I was reading the comments section of Loonwatch.com here and was somewhat taken aback by one poster who objected to what he/she called slurs in response to another poster who criticized the imperial government in the White House. A third poster to the thread cited this source which I think made an excellent point of underscoring the imperial nature of today’s America naming 135 countries that are currently home to American troops. More current data suggest that number is even higher. That comes out to 66% of the countries in the world that have US forces in them. I’m at a loss to understand what is the significance of having American troops in Cameroon, Australia, Kenya or Latvia, Nepal, Sweden or Suriname to name a few and ask are there troops from any of those countries here in America? Hardly, but to this observer’s mind this more than anything else shows how intent America is in leaving its footprint on the world’s stage and anyway you cut it that’s the classical definition of imperialism, something that was pointed out by other posters in Loonwatch‘s comment section. Perhaps the initial commenter objected to the negative connotation the word “imperialism” usually brings to political discussions but then he/she is displaying their bias. Most likely many in US government don’t think the presence of American troops in 135+ countries is a bad thing as long as they are promoting “freedom” and “liberty” in those countries but such phrases as “freedom” and “liberty” are subjective terms whose implementation might not be agreeable to the host countries. Therefore the insistence of the presence of foreign forces in a country is also a condition of imperialism.
Tag: military occupation
Peace is not an option for the occupiers of the West Bank
Following up on the story posted below about the Global Peace index and how low Israel ranks comes this story that underscores that ranking and demonstrates how a country is sometimes its own worse enemy.
Two Israeli officers have testified that troops in the West Bank beat, bound and blindfolded Palestinian civilians as young as 14.
Both the soldiers, from the Harub battalion, highlighted the tight tying of the plastic hand restraints placed on detainees. “There are people who think you need to tighten the restraints all the way, until no drop of blood will pass from here to there,” one soldier said. “It doesn’t take much time until the hands turn blue. There were a lot of people that you know weren’t feeling anything.”
“The soldiers who took [detainees] to the toilet just exploded [over] them with beatings; cursed them with no reason. When they took one Arab to the toilet so that he could urinate, one of them gave him a slap that brought him to the ground. He had been handcuffed from behind with a nylon restraint and blindfolded. He wasn’t insolent, he didn’t do anything to get on anyone’s nerves … [it was] just because he’s an Arab. He was something like 15 years old.” The soldier said he saw a lot of soldiers “just knee [Palestinians] because it’s boring, because you stand there 10 hours, you’re not doing anything, so they beat people up.
There were a lot of reservists that participated, and they totally had a celebration on the Palestinians: curses, humiliation, pulling hair and ears, kicks, slaps. These things were the norm.”
This is systematic violence against people for the most part are under the authority of the Israeli government and it is this type of government sanctioned violence that keeps Israel in much the same company as Sudan, Somali, and Iraq, and it is all done with the knowledge and blessings of the US government.
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