Obama wants $33 Billion more for the War - Page 7

On January 15 2010 23:31 ghostWriter wrote:


I'm aware of America's status as an imperial power. However, it was very different from the British model. Rather than going in directly and trying to control the government and the infrastructure of countries (which we started doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and which I think is the wrong way to go about this), Americans went for economic control. They used their influence in the UN and their overwhelming military strength to cow opponents into submission and force them to liberalize their economies. For example, in Yugoslavia, America won by just sending in planes to bomb from the air and in Afghanistan, it defeated the Soviet Union by training and supplying the Afghan people, rather than sending in its own soldiers. This strategy saved a lot of money and avoided the risk of public displeasure by basically contracting out the human costs of war to other entities. However, under Bush, the United States started sending in its own foot soldiers on the ground, which was a huge mistake. Direct control means that the yolk of imperialism is much more visible and that people can see the occupier as soldiers to be killed, rather than a relatively unthreatening McDonald's and Coca-Cola.

On January 15 2010 23:31 ghostWriter wrote:


I'm aware of America's status as an imperial power. However, it was very different from the British model. Rather than going in directly and trying to control the government and the infrastructure of countries (which we started doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and which I think is the wrong way to go about this), Americans went for economic control. They used their influence in the UN and their overwhelming military strength to cow opponents into submission and force them to liberalize their economies. For example, in Yugoslavia, America won by just sending in planes to bomb from the air and in Afghanistan, it defeated the Soviet Union by training and supplying the Afghan people, rather than sending in its own soldiers. This strategy saved a lot of money and avoided the risk of public displeasure by basically contracting out the human costs of war to other entities. However, under Bush, the United States started sending in its own foot soldiers on the ground, which was a huge mistake. Direct control means that the yolk of imperialism is much more visible and that people can see the occupier as soldiers to be killed, rather than a relatively unthreatening McDonald's and Coca-Cola.

On January 15 2010 23:50 KwarK wrote:

Economic control? Unlike the British Empire? How do you think the British Empire operated? The East India Company? British economic hegemony in Central and South America. When it could British companies would work with the local elite to exploit the native resources as a purely private enterprise. The local elite would live in the finest western style and their children would be educated at Oxford as an investment. The companies did not wish to administrate because that was hugely expensive and inefficient and the local elites did not wish to oppose the status quo because it benefitted them personally and they were replaceable.
That system worked in South America right up until the British sold the trading concessions to the United States in WWII and continued to work until the socialist uprisings. It's kinda funny that America gets all the blame for that shit when they just took it over towards the end. Actual empire only arises in special circumstances.
When a rival imperial power encroaches upon the monopolies of an influencial company and that company lobbies the Government for the official status.
When the colonials get bored of being exploited and rise up, threatening the investment. Again the company lobbies the the Government to protect the British investments. A similar example is Egypt in which the King took out huge private loans from British and French banks, went bankrupt and the banks were faced with a huge loss. Unable to seize the assets of an entire country they got their friends with an army to do it for them.
Some areas were simply too big or too strategically important to be administered privately. India was a private possession for some time, with the East India Company ruling parts of it and collecting taxes and having their own private army. Obviously a British company could not be allowed to simply become a country, accountable to no-one and able to call upon British support. Nationalisation of India was the only option.

However the British Empire was not founded on the ideal of glory for its own sake. It was not an empire built on conquest. It was an empire built on money. At its height it was far greater than the area shaded in on the map. Nor was it ended militarily (although it did face serious defeats in WWII). It was the end of British global economic hegemony that made empire unfeasable. Without profit there was simply no purpose to it. It should be noted that unlike France Britain engaged in an active policy of decolonisation. Rather than hang onto every inch long after the writing was on the wall Britain established stable states (although many proved less stable), kept as many of the profitable industries as possible in British hands and then left the business of governing to the people.

Edit: In short, you're exactly the same. Not only are you the same imperial model as us but in many cases you just moved in where we moved out. We sold off a lot of out more profitable parts of the empire during WWII, guess who was buying.

On January 16 2010 00:01 KwarK wrote:
Technically it was the Dutch method too lol. Everyone forgets we got taken over by the Dutch in 1688. With him he brought Dutch style economic imperialism, the stock exchange and a national bank. Despite being tiny the Netherlands was a highly effective imperial power, combining private enterprise with state backed financial apparatus to gain wealth far beyond its means. When they got their hands on a population the size of Britains shit really got going.

On January 16 2010 00:13 KwarK wrote:
Getting slightly back on topic. If the United States knew their history they wouldn't be in this situation. They'd have left all the old elites in power and ideally just pensioned off Saddam after explaining to him the other options. They'd have set the Sunni and Shia at each others throats and taken all the oil while nobody noticed. Every now and then they'd give some guns and money to whichever warlord was keeping the oil pumping along with the latest cool gadgets, fastest sports cars etc. They'd educate his heir in the American way of thinking and would never consider sending American soldiers there unless someone else realised they were onto a good thing and wanted in on it.
This whole state building thing is far too ethical for empire. Once you create a state it gets a sense of entitlement over its own possessions which really gets in the way of the corporate theft which was the entire point. The best empire is one nobody realises their a part of because they're all too busy making money or making someone else money.

On January 16 2010 00:08 UFO wrote:
Political discussions are mostly sooooo damn ridicilous .

On January 16 2010 00:15 ghostWriter wrote:


I doubt they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. I was under the impression that the rebuilding of the state was paid for by the U.S. government in billions of dollars of contracts to companies that didn't even finish the job that they were contracted to do.

On January 16 2010 00:12 antiq wrote:
Why do you guys keep on connecting the supra-national corporations with the US? It's not like the US government had any direct opportunity to cause global McDonaldization. If anything, the corporations use their lobbies to nudge national governments. It's the invisible hand of the market that causes some of this shit - not that I thought the hand is bad thing per se, it's simply a blind beast feeding itself without any reflection. And as it's become more powerful, it starts to exploit the holes and weaknesses in our political systems, merging with it, mutating.. I guess the zerg are not bad either, just for the poor middle class terrans and hopelessly failing protoss elite.

On January 15 2010 23:07 KwarK wrote:

Yes. There is a right way to fight a colonial insurgency. That was what the rest of my post was saying. That after fifty years of doing it a country gets the hang of it. Contain the situation, isolate the guerrillas from the population, match their expertise and beat their logistics. But the French were shit at that stuff too and the situation was possibly beyond containing by the time the Americans got their hands on it. Still, their "overwhelming force" approach was very much the wrong way.

On January 16 2010 00:12 antiq wrote:
Why do you guys keep on connecting the supra-national corporations with the US? It's not like the US government had any direct opportunity to cause global McDonaldization. If anything, the corporations use their lobbies to nudge national governments. It's the invisible hand of the market that causes some of this shit - not that I thought the hand is bad thing per se, it's simply a blind beast feeding itself without any reflection. And as it's become more powerful, it starts to exploit the holes and weaknesses in our political systems, merging with it, mutating.. I guess the zerg are not bad either, just for the poor middle class terrans and hopelessly failing protoss elite.

On January 16 2010 00:15 ghostWriter wrote:




Maybe if you spelled the word that you bolded correctly, people would take you seriously.

On January 16 2010 00:48 Boblion wrote:

I don't want to be mean Kwark but i don't think at all that the wars lost by the French or the Americans would have been won by the U-K. We all see how good they are today in Afghanistan or Iraq.... oh wait they aren't doing better than the Americans.

However i have to admit that the U-K has always managed to withdraw before things got really messy and bloody which was the smart move.

On January 16 2010 00:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Nerdy comparison apart, what we call the US is a composite ensemble of the American people, the American government, the American Corporations, the Amrican system, and the American ideology.

Everything is related, as the system makes that government cannot do anything but help by any way possible its big companies, that people vote for their government which helps theses companies, that theses companies are owned by an oligarchy of extremely rich and mediatically powerful people who have extremely closed connection to the power because of the nature of the liberalized political system in the US, etc etc etc etc etc..., all this supported by an ideology which says that liberal democracy and global capitalism is the best system possible and that there is nithing to do to imagine a better one.

On January 16 2010 00:48 Boblion wrote:

I don't want to be mean Kwark but i don't think at all that the wars lost by the French or the Americans would have been won by the U-K. We all see how good they are today in Afghanistan or Iraq.... oh wait they aren't doing better than the Americans.

However i have to admit that the U-K always managed to withdraw before things got really messy and bloody which was the smart move.

On January 16 2010 01:00 ghostWriter wrote:


Also, the government and corporations are intrinsically related. The government hands out huge contracts worth billions of dollars and bails out corporations in need. As the Bush Administration did for the Military-Industrial Complex, the Obama Administration is doing for the banking industry. Corporations pay millions in lobbyists and gifts and such, politicians pay them back with grants and contracts. To be honest, in the last several years, the lines between the government and the private sector have become very thin.