(October 15, 2021 at 4:08 pm)Helios Wrote:Quote:This scene is from before American army decided to rob Muslims out of their resourcesThe west has done more for the people of Afghanistan than any Islamic leadership they ever had, And now that we have left the healthcare system and the education as well as basic civil rights have gone right down the shitter, And now the people there can look forward to unending civil war. So shove that in your Anti-western pipe and smoke it, Winter.
Really. I didn't know that. Could you be specific?
I guess it's possible, although it's not my view.
An alternative perspective: As a general principle, wars are not fought on the basis of moral principle. As with just about every other country, US foreign policy is based on the perceived best interest of the US. The US wars in the Middle East in recent decades accomplished two things for the US: Protection of US oil interests and a permanent US military presence in the Middle East.
IMO US foreign policy is has always been more like that of Spain's in the Sixteenth century than Britain at the same time and later.
EG Spain in South America and The Philippines*** took any natural resources they could get their hands on and supressed the people. Spain did not develop significant infrastructures in those countries. Even today, some ex Spanish colonies remain relatively under developed compared with ex British colonies. Middle eastern counties in which the US has fought wars were left in tatters. I'd be thrilled to hear from say some Afghanistan moderates about how much the US has done for their country. (Currently under the control of the Taliban, a rigid and brutal theocracy)
Britain's empire was about trade, especially market for British goods. In India, Britain left a thriving infrastructure which included a legal system which was used to establish rule of law of law and a large rail system which connected the country within.
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*** the US gained the Philippines as a defacto colony as a result of the Spanish American War in 1898. That was to great US advantage. The US gained the thriving Philippine sugar industry. (Sugar had become the world's first truly international commodity). The US also had a pacific military base.
Yet the US actively opposed Filipino demands for independence. To the point that President Taft deliberately chose Jose Rizal as a national hero of the Philippines. Rizal was a doctor and intellectual, who had written a couple of books. One was "Noli Mi Tangere" (Touch me not) a turgid Victorian melodrama which is still in print. The other was a political treatise, "El Filerbusterismo" (The Subversion) Rizal was executed by the Spanish for sedition in 1896.
Taft Selected him as The Philippine National hero because he had written that a people could be free without being independent. The Philippines became independent from the US on July 4 1946. US Forces remained in the Philippines until 1992. The Philippines remains relatively underdeveloped. This is largely because the system of land ownership had not changed since the days of Spanish colonialism until after the Us had left. I understand things are beginning to change slowly.
