vietnamese and Chinese legions failed to descend on San Fransisco to enslave the American population and deny them democracy and apple pie.
Columbia was and is supported by the US less for the nun-raping commandos and more for the fight against drug barrons and marxist guerrillas.
Dude. The paramilitaries are drug barons (so are the guerrillias, but that's an aside).
Somalia was about fight against islamists, just like Ethiopia.
Bull shit.
No Islamists on the planet have the capacity to do material harm to the well being of the American citizens. And if you trot out "terrism" then you need to be whacked over the head with a Big Foam Cluebat. More people die from traffic accidents and from preventable diseases in the US every year than from terrorism (and looking back over the last 50 or so years, more Americans have died from Christian terrorism than Islamic terrorism, but that's an aside).
As to Lebanon, it is you who obviously ignore what even children know from school manuals: Lebanon was amongst the countries who invaded Israel in 1948, in order to destroy it.
Dude. The invasion was in 1975. That's like invading Japan in 1969 for the attack on Perl Harbor. If you accept that kind of logic, damn near every country on the planet has casus belli on damn near every other country on the planet.
Lebanon was in civil war from many causes, certainly less because of Israel and more because of the arab fundamentalists obsession with making war on Israel.
Dude. Israel invaded Lebanon. Not the other way around. Punkt. Aus. Schluss.
Now, Israel may or may not have had casus belli - there is a case to be made that they had - but the US sure as hell did not.
http://books.google.fr/books?id=C8XBic7F07sC&pg=PA1009&lpg=PA1009&dq=%22lebanon+invaded+ israel%22+1948&source=bl&ots=rsY2A4FORj&sig=yyhN5EuEsF-FTnwAnERKkDSHfXo&hl=fr&ei =3WMYSu-lJoiH_QbUkP38DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8
(Andrew Linklater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Linklater)
"More people die from traffic accidents and from preventable diseases in the US every year than from terrorism" (JakeS)
This phrase says all it had to be said, I guess. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Seriously, though, the USSR reamed Germany a new asshole without much help from the US.
Contrafactual specualtion is always fun, and the Germans could certainly have won in the East if just some small details had changed, especially in 1941. For example if the rains had been smaller, thw winter milder, or if they'd had tracked supply vehicles. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
'41 is a different story. Still, Russia is a big place, and there were plenty of divisions in Siberia.
And speaking of the armaments, the greatest German production of armaments was during 1944, partly because of Speer's organizational genius and partly because it took years and years until Germany adopted the total mobilization of society for war, as the Allies and Soviets had been doing from the beginning. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
After Pearl Harbour the US hulls stopped using the star banner and instead started flying the hammer and sickle to avoid attacks from the Japanese, whick is kinda LOL. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
