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How the US has hidden its empire

theguardian.com

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Re: How the US has hidden its empire

#91

Post by newen »

maxxxxx wrote: post #85
balt_s wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're a bit past that right now.

What makes you think that?

You talk like you have been living under a rock for the past three years. Trump got politically famous through the birther movement. Most of the people who support Trump believe in a lot of these rumors, as you call them, or fake news, as the rest of the world now call them.

Fake news has been a big problem around the world for the past few years and the media has acknowledged and widely publicised it as a problem since 2016. Since a lot of people get their news from Facebook now, and Facebook has been algorithmically recommending fake news articles to people, Facebook has gotten a lot of flak for it, including the CEO being called to testify about it in Congress. A lot of people are now trying to figure out how to combat fake news and this has been on the news and this website for the last few years.

Re: How the US has hidden its empire

#92

Post by jfk13 »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #89
jfk13 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget Malaya (as it was then known) and Hong Kong, too.

True, I mentioned it in my follow up. Wasn't HK a month or two after, rather than same day?

It was attacked on December 8th, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hong_Kong.

Re: How the US has hidden its empire

#93

Post by jfk13 »

yellowapple wrote: post #90
jfk13 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (every American life lost matters) Are non-American lives somehow worth less? (Or just worthless?) That's the kind of ethno-centric mindset that doesn't even bother to count the civilian "collateral damage" as long as our guys are safe in their body armor or -- better -- thousands of miles away directing drones from behind a desk. It doesn't help much with building intercultural trust and understanding, though, or…

By "American lives", I meant "lives lost as a result of an attack on American soil". That includes civilian lives, including civilians in American territories (i.e. the Philippines, which was part of America at the time, and Hawaii/Wake/Guam/Midway, which still are). While I understand that this can be an emotional topic, I would appreciate it if you refrained from putting words in my mouth.

The point isn't the exact semantics of "American lives", it's that you chose to identify a particular kind of lives that "matter". Whether or not you meant it that way, it's easy for a reader to see this as implying that other lives matter less, especially as this kind of attitude (and phrasing) is pretty widespread.

A more inclusive "every life lost matters" would have served equally well in the context, wouldn't it?

Re: How the US has hidden its empire

#94

Post by yellowapple »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #12
yellowapple wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that the Pearl Harbor attack specifically was the primary attack (at least on that front, i.e. excluding the Philippines), and that the Wake and Midway attacks that happened were incidental (or at most in support of) that attack. While I hate the idea of quantity of lives lost being any sort of metric for the "importance" of an attack (every American life lost matters), Pearl Harbor took the brunt of it. If…

It was definitely the primary attack. That's where First Air Fleet was going and they only had so many carriers. Spread them around and they might have all failed. Midway and Wake were much smaller attacks, but I'm not sure they were quite incidental, weren't they both significant oiling bases? They were certainly both part of Yamamoto's first phase strategy. So were the Philippines, Malaya, and Borneo. Malaya and Ph…

"Midway and Wake were much smaller attacks, but I'm not sure they were quite incidental, weren't they both significant oiling bases?"

They were more significant as refueling stops for transpacific flights, and as projection points for America's air and naval power. Japan wanted to use them for the same purpose, but was unable to; even with the "successful" invasion of Wake Island, the American submarine blockade kept it from being strategically useful to Japan.

Ultimately, the US was able to build up its carrier force enough to offset the need for these force projection points (or at least the need for Wake, given that they didn't retake it until after Japan had already surrendered).

Re: How the US has hidden its empire

#95

Post by vivekd »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #60
YUMad wrote: post #58

This is the reason why China finds it acceptable to act as they do in quite a few things, such as attempts to enlarge their EEZ. In their mind, they are just doing what USA did too, so it's a fair game. But they do not understand, refuse to understand, or simply hold irrelevant the narrative manipulation that is necessary to pull it off, and this is something US excels at. The 'spreading freedom' meme is just one exa…

Please attend to your facts: -The fire bombing of Dresden was executed jointly by the United States and United Kingdom, with the UK flying more sorties. This occurred during a war when Germany was executing strategic bombing campaigns against the UK. -The United States of America did not fire bomb Kyoto. Nobody did.

US did not firebomb Kyoto specifically but they did firebomb many of Japan's wood and paper urban areas including Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka.

Here is the video of McNamara, the man who helped plan the attacks, reflecting on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RceLAhPOS9Q

Re: How the US has hidden its empire

#96

Post by maxxxxx »

newen wrote: post #91
maxxxxx wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that?

You talk like you have been living under a rock for the past three years. Trump got politically famous through the birther movement. Most of the people who support Trump believe in a lot of these rumors, as you call them, or fake news, as the rest of the world now call them. Fake news has been a big problem around the world for the past few years and the media has acknowledged and widely publicised it as a problem si…

"A lot of people are now trying to figure out how to combat fake news and this has been on the news and this website for the last few years."

You are pretty naive if you think this nonsense will be fixed in a substantial way. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are dependent on outrage and will not do much to stop it. Yes, there are some people here and in the news discussing these issues but at the same time there are are many more people making a good living off perpetuating propaganda. The most that will happen to Facebook will be a lot of hot air and maybe a slap on the wrist.

Re: How the US has hidden its empire

#97

Post by subjoriented »

YUMad wrote: post #58

This is the reason why China finds it acceptable to act as they do in quite a few things, such as attempts to enlarge their EEZ. In their mind, they are just doing what USA did too, so it's a fair game. But they do not understand, refuse to understand, or simply hold irrelevant the narrative manipulation that is necessary to pull it off, and this is something US excels at. The 'spreading freedom' meme is just one exa…

This comment is whataboutism. The topic is very clearly about American activity. I wish I had an account long enough to flag this.

Re: How the US has hidden its empire

#98

Post by doktrin »

freeflight wrote: post #83
doktrin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up around US military bases in Japan, and the same holds true : they're basically "little Americas" where you can pay in USD and buy Twizzlers (among other things, but I happened to like twizzlers) An open question I have after reading your comment is whether or not this isn't true of other countries foreign miltary installations (like the French bases in Djibouti, etc.). Intuitively it seems like due to the n…

> Intuitively it seems like due to the nature of military installations, it makes sense to treat them like an extension of the home country - but I'd be curious to see if other countries approach it differently. As silly as it might sound: There's no country to actually compare it to because the US is pretty much an outlier in terms of scale and intensity of their military bases on foreign ground. That's also the rea…

> There's no country to actually compare it to because the US is pretty much an outlier in terms of scale and intensity of their military bases on foreign ground.

In terms of scale, of course - but the US is not the only country with foreign military installations. Just off the top of my head, France, the UK and Russia all have long-term out-of-country bases.

Do literally none of these countries have anything that is remotely equivalent to a PX (seems unlikely)? If so, do they pay with their own currency or the local one, and are those transactions subject to local taxes? At the end of the day I expect it boils down to whatever SOFA is in place, but it's a legitimate question IMO.

Re: How the US has hidden its empire

#99

Post by yellowapple »

jfk13 wrote: post #93
yellowapple wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "American lives", I meant "lives lost as a result of an attack on American soil". That includes civilian lives, including civilians in American territories (i.e. the Philippines, which was part of America at the time, and Hawaii/Wake/Guam/Midway, which still are). While I understand that this can be an emotional topic, I would appreciate it if you refrained from putting words in my mouth.

The point isn't the exact semantics of "American lives", it's that you chose to identify a particular kind of lives that "matter". Whether or not you meant it that way, it's easy for a reader to see this as implying that other lives matter less, especially as this kind of attitude (and phrasing) is pretty widespread. A more inclusive "every life lost matters" would have served equally well in the context, wouldn't it…

The context was an attack on American soil and ascertaining the primary target of that attack. Casualties on the American side are definitely the more relevant metric than, say, casualties on the Japanese side.

Besides, the non-American lives lost - that is, the Japanese lives lost - were lost specifically because they were attacking American soil unprovoked and by surprise. While their lives certainly did matter, and I do sympathize with the soldiers and their families who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, it should be entirely unsurprising that, you know, maybe I'll have a little more sympathy for the defenders. This is not a US-centric mindset, by the way (despite me happening to be American), unless you think extending the same difference in sympathy to Chinese defenders v. Japanese aggressors in the same exact war is somehow "US-centric", or similarly extending the same difference in sympathy to Middle Eastern defenders v. American aggressors.

Re: How the US has hidden its empire

#100

Post by newen »

maxxxxx wrote: post #96
newen wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You talk like you have been living under a rock for the past three years. Trump got politically famous through the birther movement. Most of the people who support Trump believe in a lot of these rumors, as you call them, or fake news, as the rest of the world now call them. Fake news has been a big problem around the world for the past few years and the media has acknowledged and widely publicised it as a problem si…

"A lot of people are now trying to figure out how to combat fake news and this has been on the news and this website for the last few years." You are pretty naive if you think this nonsense will be fixed in a substantial way. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are dependent on outrage and will not do much to stop it. Yes, there are some people here and in the news discussing these issues but at the same time there a…

Yes, it's been 2 years since the problem has been publicised and discussed but fake news is still widespread. So clearly it is a difficult problem that is hard to fix. But stop talking about it like you just discovered that fake news exists. I'm not sure what kind of discussion you were trying to start by doing that.
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