American Journalist James Foley Reportedly Beheaded

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
22

[quote]UtahLama wrote:
Pearsy…

The DM function does not work, and if you are going to post 1000 word essays…some links to back them up would be appreciated.

And keep in mind, there are many highly educated folks on here, so your stuff may fly on Reddit…but not so much here.[/quote]

The American invasion and occupation of the Philippines was an openly colonial take over of a formerly spanish colony after the Spanish - American war. The U.S deemed it their because they beat the spanish and felt their were entitled to the colonies of the defeated nation.

Ironically the U.S fought Filipino revolutionaries who were waging a battle for independence.

Source for the U.S and Spain signing peace treaty relinquishing Spain’s colonies in the region to the U.S, these includedCuba, Puerto Rico, the phillipines, west Guam etc etc etc.

Most of these countries had independence movements like the U.S had had against the British, the U.S crushed them.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/sp1898.asp

Now do you accept that the U.S have been involved in imperialism? How can a government that demands Spain acquiesce her colonies to it and then crushes independence movements in those colonies be anything over than imperialist?

Denial of such an accepted imperialist history is rather odd, I mean the U.S didn’t deny they were imperialist, this was a period in American History where expansionism was the official position, the monroe doctrine and manifest destiny. It was the North American version of Lebensraum.

23

The “source” is the Wikipedia entry on the Philippine-American War. A war that ended nearly 120 years ago and marked the conclusion of America’s brief foray into imperialism.

24

Dare I ask what the Philippine-American War has to do with the Islamic State in Iraq? Better not.

26

[quote]Pearsy92 wrote:

[quote]UtahLama wrote:
Pearsy…

The DM function does not work, and if you are going to post 1000 word essays…some links to back them up would be appreciated.

And keep in mind, there are many highly educated folks on here, so your stuff may fly on Reddit…but not so much here.[/quote]

The American invasion and occupation of the Philippines was an openly colonial take over of a formerly spanish colony after the Spanish - American war. The U.S deemed it their because they beat the spanish and felt their were entitled to the colonies of the defeated nation.

Ironically the U.S fought Filipino revolutionaries who were waging a battle for independence.

Source for the U.S and Spain signing peace treaty relinquishing Spain’s colonies in the region to the U.S, these includedCuba, Puerto Rico, the phillipines, west Guam etc etc etc.

Most of these countries had independence movements like the U.S had had against the British, the U.S crushed them.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/sp1898.asp

Now do you accept that the U.S have been involved in imperialism? How can a government that demands Spain acquiesce her colonies to it and then crushes independence movements in those colonies be anything over than imperialist?

Denial of such an accepted imperialist history is rather odd, I mean the U.S didn’t deny they were imperialist, this was a period in American History where expansionism was the official position, the monroe doctrine and manifest destiny. It was the North American version of Lebensraum.

[/quote]

Dude the American-Filipino war ended over a 100 years ago, how is that relevant to your “10 year” statement?

EDIT: Sexmachine beat me too it.

27

Has that video been authenticated? I’m not saying it was faked, but certain things just seemed off to me.

28

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Dare I ask what the Philippine-American War has to do with the Islamic State in Iraq? Better not.[/quote]

I said I have mixed feeling supporting the U.S in military conflicts given their past imperialist adventures, you topped a “wuh” one liner as if the U.S has not been an imperialist super power for over a hundred years.

You then claimed American imperialism stopped after a short foray into the great game as the imperialist scramble was known.

You seem to be forgetting the countless democratically elected leaders the united states had overthrown, the Banana republics, the arming and funding of countless death squads throughout Latin America.

Of course the Vietnam war was not imperialist or the Korean war either. Of course American involvement in Angola and other African nations was not imperialism.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t single the U.S out, Britain, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Russia etc etc have all been involved in imperialist wars and or genocide. Why you feel the need to deny your countries involvement in such acts confounds me. No one is saying you are responsible.

I am saying it is hard to support the U.S militarily when it has historically done openly imperialist things like fund a furniture salesman to overthrow the democratically elected government of Chile :smiley:

29

[quote]csulli wrote:
Has that video been authenticated? I’m not saying it was faked, but certain things just seemed off to me.[/quote]

Yes, the National Security Council confirmed it’s authenticity today.

31

[quote]csulli wrote:
Has that video been authenticated? I’m not saying it was faked, but certain things just seemed off to me.[/quote]

I think it has yes. The video was edited by IS to cut out the decapitation for the most part. Other beheading videos go on for awhile and involve a lot of horrible gurgling and blood.

IS are in a weird way trying to do their best to put a positive PR spin on everything, one of the journalists for one of the big papers commented on how they do this horrific sub human shit but will try and clean up the scenery to make it look more sanitised. For example wiping blood of a crucified man and posting a beheading video but skipping over the most horrific scenes.

33

[quote]Pearsy92 wrote:
While I do not feel ok with supporting the American state in its military conflicts which have often been savage imperialist wars overseas, I think people should be slightly worried about the caliphate.

Islamic state want to have their caliphate stretch from Pakistan to turkey, both nations with Nuclear weapons.

Their Social media accounts have openly shown their goals when it comes to this and the problem is you have to take into account how much muslim hatred of the west over the last decade from the wars has pushed millions of muslims into a position where the support for IS which would not of been there in neighbouring countries a decade ago is now clearly there and problematic to say the least.

We do not have a crystal ball and expansion may very well fall flat as they try and expand, but with the climate, especially the one in Pakistan and specifically its mountain border area where the civilian “collateral damage” has been enormous, they might find their arrival welcomed.

The link to the live leak video. I think people owe it to take a reasoned approach to the situation.

  1. The wars have left anti Americanism in the entire region very high, even higher than before I should probable say. Not all of this is due to the U.S obviously but I think taking on board that the war in Iraq has played a huge part in the rise of Islamic extremism is essential.

  2. Supporting the U.S backed allies like the Kerds might not be in line with your political views as a libertarian, or a liberal or someone who is against a very reactionary Kurdish state, but a reactionary Kurdish state is the least worse option in the immediate fighting. Being realistic is important, for example supporting the S.U during the second world war was not something many people were comfortable with. But for non jewish, non polish or non German antifascists, civilians not on the front end of genocide our view on what opposition on what is supportable meant didly squat.

  3. Genocide is occurring and will occur on a large scale if IS has the momentum needed to overcome the initial challenges to its true foundation over the region. I think a good option would mean a heavy economic investment by the U.S and E.U, focusing on flooding all secular forces and militaries in the region with arms and U.S advisors and military personal and getting into the areas IS hopes to gain mass support in and deliver huge amounts of aid and medical facilities.

I think the U.S really only has a hope of defeating IS through a combination of direct and indirect military action and saturating the secular forces in the region with the military means to defend themselves along with a very real and costly program of basically trying give the people in the region enough aid where they think they are better off under U.S and E.U/U.N influence than IS.

This would end up costing an insane amount, but you have to take into account the impact of a caliphate, especially once the caliphate has considerable economic and military power, allied with Russia, China, and possibly even unifying with Saudi Arabia through some internal or external overthrow of the American puppet regime by Islamists. This would leave the west up shits creek.

http://www.liveleak.com/temp.html?i=bc1_1408481278[/quote]

Hey Marx junior, Turkey is not a nuclear weapons state.

34

[quote]Pearsy92 wrote:

I said I have mixed feeling supporting the U.S in military conflicts given their past imperialist adventures, you topped a “wuh” one liner as if the U.S has not been an imperialist super power for over a hundred years.

You then claimed American imperialism stopped after a short foray into the great game as the imperialist scramble was known.

[/quote]

The Great Game was the vying for dominance in Central Asia between Great Britain and Russia in the 19th century.

That wasn’t “imperialism.” It was an attempt to stop Soviet backed Marxist regimes during the Cold War. It was a very effective strategy in most cases.

That’s right, it was not imperialism in any sense.

I’m not American.

See above. We should be emulating the pre-LBJ strategy of backing nationalists/military juntas against radicals. It’s a sound strategy.

37

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]Pearsy92 wrote:
While I do not feel ok with supporting the American state in its military conflicts which have often been savage imperialist wars overseas, I think people should be slightly worried about the caliphate.

Islamic state want to have their caliphate stretch from Pakistan to turkey, both nations with Nuclear weapons.

Their Social media accounts have openly shown their goals when it comes to this and the problem is you have to take into account how much muslim hatred of the west over the last decade from the wars has pushed millions of muslims into a position where the support for IS which would not of been there in neighbouring countries a decade ago is now clearly there and problematic to say the least.

We do not have a crystal ball and expansion may very well fall flat as they try and expand, but with the climate, especially the one in Pakistan and specifically its mountain border area where the civilian “collateral damage” has been enormous, they might find their arrival welcomed.

The link to the live leak video. I think people owe it to take a reasoned approach to the situation.

  1. The wars have left anti Americanism in the entire region very high, even higher than before I should probable say. Not all of this is due to the U.S obviously but I think taking on board that the war in Iraq has played a huge part in the rise of Islamic extremism is essential.

  2. Supporting the U.S backed allies like the Kerds might not be in line with your political views as a libertarian, or a liberal or someone who is against a very reactionary Kurdish state, but a reactionary Kurdish state is the least worse option in the immediate fighting. Being realistic is important, for example supporting the S.U during the second world war was not something many people were comfortable with. But for non jewish, non polish or non German antifascists, civilians not on the front end of genocide our view on what opposition on what is supportable meant didly squat.

  3. Genocide is occurring and will occur on a large scale if IS has the momentum needed to overcome the initial challenges to its true foundation over the region. I think a good option would mean a heavy economic investment by the U.S and E.U, focusing on flooding all secular forces and militaries in the region with arms and U.S advisors and military personal and getting into the areas IS hopes to gain mass support in and deliver huge amounts of aid and medical facilities.

I think the U.S really only has a hope of defeating IS through a combination of direct and indirect military action and saturating the secular forces in the region with the military means to defend themselves along with a very real and costly program of basically trying give the people in the region enough aid where they think they are better off under U.S and E.U/U.N influence than IS.

This would end up costing an insane amount, but you have to take into account the impact of a caliphate, especially once the caliphate has considerable economic and military power, allied with Russia, China, and possibly even unifying with Saudi Arabia through some internal or external overthrow of the American puppet regime by Islamists. This would leave the west up shits creek.

http://www.liveleak.com/temp.html?i=bc1_1408481278[/quote]

Hey Marx junior, Turkey is not a nuclear weapons state.[/quote]

Marx junior? I support free markets, Lately i have really enjoyed reading Friedrich Hayek, I think he might be the antithesis of Karl Marx. The free market position is out compete bad economic systems, not invade them or fund someone else to overthrow them, that would be monopoly capitalism or imperialism as it is known, that would be against the free market and the validity of it, if the free market works it will out compete other forms of economic management.

And yes I meant Pakistan, i was listing nations in that post and put turkey as one of the two Nuclear nations by mistake.

38

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Someone honestly doesn’t not understand the meaning of the word “imperialism” but that hasn’t stopped him from employing its illicit use.[/quote]

Imperialism, as it is defined by the Dictionary of Human Geography, is an unequal human and territorial relationship, usually in the form of an empire, based on ideas of superiority and practices of dominance, and involving the extension of authority and control of one state or people over another.

This is applicable to nearly all U.S wars in its history.

39

^^

You already said the Soviet Union was a much greater threat to the US than IS - yet, you decry US backing of anti-Soviet regimes during the Cold War? How do you reconcile that with your position of backing secular forces in the ME?

40

[quote]Pearsy92 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Someone honestly doesn’t not understand the meaning of the word “imperialism” but that hasn’t stopped him from employing its illicit use.[/quote]

Imperialism, as it is defined by the Dictionary of Human Geography, is an unequal human and territorial relationship, usually in the form of an empire, based on ideas of superiority and practices of dominance, and involving the extension of authority and control of one state or people over another.

This is applicable to nearly all U.S wars in its history.[/quote]

Read the rest of the Wikipedia entry on imperialism you just quoted. Only the Marxian definition of imperialism applies to US Cold War strategy. And you said you’re not a Marxist.