The US Empire is an empire, countries opposing the US Empire are presently not imperialist. You’re comparing them by abstracting the concept of bombing outside of the necessary context it exists in, ie you’re using metaphysics to analyze reality.
Depends on your definition. The U.S. fits the definition of “Informal Empire” pretty well, but it’s definitely not an old school empire like Rome or Britain
Imperialism isn’t something that exists as a static concept, but functions differently depending on the dominant mode of production. The US Empire absolutely fits the Marxist understanding of imperialism as a specific stage of late-monopoly capitalism.
Imperialism as a concept predates Marxism and isn’t reducible to Lenin’s model. We can debate which framework is more useful, but pretending there’s only one definition isn’t serious.
Are westerners only able to conceptualise the killing of civilians? Are they so far removed from having normal countries that they forget that wars are fought between armies?
The implication here is: “You people are detached, soft, and incapable of understanding real war.” That’s not an argument. That’s a moral superiority pose. It frames one group as hardened realists and the other as naïve spectators. Historically, that kind of framing is how conflicts get emotionally escalated. Dehumanization rarely begins with slurs. It begins with sweeping generalizations.
And the irony is thick. You’re accusing me of only conceptualizing civilian deaths, while simultaneously minimizing the reality that modern warfare absolutely does kill civilians. The idea that wars are cleanly fought “between armies” belongs in the 19th century, not the 21st. Civilian harm is a central moral and legal issue in contemporary conflict. That’s not Western fragility. That’s international humanitarian law.
Thats the trick. If a country doesn’t have a military and they have something like resources other countries want. The become puppets of the countries that have militaries. The exceptions are small countries that don’t have enough of anything anyone wants for others to bother taking it. They don’t tend to do so well usually.
Yeah i’m sure it’s a curse, and not centuries of colonialism, imperialism, uneven trade etc etc.
The Third World is not poor. You don’t go to poor countries to make money. There are very few poor countries in this world. Most countries are rich! The Philippines are rich! Brazil is rich! Mexico is rich! Chile is rich—only the people are poor. But there’s billions to be made there, to be carved out, and to be taken—there’s been billions for 400 years! The Capitalist European and North American powers have carved out and taken the timber, the flax, the hemp, the cocoa, the rum, the tin, the copper, the iron, the rubber, the bauxite, the slaves, and the cheap labour. They have taken out of these countries—these countries are not underdeveloped—they’re overexploited!
The “resource curse” is just people trying to pretend imperialism isn’t responsible. Norway has plenty of oil and they have a high quality of life, because nobody invaded them.
Plenty of these countries had leaders who wanted to use their resources to help the people, but the powers that be, most often the US, didn’t want that. And so for example Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, a peaceful, democratically elected progressive, was overthrown by the CIA, and he was replaced by a monarch who could be easily bribed and would use the oil to enrich himself. And when that monarch caved to domestic pressure and participated in an oil embargo, US support was withdrawn and he was overthrown and the current government came to power.
There’s no “mystery” or “curse.” It’s just imperialism. The story generally goes that these resources were stolen by force during colonialism and remained in foreign hands after independence and the country still functions as a neocolony, leading to poverty and exploitation, or war and instability if they challenge it.
Very much so. So ewhere there is a balance of having enough to be a stable country, but not so much to draw attention. But it’s a very small point to balance on.
Correct. If there is one, then others have to exist to balance them out. Only with none can we all exist without militaries. And that really should be a goal.
Without a military or nuclear weapons, what is preventing other countries from taking advantage at the first chance they get?
Criticize the U.S. all you want. But the country is full of valuable resources that other countries want. Take away the U.S.'s ability to defend themselves and the risk of foreign nations taking advantage will spike dramatically. Nukes are basically the ultimate “don’t even think about it” sign.
I never specifically said “joining US military is bad”, I said joining the military in general is a bad thing. And neither did I talk about nukes, which are the ultimate evil.
I also never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country, leaving it open for other countries to attack. I never talked about these things, about balance of power, about mutually assured destruction and all these geostrategic aspects of military logic.
All I said was - if you are a person who joins your country’s military, I despise you. Period. This is a statement I made completely disregarding all these other aspects you mention, and it is completely logically valid on its own.
Correct. You never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country.
I said “I wonder what would happen if we didn’t have a military”, and you made a comment about the little girl’s backpack. I followed up with a counter argument.
If you have nukes and are the only sick fucks ever top use it why do you need to ‘defend’ yourself everywhere in the world unprovoked.
get fucked with your BS. You’re parroting regime propaganda.
Even they at least became less hypocritical in naming it the Dep of War, not defense.
Maybe follow that lead if you want to be a little warcriminal imperialist bootlicker.
Every fucking day there’s some fucker online that makes me despise that cancer country even more.
Absolute scum of the earth
sorry full of valuable resources? what, corn? dataservers? pedophiles?
the U.S. is not some piggy bank waiting to be cracked. Realistically, the current US military exists to defend America from all the nations it’s pissed off by invading them in the past. It’s a self-fullfilling system.
I’m talking about big oil and gas production, food and farmland, massive agricultural output and the ability to export it at scale, freshwater and arable land (underappreciated, but increasingly strategic as climate stress rises elsewhere), minerals (some, not all).
And don’t forget non natural resources the U.S. has like:
Capital markets: Deep, liquid markets that can fund governments and companies. Money is a resource; the U.S. is one of the main wells.
technology and IP: Advanced R&D, software, aerospace, biotech, semiconductors design, and the companies that sit on them.
Security alliances and military reach: Not a resource in nature, but it functions like one. i
It shapes trade routes, deters threats, and sets terms.
The world’s reserve currency system: Being able to transact, borrow, and settle trade in USD is a kind of meta-resource. Others want access to it more than they want a mine.
That bundle is why the U.S. stays permanently relevant, for better and worse.
You failed to get the point I was making. Just because the military is a driving factor to technological progress, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing all of a sudden. And all that progress could also have been made by science. Wernher von Braun didn’t care who funded his research into rockets.
I wonder what would happen if we didn’t have a military at all
What kind of fantasy world are you living in?
Ah, I see. So when the U.S. bombs another country, it’s genocide. But if someone does it to the U.S. it’s a good thing? Got it.
The US Empire is an empire, countries opposing the US Empire are presently not imperialist. You’re comparing them by abstracting the concept of bombing outside of the necessary context it exists in, ie you’re using metaphysics to analyze reality.
Depends on your definition. The U.S. fits the definition of “Informal Empire” pretty well, but it’s definitely not an old school empire like Rome or Britain
Imperialism isn’t something that exists as a static concept, but functions differently depending on the dominant mode of production. The US Empire absolutely fits the Marxist understanding of imperialism as a specific stage of late-monopoly capitalism.
Imperialism as a concept predates Marxism and isn’t reducible to Lenin’s model. We can debate which framework is more useful, but pretending there’s only one definition isn’t serious.
Yeah it’s a good thing when fascist states get bombed. You’d be the kind to both sides WW2 if it was socially acceptable to go to bat for the nazis
And what about the innocent people who voted against the fascist government? They deserve to die too?
Are westerners only able to conceptualise the killing of civilians? Are they so far removed from having normal countries that they forget that wars are fought between armies?
Talk about cultural chauvinism.
The implication here is: “You people are detached, soft, and incapable of understanding real war.” That’s not an argument. That’s a moral superiority pose. It frames one group as hardened realists and the other as naïve spectators. Historically, that kind of framing is how conflicts get emotionally escalated. Dehumanization rarely begins with slurs. It begins with sweeping generalizations.
And the irony is thick. You’re accusing me of only conceptualizing civilian deaths, while simultaneously minimizing the reality that modern warfare absolutely does kill civilians. The idea that wars are cleanly fought “between armies” belongs in the 19th century, not the 21st. Civilian harm is a central moral and legal issue in contemporary conflict. That’s not Western fragility. That’s international humanitarian law.
Wont someone please consider the genociders??
I prefer that even more
This is what I look like when listening to the new Gorillaz album.
but think of the stock market!
Thats the trick. If a country doesn’t have a military and they have something like resources other countries want. The become puppets of the countries that have militaries. The exceptions are small countries that don’t have enough of anything anyone wants for others to bother taking it. They don’t tend to do so well usually.
It’s a race to the bottom.
ironically the countries with more natural resources typically have lower quality of life. this is known as the resource curse phenomenon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
Yeah i’m sure it’s a curse, and not centuries of colonialism, imperialism, uneven trade etc etc.
-Michael Parenti
The “resource curse” is just people trying to pretend imperialism isn’t responsible. Norway has plenty of oil and they have a high quality of life, because nobody invaded them.
Plenty of these countries had leaders who wanted to use their resources to help the people, but the powers that be, most often the US, didn’t want that. And so for example Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, a peaceful, democratically elected progressive, was overthrown by the CIA, and he was replaced by a monarch who could be easily bribed and would use the oil to enrich himself. And when that monarch caved to domestic pressure and participated in an oil embargo, US support was withdrawn and he was overthrown and the current government came to power.
There’s no “mystery” or “curse.” It’s just imperialism. The story generally goes that these resources were stolen by force during colonialism and remained in foreign hands after independence and the country still functions as a neocolony, leading to poverty and exploitation, or war and instability if they challenge it.
Very much so. So ewhere there is a balance of having enough to be a stable country, but not so much to draw attention. But it’s a very small point to balance on.
So what you’re saying is… superpower nations shouldn’t exist
Correct. If there is one, then others have to exist to balance them out. Only with none can we all exist without militaries. And that really should be a goal.
but they do. And now it is just a game of brinksmanshit
We wouldn’t see images like the Iranian girl’s rucksack smeared with blood.
Good point. But let me ask you this:
Without a military or nuclear weapons, what is preventing other countries from taking advantage at the first chance they get?
Criticize the U.S. all you want. But the country is full of valuable resources that other countries want. Take away the U.S.'s ability to defend themselves and the risk of foreign nations taking advantage will spike dramatically. Nukes are basically the ultimate “don’t even think about it” sign.
I never specifically said “joining US military is bad”, I said joining the military in general is a bad thing. And neither did I talk about nukes, which are the ultimate evil.
I also never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country, leaving it open for other countries to attack. I never talked about these things, about balance of power, about mutually assured destruction and all these geostrategic aspects of military logic.
All I said was - if you are a person who joins your country’s military, I despise you. Period. This is a statement I made completely disregarding all these other aspects you mention, and it is completely logically valid on its own.
Correct. You never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country.
I said “I wonder what would happen if we didn’t have a military”, and you made a comment about the little girl’s backpack. I followed up with a counter argument.
This is how conversations work.
If you have nukes and are the only sick fucks ever top use it why do you need to ‘defend’ yourself everywhere in the world unprovoked.
get fucked with your BS. You’re parroting regime propaganda.
Even they at least became less hypocritical in naming it the Dep of War, not defense.
Maybe follow that lead if you want to be a little warcriminal imperialist bootlicker.
Every fucking day there’s some fucker online that makes me despise that cancer country even more.
Absolute scum of the earth
They say ignorance is bliss. It must be nice to be as delusional as you and live in a peaceful hippy dippy little fantasy world.
Really don’t reply to me, you cunts make me sick.
go kill yourself
Well, aren’t you cheerful
blocking you cunt hope plenty of US degenerates and shitraeli scum die for years to come.
And that you’re with them.
I’ll gladly volunteer
sorry full of valuable resources? what, corn? dataservers? pedophiles?
the U.S. is not some piggy bank waiting to be cracked. Realistically, the current US military exists to defend America from all the nations it’s pissed off by invading them in the past. It’s a self-fullfilling system.
I’m talking about big oil and gas production, food and farmland, massive agricultural output and the ability to export it at scale, freshwater and arable land (underappreciated, but increasingly strategic as climate stress rises elsewhere), minerals (some, not all).
And don’t forget non natural resources the U.S. has like:
Capital markets: Deep, liquid markets that can fund governments and companies. Money is a resource; the U.S. is one of the main wells.
technology and IP: Advanced R&D, software, aerospace, biotech, semiconductors design, and the companies that sit on them.
Security alliances and military reach: Not a resource in nature, but it functions like one. i It shapes trade routes, deters threats, and sets terms.
The world’s reserve currency system: Being able to transact, borrow, and settle trade in USD is a kind of meta-resource. Others want access to it more than they want a mine.
That bundle is why the U.S. stays permanently relevant, for better and worse.
Your conscience is projecting
because we wouldn’t have the internet. the US military contributed significantly to the development of today’s internet.
they can stick the entire internet up their ass if it’s used to post idiotic exclamations like yours
Would we have the Autobahn if Hitler hadn’t built it?
probably with some time delay, the germans love a good race (/s)
apart from that, the military did some significant research into a lot of technology, including airplanes (and rockets), internet, nuclear energy.
You failed to get the point I was making. Just because the military is a driving factor to technological progress, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing all of a sudden. And all that progress could also have been made by science. Wernher von Braun didn’t care who funded his research into rockets.
What do you think the drones are for?