I’d call them more than irritating lmao.

This is 100% about ratings and business. This news article is free publicity for NBC to have this woman probably talk trash about the coming election and recruit ”moderate” Republican viewers.

You make a good point. Everything but the word die is based. Should have just left it Tory Scum

Based?

I think comparing Venezuela to China is apt here. Both are “leftist” governments that the US is nominally opposed to, but we still allow trade with China despite growing tensions. Venezuela, and Cuba too, got embargoes from the US because of the idea of the Monroe doctrine and Roosevelt corollary (my neighborhood, my rules). The US can hurt them more for not falling in line.

I’d also argue the US is particularly mad at both nations because they escaped the cycle of the School of the Americas (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation) tendency to create right-wing dictators from US trained army officers in left swinging South American states.

I guess my point is that it’s the US leveraging its power to get what it wants, and I’m biased but trying to look at it from a more objective perspective. The US does not act as a monolith, there are people who oppose bases / promote isolationism which complicates the matter.

As an American I’m personally pissed that we have to deal with the sins of our forefathers for being greedy and trying to rectify that is going to be a slow process.

We’ve kept our hands off Venezuela

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68139518.amp

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10715

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gideon_(2020) - *US mercenaries

We haven’t pulled a Vietnam on Venezuela likely because of OPEC connections.

You cannot deny the influences of historical actions on modern politics. There’s a direct line of people who supported / enacted US power ambitions, that you’ve agreed with, to the modern day. Many of these people are either on their deathbed or 1-2 generations gone. Kissinger just died two months ago.

You’re justifying the power projection after the fact. The original question was why does the US have bases everywhere and they didn’t just appear one day. Many bases are in conquered countries from WW2 (Germany, Japan). There’s also history of the US placing troops with countries that nominally align with US interests, despite their despotic nature (S. Korean dictatorship, S. Vietnam, Cuban Bautista government etc.). US operations have also been implicated in overthrows of democracy (Iran shah reinstatement, Guatemala’s 1952 coup on Jacobo Arbenz) and the US has also supported deplorable governments like the Khmer Rouge (nominally communists but at odds with Vietnam in 1977) out of spite.

It’s all power projection, and one that primarily benefits the rich within the United States.

People need to understand that Iran is a direct result of the US and the UKs oil ambitions, because the unpopular reinstatement of the shah bred the environment for the Islamic Revolution to thrive, take power, and cause the problems we see today including the Houthis who clearly would have no love for the US because of its supply of armaments to the Saudis who have been bombing them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état

In 2023, the CIA admitted that the move to back up the coup was “undemocratic”.

Honestly one of the funniest things I’ve read on Wikipedia

Agreed that ISIS is a real threat and that it’s all incredibly complex and short responses on Lemmy won’t do the topic Justice.

I disagree with the statement:

We don’t really take power “just to take power”

as the history of US “Manifest Destiny” and colonialism were 100% about taking power. We also have the Monroe doctrine and Rosevelt corollary as examples of the US attempting to take power over an entire hemisphere.

The history of US power ambitions have essentially lead us to the modern day funding of bases across the world as we spend more on our military than the next ~10 nations combined. I’d argue that with two large oceans on either side and friendly nations north and south, that money is not for “defense” purposes.

Meh, the short answer is power projection.

Post WW2, the United States still had their industry intact whereas everywhere else was destroyed so they were the wealthiest nation, which has continued to this day, and leaders at the time wanted to keep it that way.

Interesting article about the wealth: https://medium.com/the-worlds-economy-and-the-economys-world/a-short-history-of-americas-economy-since-world-war-ii-37293cdb640#:~:text=At the end of World,net exporter of petroleum products.

Bases around the world let the US respond to basically any small threat it wants to, which helped keep its “most powerful nation” position.

It hasn’t always been successful and US power hegemony seems to be on the decline, but they still have bases everywhere even if they’re extremely unpopular like Okinawa.

Could someone more informed tell me or point me in the right direction of why Pakistan and Iran are having border skirmishes?

Are there historical tensions there beyond the border? Is it more than a difference in religions?

Neocolonialism, but yes indeed! The West’s history of colonialism plays well into Russian and Chinese neocolonialism narratives.

I think giving a moniker like “Axis of evil” is just silly. The implication is that there’s an “Axis of good”, but good for who? A Houthi could call the West the “axis of evil” and it’s as valid a moniker. You and I both probably agree on a similar morality and the US /Europe are definitely better places for science, intellectualism, and morality; but not as a monolith.

The US currently undergoes rampant human rights violations (border/migrants), state sponsored starvation (ending meal programs) and the destruction of female rights (abortion), coincidentally all exemplified by the One Star state of Texas.

So I wouldn’t call the US as a monolith good. It’s better than Russia, China, Iran, N Korea and others, but we could be doing so much better. Our problem is that we’re fighting anti-imperialist/occupier sentiments from within living memory abroad as well as our own stupids at home.

The stream isn’t always consistent and I ain’t got the patience to clean that shit up. Sittings easier.

There’s few differences between the state structure of North Korea and Saudi Arabia yet SA doesn’t show up on that list. Also this axis of evil is very funny to me because it’s just clearly from the American perspective, even though the US is to blame (UK is too) for the current shitty Iranian government because they reinstated and propped up the unpopular shah after a democratically elected revolution in the 50s, thus creating the environment the Islamic Revolution used to thrive.

IIRC houthis are Shia and their goal was to overthrow the presumably Sunni SA-backed Yemeni government. They have support from Iran due to Shia ties and are a thorn in SAs power projection in the region. The US is allied to SA and Israel and clashes with Iran so it’s not surprising they’re being used to disrupt western interests. They would clearly have no love for the US because of its weapon provisions to SA.

China and Russia, both adversarial to the US, love this and are clearly using anti-US / west sentiments to their benefit, even though they both are trash authoritarian governments. This is all, likely, a ripple effect from colonialism. China and Russia benefit from the US / the west having to fight the consequences of their colonialism, though both are neo-colonialists themselves.

TLDR: this is all not really that surprising.

Putin wants those excellent Baguettes

Which is also funny to me because I’d argue WW2 was one of the more moral wars to ever be fought considering the ideologies of Germany, Italy, and Japan at the time.

They probably don’t like talking about the events leading up to the war because they sympathize with the America First movement and, by extension, the Nazis.

Many of the republicans I’ve interacted with “love” WW2 history and it’s sadly funny to me that they should know the events leading up to the war and the policy of appeasement failing to achieve its goals, but they continue to regurgitate Fox News appeasement talking points at me.

It highlights the problem of cognitive dissonance lmao

The comments on that video are cancer. That level of astroturfing reminded me of why I left Reddit lmao.

IIRC the President has power over the navy to conduct essentially war acts for 30 days before congressional approval. Going after the constitutionality if this act is stupid. Focus on the anti-war angle.

I was specifically curious about the first source as I have heard from other sources (namely Behind the Bastards) that the US initially did not care much for Israel, the Soviets helped more, and it wasn’t until the early 60s after an aggressive lobbying campaign was Israel a solid US ally.

The Wikipedia page on the 1948 Arab-Israeli war has this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab–Israeli_War

Up to 100,000 Arabs, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres eastwards.[40]

This situation caused the United States to withdraw its support for the Partition Plan, encouraging the Arab League to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could put an end to the plan. However, the British decided on 7 February 1948 to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine by Transjordan.[41]

And later:

Thanks to funds raised by Golda Meir from sympathisers in the United States, and Stalin’s decision to support the Zionist cause, the Jewish representatives of Palestine were able to sign very important armament contracts in the East.

Which suggests that initially the US government did not support Israel as the ABC article suggests. The reporting seems to get around the factual claims by just quoting their source, but I think that “Democrats for Israel” dude is stretching his historical claims.

Thank you!