Is a Return to Colonialism Needed - Afghanistan and Haiti Events Sure Make it Seem So (interviews, soldiers)
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"Did it"? Perhaps you're unaware we haven't even BEGUN to get Americans out. There are over 10,000 American citizens stranded there stuck behind Taliban lines.
Also amazing people fail to understand WHY we keep a small presence in other countries
There are 29,000 American troops in South Korea. And thousands more elsewhere.
Do you seriously think they're there to "protect" the other countries? NO, it's to "PROTECT" the US and safeguard OUR country's interests including safety.
Which is EXACTLY what was SUPPOSED to happen in Afghanistan with a SMALL SMALL contingent left behind supporting the Afghans.
Do you really NOT know the reason we went there to begin with? You think it was to "solve Afghanistan's problems"?
It works both ways though. Without American involvement in the Korean War, the peninsula would have fallen to the government of the North. The country would have been unified, like Vietnam, under a single socialist banner.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
While I think that's true, I always had the sense that the Brits didn't understand the real implications of their colonialism. To boil it down to a simple analogy:
The Brit says: "But look, we're giving you good roads".
The Indian says: "But look, I want to be a free Indian man (or woman)".
The Brit: "But we're giving you refined English tea".
The Indian: "But I want Indian culture".
The bottom line is the desire for a people to be free to be themselves.
Britain was actually one of the better colonial powers.
Here's the view of an actual Indian.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Britain has no need to make an apology to India for Empire... - Nirpal Dhaliwal
Despite the country's vast population, there were never more than 70,000 British troops in India; the running of the country required an enormous infrastructure of native troops, police and bureaucrats. As Hitler observed, Indians merely had to spit all at once and every Briton in India would have drowned.
Indians assisted with Empire because it brought them unprecedented order and civility. Indians were no strangers to outside rulers; for eight centuries before the Raj, the sub-continent had been subjected to the plunder and depravity of the Mughals - Muslim rulers who came from as far west as Turkey.
Delhi was razed eight times in that period and great pyramids were constructed with the skulls of its inhabitants.
Because Islam permits the enslavement of non-Muslims, Indians were sold across the Islamic world in such quantities that the international price of slaves collapsed. The Afghan mountain range of the Hindu Khush (which translates as the 'Hindu Slaughter') is named after the huge numbers who died there while being marched to the markets of Arabia and Central Asia.
For all the artistic refinement and opulence of India's past rulers - and their poetry, music, and the magnificence of the Taj Mahal are testament to that - they oversaw a period of general barbarism in which the ordinary Indian was no more than a starving chattel.
The rebellions which eventually arose against the Mughals - such as the Sikhs in Punjab and the Marathas in the south - fractured the rulers' power, and enabled the British to get their own foot in the door.
At this point, it's important to remember that the British did not arrive in an idyllic sub-continent full of happy, contented Indians, but in one in extreme turmoil.
And, though primarily motivated by profit, they sought to apply humane values - even if at gunpoint.
In 1846, the British commissioner, John Lawrence, told the local elite that Punjabis could no longer burn their widows, commit female infanticide, nor bury their lepers alive.
When they protested, saying that he had promised there would be no interference in their religious customs, Lawrence steadfastly replied that it was British religious custom to hang anyone who did such things.
In addition to combating these barbaric practices, the British also outlawed slavery in 1843 at a time when an estimated 10 million Indians were slaves - up to 15 per cent of the population in some regions.
Yes, British rule was exploitative and took away more than it provided, but compared to what Indians had known previously, there was much to be thankful for.
This gratitude expressed itself in 1939 when, at the height of the independence movement led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, two million Indians nonetheless enlisted in the fight against fascism - the largest volunteer army in history.
It's no overstatement to say that, without the British, Indians would not even know what it is to be Indian.
After 800 years of Mughal rule, Hindu culture was in terminal decline and it was the likes of Warren Hastings and William Jones, the founders of the Asiatic Society, who began the collection and renewed study of India's ancient texts, educating Indians about their own rich and unique past.
And it was a Briton, Allan Octavian Hume, who helped found the Indian national Congress - the political party that would eventually lead the country to independence.
Thousands of Indians died building the railways of the Raj, but countless more died building the Taj Mahal and other useless baubles for their earlier rulers.
For all they extracted from India, the British left behind a practical network of transportation, governance and values without which India would not be the dynamic democracy it is today.
It is a mark of India's quiet appreciation as well as its great self-confidence that it asks for no apology for the past.
Out of respect, no Briton should be condescending enough to offer one.
This is not America's problem. In the case of Afghanistan. What a mistake. Back after 9/11 we should have ordered the Taliban to bring forward OBL or we would nuke or bomb the country until nothing was left of it. We would have saved a lot of money and a lot of American lives and solved the Afghanistan problem forever if they did not give us OBL.
It works both ways though. Without American involvement in the Korean War, the peninsula would have fallen to the government of the North. The country would have been unified, like Vietnam, under a single socialist banner.
80,000 Americans died in those 2 wars. Not a good trade off at all. We should not be fighting other countries battles.
It works both ways though. Without American involvement in the Korean War, the peninsula would have fallen to the government of the North. The country would have been unified, like Vietnam, under a single socialist banner.
Looking back, if we could get a do-over, then my position would be to stay out of Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam.
First, Korea.
Japan colonized Korea starting in 1910. In 1905 the Taft-Katsura Agreement recognized a Japanese "sphere of influence" over Korea and in return the Japanese recognized an American "sphere of influence" over the Philippines. The Japanese occupation of Korea was remarkable for its brutality, which was seen in most places occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army (JIA) (read up about Nanking, it's sickening).
At the end of WW-2 the USA and Russia pushed the JIA out of Korea and we agreed to split Korea into two "spheres of influence" with the Russians getting the north and the USA getting the south. At the time of bifurcation just about all of the heavy industry was in the north, under Russia. The USA got the southern half, mostly rice paddies. Such a deal.
IMO we should have let Russia have it all, what's the point of falling over our sword for illiterate rice paddy farmers. But in that era we were deathly afraid of "godless communism" and felt we had to fight it and stop it everywhere, so we took the short end of the stick. At the same time we made this commitment to stay in Korea, we were vacating our presence in Vietnam, more on that later. So, since 1945 we've been supporting S. Korea with military aid and fought the Korean War to protect South Korea. What has it got us? Well, the steel mills, shipyards and electronics industries that used to be on our west coast (and Pittsburgh, and Gary, and Baltimore, and Birmingham and Johnstown and Bethlehem and Wheeling and Youngstown and ... and ... ) went to S. Korea (and Taiwan, more on that later). We may have built up our "ally" in S. Korea but at the expense of our own manufacturing base. Such a deal.
Second, Taiwan.
In 1949 mainland China fell to the communist forces of Mao Zedong who won the civil war that had raged for 3-4 years. The "government" of Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island of Taiwan. Once again, in our anti-communist zeal we took the inane position that Chaing's government was the "real" China and we've backed Taiwan for decades with military support. We may have built up our "ally" in Taiwan but at the expense of our own steel mills, shipyards and electronics industries that used to be part of our national manufacturing base. Such a deal.
Third, Vietnam.
Much of the area we know as Vietnam once was part of France's colonial empire. In the second half of the 1800s the area truly came under solid French rule and became known as French IndoChina. The origins of France's involvement dates way back to the late 1700s when Jesuit priests established trade between France and the region and petitioned for France's military involvement. (What on earth are priests doing in commercial efforts and calling for military interventions? More on that later).
In the WW-1 era if a local Vietnamese needed a college education he was sent to Paris, which is exactly where Ho Chi Minh was in the years of WW-1. He saw the carnage of trench warfare. At the end of that war our President Woodrow Wilson called for a League of Nations and implored the colonial powers of Europe to free their colonies. The colonial powers of Europe scoffed at Wilson but Ho Chi Minh liked what Wilson said and felt that at least the Americans were on their side in throwing off colonial rule since we had kicked the British out during our own American Revolution. Ho went back to Vietnam and worked tirelessly to kick the French out of his country.
Now, for the rest of the story. During WW-2 the French vacated IndoChina and the JIA rolled in to run the place and continue to bleed the country of its resources, mostly rubber for vehicle tires, and were typically brutal. In May 1945 our OSS (later becoming the CIA) parachuted-in a 12-man team (later becoming the Green Beret A-Team) who were to hook up with the local resistance fighters and work together to push the JIA out of there. The leader of the local resistance was dying of some tropical disease but the medical member of our team was able to save his life. That man was Ho Chi Minh, who again looked favorably upon Americans. But as soon as WW-2 ended with the signing of the peace treaty in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri the USA decided it had seen enough of war and yanked our people out of IndoChina, bidding goodbye to Ho Chi Minh and left the door open for the French to waltz back in as if nothing had happened and resume colonial milking of local resources.
In the 1950 timeframe Ho Chi Minh is known to have sent two written pleas to our State Department asking the USA to use our relations with France to get France to free Vietnam from colonial rule. The USA never replied to Ho who was left with nowhere to turn for help but to Moscow. Ho's forces fought the French and in 1954 defeated the French in a battle at Dien Bien Phu that ended in the Geneva Accords of 1954 which dealt with the dismantling of French Indochina. The heavily Catholic north came under Ho Chi Minh and his group, the south under a non-communist group. A migration of Catholic Vietnamese to the south saw about a million people move to the south, which eventually saw devout Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem become President and it was he who subsequently refused to allow the agreed-to elections, thereby leading to the Vietnam War between North and South. There is speculation that President Kennedy, a Catholic, was urged by the Catholic Church to protect S. Vietnam since there were a few million Catholics there to protect from "godless communism." Such a deal.
Wrapping it all up.
Our insane preoccupation to stop communism has led us down so many dead end roads it isn't funny. Containing Russia is one thing, but fighting and dying over rice paddies in countries of no strategic importance simply has bled us to death financially, not to mention the many thousands of deaths, loss of manufacturing, and deaths of despair as our own unemployed turn to alcohol, drugs and opioids to mask the pain of a hopeless existence.
We should have stayed totally out of all three places and not installed puppets in our image. We did it again in Afghanistan, as did the Russians in the 1980s.
The CIA told President Johnson that a war in Vietnam was not winnable, that no matter how many more men General Westmoreland asked for that N. Vietnam would match it on the battle field, and they did.
The key point of failure in all 3 places, 4 if we count Afghanistan, is that these wars have two faces, one face being a civil war and one face being a war of liberation to expel the white man who is there to pillage and exploit local resources and peoples. We fought our own war of liberation in 1776 to kick out the British, but since WW-2 we seem to have forgotten our own insistence on local sovereign rule and sided with the wrong side every time.
Bottom line.
NO! No one needs to bring back colonialism, to do so is nuts, we've BTDT and failed, as have many European nations. Colonialism is DOA.
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Last edited by Mike from back east; 08-19-2021 at 02:30 PM..
Looking back, if we could get a do-over, then my position would be to stay out of Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam.
...
Second, Taiwan.
In 1949 mainland China fell to the communist forces of Mao Zedong who won the civil war that had raged for 3-4 years. The "government" of Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island of Taiwan. Once again, in our anti-communist zeal we took the inane position that Chaing's government was the "real" China and we've backed Taiwan for decades with military support. We may have built up our "ally" in Taiwan but at the expense of our own steel mills, shipyards and electronics industries that used to be part of our national manufacturing base. Such a deal.
...
Just regarding Taiwan, it should be noted that the Republic of China was the real government from 1912 until 1945, when the war with Japan ended and the civil war came to the forefront.
Until 1949, Mao and the Communists were an insurgency that gradually took over the countryside, while the ROC was the legitimate, recognized government with a regular army, air force, and navy, cabinet ministers and agencies etc. But the ROC lost the countryside and was only powerful in the cities (in the non-Japanese areas 1938-1945).
We could not have reasonably said "Okay, it's 1949 and the ROC lost the civil war and fled to Taiwan with remnants of their armed forces, so let's just forget about them and recognize Mao as the legit ruler."
France and Britain did recognize Mao pretty fast. Britain in 1950, mainly I believe to save Hong Kong and Macau from communist takeover.
The U.S. had no particular incentive to recognize the PRC so stayed with Taiwan, partly because in the early years, especially during the Korean War, there was actually a possibility of knocking the Communists out of power. MacArthur wanted not only to defeat the North Koreans (most of their fighting force were actually Korean-Chinese from over the border) but to march to Beijing itself.
Later Taiwan became a pawn of the Cold War. The U.S. couldn't very well say, "Well, 800 million is the real China, so zai jian Taiwan!". Fast forward to 1978 when Jimmy Carter did finally recognize China as the sole representative of China, with Taiwan as a rogue province to eventually some day be reunified peacefully, quote unquote.
It's true that Taiwan for a while became America's factory, as people called it in the late 1970s-1980s when they really were pretty much making everything for us. Yet, we never felt threatened by them; they were a tiny island of 18 million people (now 23 million) and they were (and still are) fanatically pro-American. After 1980, they introduced democratic reforms and transitioned from a military dictatorship into a full-blown electoral democracy with freedom of the press.
For these reasons, I feel that we did the right thing to stand by Taiwan; we protected them from invasion in 1949 and at several points in the 1950s, and the result is an exemplary country, a democracy with freedoms and hard working businesspeople that is a shining beacon in Asia.
If that's colonialism, or rather patronage by a great power, it succeeded brilliantly.
I'm so sick of the US trying to "spread Democracy" and "build nations" at the point of a gun. I can't wait for this operation in Afghanistan to be officially over, and get ALL of our Soldiers/Sailors/Airmen/Marines home. No, we don't need to bring back American or European Imperialism. We have done enough damage to Africa, Latin America, and Asia. No we did not "make them better places", we forcefully imposed our values on other societies who never wanted our input in the first place.
To my fellow Veterans of war, Thank you for your service. Time to come home and let other nations live they way THEY want to.
This is not America's problem. In the case of Afghanistan. What a mistake. Back after 9/11 we should have ordered the Taliban to bring forward OBL or we would nuke or bomb the country until nothing was left of it. We would have saved a lot of money and a lot of American lives and solved the Afghanistan problem forever if they did not give us OBL.
A preposterous suggestion. It was always up to us to go get him, and that's what we did.
The doctrine of preemptive strike should remain in force. America has many friends and many spies. If someone is training terrorists, then the training site with its leaders needs to be taken out no matter where it is.
Attacks such as those that occurred on February 26, 1993, the embassy attacks in Tanzania and Kenya, and the September 11 attacks, as well as other, lower-grade attacks, emanate from Afghanistan and other failed states.
Actually, they all emanated from Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabi doctrine supported and perpetrated by Saudi Arabia.
(1) What makes you think colonization would reduce migration from Haiti? Experience suggests that if anything colonization ensures a steady stream of migrants from said colony. France is full of Algerians/Moroccans/Senegalese, the UK is full of Indians/Pakistanis/Jamaicans etc.
And the US has a lot of Filipinos and Puerto Ricans.
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