As for imperial motivations, I think that's the strongest claim I made.
I think there are generally two perspectives on US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan:
The idealist perspective is that we invaded to thwart evil and to decrease the chances of domestic terrorism in the US.
The realist perspective is that wars are not about good and evil but about land and resources, and that the rest of the rhetoric is just a veneer added to help sell the war.
Iraq is the most valuable piece of land in the middle east. Afghanistan is also tremendously valuable. Perhaps my mention of them being the 51st and 52nd US states was hyperbole, but clearly the US wants to install client regimes in both places.
What are the characteristics of a client regime? Democracy is not usually valued all that much (hence our removal of democratically elected leaders around the world), thuggery is tolerated (hence the bribing of Afghan warlords, etc.) and all that is expected is that the state do the US's bidding in exchange for military protection and often aid.
In terms of military strategy, all this makes sense. You want to use soft power... better to bribe some warlords than to risk American lives, etc. Better to install a client regime that will prevent a possible enemy from consolidating power, etc.
The issue I have with this is that most people fail to see this as the brutal power projection of a massive empire.
In my opinion, we can't have it both ways... we can't be a pluralistic, free society and also cause so much suffering via our imperial "churn".
If you read the essay that Condi wrote in Foreign Affairs a few years ago in which she described in detail the "Bush Doctrine", you'll notice that she musters her significant academic training in an attempt to merge the notion of free society values with imperial power projection.
In my view, any explanation boils down to saying "We're going to civilize those savages, even if we have to kill quite a few to do so".
At this point, the side-effects of past Imperial actions are nearly impossible to differentiate from organic events. What we do know is that Al Qaida was largely a consequence of US efforts to use soft power to kick the Soviets out of Afghanistan, that Saddam had received significant military aid from the US, and that the US overthrew democratically elected regimes in Iran.
None of it was done for any abstract value such as freedom, but simply to control a very valuable area and attempt to create client regimes there (or prevent others from doing so), since such machinations are cheaper than US soldiers' lives and represent the use of "economy of force" compared to all-out war/conquest.
I think there are generally two perspectives on US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan:
The idealist perspective is that we invaded to thwart evil and to decrease the chances of domestic terrorism in the US.
The realist perspective is that wars are not about good and evil but about land and resources, and that the rest of the rhetoric is just a veneer added to help sell the war.
Iraq is the most valuable piece of land in the middle east. Afghanistan is also tremendously valuable. Perhaps my mention of them being the 51st and 52nd US states was hyperbole, but clearly the US wants to install client regimes in both places.
What are the characteristics of a client regime? Democracy is not usually valued all that much (hence our removal of democratically elected leaders around the world), thuggery is tolerated (hence the bribing of Afghan warlords, etc.) and all that is expected is that the state do the US's bidding in exchange for military protection and often aid.
In terms of military strategy, all this makes sense. You want to use soft power... better to bribe some warlords than to risk American lives, etc. Better to install a client regime that will prevent a possible enemy from consolidating power, etc.
The issue I have with this is that most people fail to see this as the brutal power projection of a massive empire.
In my opinion, we can't have it both ways... we can't be a pluralistic, free society and also cause so much suffering via our imperial "churn".
If you read the essay that Condi wrote in Foreign Affairs a few years ago in which she described in detail the "Bush Doctrine", you'll notice that she musters her significant academic training in an attempt to merge the notion of free society values with imperial power projection.
In my view, any explanation boils down to saying "We're going to civilize those savages, even if we have to kill quite a few to do so".
At this point, the side-effects of past Imperial actions are nearly impossible to differentiate from organic events. What we do know is that Al Qaida was largely a consequence of US efforts to use soft power to kick the Soviets out of Afghanistan, that Saddam had received significant military aid from the US, and that the US overthrew democratically elected regimes in Iran.
None of it was done for any abstract value such as freedom, but simply to control a very valuable area and attempt to create client regimes there (or prevent others from doing so), since such machinations are cheaper than US soldiers' lives and represent the use of "economy of force" compared to all-out war/conquest.