Everyone is talking about the American soldiers killed in Jordan. But I don’t know why they were there to begin with.

  • Hegar@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    Empires still have allies and aligned interests. It makes sense for Jordan to host a US base because we’re the most powerful imperial power on the planet.

    The roman empire is a great example because their forts were all up and down their trade routes.

    Imperialism is when you conquer a region

    Even the dictionary defines imperialism much more broadly:

    “1. The extension of a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political dominance over other nations.” (American Heritage dictionary - I just typed ‘imperialism definition’ into my browser)

    We absolutely have economic and political dominance - and massive military dominance - over other nations.

    My favorite definition of an empire is a military, economic or bureaucratic institution that siphons resources from the periphery to the center. That can be done with a military, like we did in iraq, but it’s much smoother to do by offering reasons for local elites to buy in and only deploying force when unavoidable.

    • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The Iraqi Constitution says that Iraq is in charge of the oil, and what US imported we paid a fair price for.

      And most of Iraq’s exports is oil. So how is this imperialism? Iraq keeps it’s most precious resource and we pay a fair price for it despite militarily enforcing the area. In fact, there is a lot of criticism from the Republican base that we didn’t take advantage of the Iraqis.

      Are you saying that we SHOULD have take the oil??

      • One_Honest_Dude@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        We overthrew their government and the government we put in power is more friendly toward us. How is that not imperialism?

        • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I’m not denying that we got rid of Saddam. What I’m saying is that the move isn’t as self-serving as many critics try to force. The earlier post is trying to argue that we’ve somehow stolen the resources of Iraq, but no such thing has happened.