Dying While Defending This Country Is A Lost Cause And A Waste Anymore.

[Caliman73]

44. Actually... we've had imperialist ambitions since way before 2004.

Think back to what Smedley Butler wrote about in "War is a Racket". He was a Marine general fighting to quell rebellions in Central America for United Fruit company in the 1900's. We took on the teetering Spanish Empire in 1900 and acquired the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and other territories, then spent years crushing native rebellions.

After WWII we were one of the only countries that had not sustained damage to our infrastructure and so we were able to spread out and place military installations all over the globe. Now, anytime anyone wants to pull back a bit, they are labelled as wanting to weaken America and leave us vulnerable. Democrats are called weak, when Democratic Presidents have been CIC in most of the major military conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The problem with America is that reality is one way, but we often choose to blind ourselves or see it only through lenses which make our intentions pure and innocent. Meanwhile we send poor and middle class people to fight and die so that we might have access to oil, or mineral wealth, or to keep shipping lanes under our control.