Imperialists par excellence? How’s that?
We are pro-democratic, and non-expansionist. We are for free elections and human rights.
This is just simply not true. We never militarily forced anyone into annexation. With Russia, the tactics of expansionism are always violent and painful.
What!
You need to bone up on your American history.
You're in California, aren't you? Your state used to be Mexico.
The entire Southwest used to be Mexico. America invaded Mexico, occupied Mexico city and annexed most the country.
This was less than ten years after the US annexed thousands of square miles of Cherokee territory and marched the people to Oklahoma in the dead of Winter.
We later contrived a war with Spain and seized the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and, temporarily, Cuba. We killed ~3 million Philippinos in a genocidal extermination.
A few years later we decided to build a canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific -- and seized Panama.
In fact, there's hardly a country in South or Central America that we haven't controlled, by one means or another, at one time.
Free elections and human rights? Every time an exploited people attempts to establish a democracy or 'take back their country', the US installs a repressive,right-wing dictator or puppet government.
America doesn't like democracies. They're bad for business, with all their red tape, share-the-wealth policies and concern for the general welfare. A good dictator will keep the people in line and protect exploitative, American owned industries, in exchange for American muscle keeping his job secure.
I can give you examples.
America has always been imperialist. "The business of America is business", not human rights or democracy.
From Major General Smedley Butler, USMC:
"It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested." Smedley Butler on Interventionism
Challenge: Pick any ten year period in the last century, and I'll list some American, imperialist shenanigans.
