OGIONIK wrote:i have yet to hear one actual good reason for being at war for any reason, the only reason for war is to build empires, period.
Any war fought in self-defense is reasonable. The invasion of Afghanistan was reasonable (just barely) because the government of Afghanistan at that time--the Taliban-- harbored those who planned, funded and put into motion the attack on the United States on September 11th. It has become a dubious proposition, however, since the Bush administration put back into power the petty warlords and drug runners whom the Taliban had run out, because Bush and his Forty Thieves of Baghdad were so eager to get on with an invasion of Iraq. The Iraq war is completely unjustified on any allegation of national security.
Not all wars are for empire building. Most of the empire building of the United States has been done by American capitalists, and does not represent an imperial policy of the United States government. The invasion of Iraq is the first time in American history since the Mexican War that the government has, by policy, taken military measures to secure imperial benefits. In 1845, it was a land grab. You are naive, however, to see the invasion of Iraq as a land grab. None of the neo-con crowd foresee incorporating Iraq into the United States, or settling Americans on their territory. In fact, the neo-cons have their own web site,
the Project for a New American Century. This is an organization which was founded in 1997 by people whom we call neo-cons today, many of whom were members of the Reagan administration, and including many people who have been influential in the Shrub's administration; people such as Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle. They have been calling for the invasion and occupation of Iraq since the late 1990s, as anyone can see by reading the archives at the PNAC web site. Their purpose was not so simple minded as a land grab, though. Iraq has the world's second largest proven reserves of light, sweet crude--which is what people call the most valuable petroleum. Saudi Arabia has the largest proven reserves. We couldn't very well invade and occupy Saudi Arabia, which is our ally. In fact, Osama bin Laden has attacked American interests and the United States because there were American servicemen and -women in Saudi Arabia. The neo-cons at PNAC wanted military bases in southwest Asia, and they have only in recent years become aware of how embarrassing their policy statements are. There are some documents at the PNAC web site which you can no longer find, which were available just a few years ago. These documents clearly showed (and with a little work, you can still find the evidence at the PNAC web site) that the neo-cons want military bases in southwest Asia, and that they had a set of excuses lined up for an invasion of Iraq, where they intended to build the bases.
You are basically being naive. The aggressor in most wars has imperial ambitions. That doesn't mean that all wars are about empire, however. The imperial aspect of the invasion of Iraq, for example, was the hope of setting up military bases in the region of the world with the largest reserves of the most valuable petroleum. But even the neo-cons are stupid enough to think they could get away with it unless they pulled a bait and switch on the American public. The neo-cons set out to, and largely succeeded at convincing the Americans that the Iraqis were involved in the September 11th attacks--there is absolutely no evidence that this is true. They also set out to make the American public believe that Iraq was a threat because of weapons of mass destruction--of course, we've found no weapons of mass destruction, nor any evidence that Iraq had programs to produce them. They may have wanted them, but they didn't have them, and the UN inspectors were telling us the truth when they told us they had no womd programs--as has been proven since the invasion.
You are really making oversimplistic statements, and badly need to inform yourself about history--in this case, the history of the middle east and the so-called neo-conservative movement in the United States. But don't feel bad, others are just as bad. When "real life" writes:
So when a nation is attacked , if it defends itself it is 'building an empire' ?--he's being just as naive, and displaying just as much ignorance as you have done. Iraq did not attack us, nor were they threatening to do so. The invasion of Iraq was never remotely a war of self-defense.
Although not imperialistic in the classic sense of territorial expansion, a reasonable case could be made that the neo-con ambitions in Iraq were imperialist in nature.
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