If the US had ANY imperialistic goals or was on any kind of epire like expansion we would currently be the owners of Iraq and Kuwait, and would have been so for more than 10 years after that brief 100 hour ground scuffle in '91.

Well you could not have stayed there. What would be your excuse. Instead you put an american friendly goverment in kuweit and kept iraq intact in order to have an excuse for letting there troops and equipment in order to keep the middle east under your immediate control.
That simple

I wasn't aware the government of Kuwait changed. Where did you come across that information.

To my knowledge Kuwait was established by Britain as a Briitsh protectorate when the Ottoman Empire was dismantled - because of the oil most probably.

No reason it shouldn't have been part of Iraq, but there you go. History has dealt us a wierd hand and we have to live with it.

Thus, it's a bit of a stretch to call the American government THEN Imperialist. Culturally imperialist sure, but not governmentally.

The issue for me is that America MAY become imperial in the future with this precedent "pre-emptive invasion" creates. Rome had "pre-emptive invasions" against the Gauls of France, who had sacked Rome. They then invaded Britain, practically for "harbouring terrorists" or in other words, hostile Gallic tribes and peoples from France operating from within Britain.

History judges the invasion of Britain as have more than one reason though. Surely Caesars own political and military ambitions should be considered.

Similarly, the American wars should be judged likewise. Reasons are myriad, Varied. Multilayered.

Excellent reasoning Yorick [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] Maybe you could give music a rest and go into politics for a while? We could use a few level heads [img]smile.gif[/img]

Excellent reasoning Yorick [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] Maybe you could give music a rest and go into politics for a while? We could use a few level heads [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]Why thanks o' Druidic one. :D

Actually, we aren't suppose to make topics similar to, "Attention
***insert name here***"

Besides the rules stuff, wouldn't it have been better to address Magik and Iron Ranger in the thread in which they made their statements anyway?

I assure you, they wouldn't have missed it. ;) :D

<font color="#ffccff">You were the one claiming we were out to make an empire, the winner in a fight needs make no excuses to others for their actions. Who would have kicked us out? Belgium? And for your Information the US did not put the government of Kuwait together. Better look up your history on the region. I do believe it was a "group" that did the divisioning. In actuality, the USA had little to say how the Ottoman empire and middle east were carved up and distributed.

What did happen is that US investors and rich people went to the middle east in the mid 20th century, paid the arabs for their land and oil and the right to drill, paid for the equipment and refineries, paid for the factories and port facilites......only to then have the arabs reneg on the deal and nationalize the whole works. I don't think that anyone could say that the US has NO interest int he middle east. And it is also fair to say that without the western nations money the middle eastern peoples would still be the nomadic primitives that they had been for centuries. </font>

<font color="#ffccff">You may be right B-Mann [img]smile.gif[/img] ;)

Great Post Yorick, informative and concise and well said!</font>

dio_j : Ronn Bmann is correct in that any post labeled "Attention X" or "To Y" is usually for personal communications and those belong in pm or email.

Now your post was obviously a broader topic so it doesn't fit into the 'pm or email' category but it DOES fall under a common sense rule : don't make several NEW threads if a thread already exists to discuss that issue. I'm locking this down and requesting you all to continue this discussion in the original threads where the topic is being debated. here- Madness thread

dio_j, if you feel the need to start a whole new topic, please be sure it IS new and not currently being debated in a thread that's already on the first page. Thanks!

[ 01-13-2003, 12:48 PM: Message edited by: Cloudbringer ]