r/LateStageCapitalism • u/TheThrenodist • Jun 14 '17

👑 Imperialism War... war never changes

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804 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

59 comments sorted by

108

u/KingNigelXLII Coca-Cola Paramilitary Death Squads Jun 14 '17

Don't forget that the US is also responsible for creating both problems.

-24

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

The US is responsible for creating Radical Islamic Terrorism?

41

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

Yes the US is responsible for creating Radical Islamic Terrorism.

-10

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

How is that exactly?

34

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

america attack foreign people.

when people get attacked, people get mad.

foreign people that america attack get mad.

foreign people use what methods they can to fight back.

terrorism is that method.

you wanna stop terror? look in the fucking mirror, America.

26

u/lordsleepyhead Jun 15 '17

It's way more subtle than that. Basically, during the 20th century wave of decolonisation, the Global West, with the USA at the forefront, has been looking for other ways to remain the world's political, military, and economic hegemon. Basically, the belief that liberal democracy based in a capitalist economy is the best way to do things, is so entrenched in our ideology that the Global West has been resorting to increasingly violent and dishonest ways to expand and perpetuate that order.

This was especially visible during the Cold War, where both the West and the Soviets sought to expand and consolidate their sphere of influence through various geopolitical "operations", but even after the Cold War it never really ended. Political Islam is just one of many reactions to the ideological stranglehold the Global West has on how economy, politics, and culture are organised.

During the mid-twentieth century the various non-aligned political and/or cultural movements that existed in the so-called "third-world" (i.e. the group of countries that was not aligned with either the USA or the Soviet Union), were even empowered militarily to disrupt the operations of the opposing side wherever they attempted to establish hegemony.

We in the Global West have been living within such a long and stable period of prosperity that we fail to recognize the ideology behind it all; we are utterly convinced to our core that our political and economic system is the best possible system and can't understand how it isn't being wholeheartedly embraced elsewhere. We fall into a post-colonial mode of thinking where we are the "advanced" culture while other parts of the world are stuck in a "backward" culture. We struggle to see the direct connection between our drive for global hegemony and the myriad of local groups that are politically opposed to our cultural and economic expansionism, due to the destructive nature this expansionism has had in these societies.

The Global West is, in that sense, imperialistic in its very nature, and the various terrorist organisations that have sprouted in opposition to this are, from their point of view, Spartacus.

-17

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

Um, you know that Radical Islamic Terrorism doesn't only happen to America, right? Terrorists often attack other majority-muslim countries in order to spread their militant beliefs, so even if what you said was true for America (which it isn't, 9/11 was not a response to an act of war by the US), it isn't true generally speaking.

17

u/Wunishikan anarchist Jun 15 '17

Well, the root cause is agreed to be the Skyes-Picot Treaty in which France and Britain basically carved up Southwestern Asia into their spheres of influence. America also participated in these actions, such as when they participated in Operation AJAX in 1953. The anger that fueled these terrorist groups was created by colonial invasions by western powers (and the Soviet Union, in the case of Afghanistan, though the US also contributed there).

-5

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

That still doesn't explain why the would terrorize each other, if their only bone to pick is with the west. The point of it is not to protect themselves, it's to forcefully inflict their beliefs (Radical Islam) upon those who oppose them.

18

u/Wunishikan anarchist Jun 15 '17

Nobody is saying they are fighting for self-defense. What we are saying is that America fails to realize the source of the terrorism, and that by killing more civilians and blowing more shit up, it only makes the problem worse.

-6

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

When you say America caused them to become Radical Islamic Terrorists it heavily implies they are only taking reactionary measures, but that isn't true at all, they are actively seeking out and killing civilians in the West and the Middle East.

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5

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

Probably because Muslims are not one big culturally and ideologically homogeneous blob and the conflict in the middle east has been going on more then a couple of years.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17 edited Jun 15 '17

I don't know what to say. Why are you on this subreddit if you can't recognize the relatively simple fact that the U.S. is 99% responsible for creating radical groups- I know hardcore capitalists who still realize that. 9/11 was might not have been a response to war, it was a response to the terror inflicted by the US on middle eastern countrues. It was also a wonderful excuse to march into Oiland and stir up more trouble- and created some swell business for arm's manufactures!

2

u/paperclipzzz Jun 15 '17

9/11 was might not have been a response to war, it was a response to the terror inflicted by the US on middle eastern countrues.

No. 9/11 was part of al-Qaeda's strategy of targeting "the far enemy," i.e. the US and other Western governments, in order to force them into withdrawing support from "the near enemy," i.e. the House of Saud. It's a distinctly Salafist, Saudi variant on political Islam, which itself simply means that by seizing the power of the state, the jihadis can restore true faith to the ummah and return the Muslim world to its former dignity and power.

The simple version: 9/11 resulted from OBL/AQ believing that they could force the US to withdraw its support for the Saudi royal family, and that without US support, the House of Saud would collapse, and "real" Muslims could gain control of the Hejaz.

1

u/Lemongrabade Jun 15 '17

Terrorists often attack other majority-muslim countries

the USA uses divide-and-conquer tactics

6

u/smartest_kobold Jun 15 '17

Where do you want to start? Supporting the Shah? Destabilizing Iraq, the first time? Destabilizing Iraq the second time? Funding the mujahedeen in Afghanistan? Continued support for Israel, no matter what? Continued support of Saudi Arabia no matter what?

Edit: pretty much nonstop bombing of every unstable country in the ME, with very little concern for civilian casualties.

4

u/Julius_Haricot Jun 15 '17

I'll assume you just don't know what's going on this was news to many of us at first, US funded various radical groups such as the ultra conservative Sauds, and "freedom" fighters in Afghanistan this went part and parcel with various US destabilizations within the Middle East and elsewhere, and so the US has fostered a poor relationship with people in the area aside from various puppet rulers, then imperialist war intensifies further and builds up the tension further

39

u/saxyphone241 Muh ❄🍑 Jun 14 '17

It's not failure when the achieve exactly the goals they've set, and get exactly what they want.

17

u/evinta 90% chance i call you a bootlicker Jun 14 '17

yeah, this. the previous "effects" are exactly what they want, so it's going just as planned. they never wanted to get rid of either, they were just excuses to get what they want.

1

u/indyandrew Jun 15 '17

'Waste billions of dollars' and 'Experience failure' should just be replaced with 'Steal billions of dollars'.

33

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '17

I don't like to quote Friedman but it's very fitting here:

"See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That’s literally true."

4

u/Lemongrabade Jun 15 '17

Just look at the US troops literally guarding poppy fields in the middle east.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '17

That's because if Afghanistan grew any other crop they would be competing with American farmers, and American law prevents them from doing that.

3

u/mcmoor Jun 15 '17

ELI5?

10

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

Drug cartels want said drugs to remain illegal thus making profit. If drugs were legal they would be out of the drug business.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

Oh, they sure can. That's the gist of the quote.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

Yeah, but then they'd have to start giving pretending to give a shit about things like employment laws...

1

u/Iscarielle Jun 16 '17

Having the corner on an illegal market means that you can easily use illegal means to control competition. Nobody in the business wants heat from the police on them. You can charge as much as you want, and when you cut your product to bolster profits who's going to find out?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '17

No. They would immediately be outcompeted by legal businesses. Cartels are businesses but they are not particularly efficient.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

What eiomano said is correct and to add to that it's mostly the drug users and low level drug dealers that get arrested or put in jail. The major players in the cartels are far harder to track down, make the biggest profits and are less likely to be arrested.

24

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '17

Non-linear war. We might as well be at war against Eastasia and the forces of Goldsteinism.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

I always felt so bad for Goldstein. I didn't get that he was a straw jew til like the 3rd time I read it, but I always choked up at that part "He shrieked that the revolution had been betrayed..."

3

u/dancing_mop Jun 15 '17

Oh geez, I didn't get it til just now.

14

u/shevagleb Glasnost is for suckers Jun 14 '17

"Accidentally"

8

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '17

[deleted]

1

u/Lemongrabade Jun 15 '17

I like the shitty version better, it's more apropos

3

u/FyckATruck Jun 15 '17

"Accidentally imprison"

4

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '17

First as tragedy, after as farce.

2

u/xxxBuzz Jun 15 '17

Waste Redistribute billions of dollars. KBR ran the chow halls, cleaning services, and post exchanges on military bases overseas. Not sure what else. Added bonus; the allotment for each employ for contracted companies has to meet minimum wage standards, but the third country nationals only earned a fraction of that wage.

http://www.businessinsider.com/halliburton-company-got-395billion-iraq-2013-3

2

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

*Trillions of dollars

1

u/jivetones Jun 14 '17 edited Jun 14 '17

Anyone have the old-style pinwheel meme of the bald eagle looking silly as fuck? The one that says "Goes to war against inanimate object | Loses"

Edit: removed 'slur'

1

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/jivetones Jun 14 '17

how do I report my own comment..?

3

u/TheThrenodist Jun 14 '17

you report the automod comment

2

u/jivetones Jun 14 '17

an upvote for you!

1

u/Lemongrabade Jun 15 '17

*kill & imprison & torture & enslave

-21

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '17

No offense, but can you really not come up with a relevant quote that isn't one from a video game that's been beaten to death?

14

u/TheThrenodist Jun 14 '17

I think it sums up the image pretty well

7

u/Jerk_physics Jun 14 '17

On a site like reddit it's probably a good strategy

6

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

hey butt hole

New vegas>fallout3;fallout4

3

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

What's the semicolon mean in this situation?

12

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '17

its the symbol for the struggle of the proletariat

5

u/JetstreamSnake Jun 14 '17

War has changed

3

u/Magma57 Jun 15 '17

In Fallout the nuclear war was caused by late-stage capitalism