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Well. I'm watching C-SPAN2 and the editors/authors of "9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out"(apparently a repeat from a few weeks ago) are arguing that 9/11 was either allowed or outright planned by the Administration for American imperial designs. For example the surface to air missle batteries surrounding the Pentagon were turned off and people lying about where they were when and whatnot. That there was a conspiracy basically.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. At first it seemed real and scary...but as the show goes on they keep talking about how why people don't see the conspiracy. I didn't get to watch the whole show but I didn't see much evidence to prove their point. Does anyone know anything else on the book? I'm tempted to say they're conpiracy theorists. [edit for grammer]
[ November 25, 2006, 05:35 PM: Message edited by: Telperion the Silver ]
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posted
There was a "documentary" floating around the internet with the conspiracy all laid out nice and pretty. Lemme see if I can find it....
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They're conspiracy theorists. Many of the things they argue are trivially debunked, and most of the others are 'supported' by weird interpretations of offhand or out of context comments combined with a refusal by the military/government to talk (as is typically the case with anything involving our military defenses). I occasionally look into whatever latest pemutation 9/11 conspiracy theorists have come up with after too many people saw through their latest construction, and none of it has ever been persuasive in the least.
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What fugu said. I got into a debate on another forum about this once. They have a lot of "evidence;" a lot of it is bunk, and they consistantly fail to prove that any of it is actually related to 9/11.
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While I still find it hard to believe that 9/11 was orchestrated by our own government, I find it much, much harder to believe that the titanium fuselage, wings, and engines of a Boeing 737 were "vaporized" by jet fuel at the Pentagon. That is what the official report is.
And that doesn't add up at all.
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With how hot the fire was burning, I can let it go.
The silly part of the whole argument is American Imperialism. America has never had the will to Empire. Our one real experiment was the Phillipines, and compared to Europe, we barely dangled our feet in the water. We've yet to show any interest or will to create our own Empire, and I don't see it happening any time soon. We don't like slaughtering civilians, we don't like how much it costs, we don't even really like crossing oceans to go anywhere, we just want to stay home.
The only one interested in foreign wars is Bush, and to be honest, I don't think he's near clever enough to come up with something like that.
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Our one real experiment was the Phillipines, and compared to Europe, we barely dangled our feet in the water. We've yet to show any interest or will to create our own Empire, and I don't see it happening any time soon. We don't like slaughtering civilians, we don't like how much it costs, we don't even really like crossing oceans to go anywhere, we just want to stay home.
The only one interested in foreign wars is Bush, and to be honest, I don't think he's near clever enough to come up with something like that.
To the list of experiments I think I'd also add South America as a sphere of influence, though the US didn't go much farther than telling Europe not to epxand too far into its own neighbourhood.
I think that calling America today an empire is flatly incorrect, but it does deploy military force all over the world mostly in passive roles to protect US foreign interests. Not all of them are necessary for defense.
quote:It's not easy to assess the size or exact value of our empire of bases. Official records on these subjects are misleading, although instructive. According to the Defense Department's annual "Base Structure Report" for fiscal year 2003, which itemizes foreign and domestic U.S. military real estate, the Pentagon currently owns or rents 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and HAS another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories. Pentagon bureaucrats calculate that it would require at least $113.2 billion to replace just the foreign bases -- surely far too low a figure but still larger than the gross domestic product of most countries -- and an estimated $591,519.8 million to replace all of them. The military high command deploys to our overseas bases some 253,288 uniformed personnel, plus an equal number of dependents and Department of Defense civilian officials, and employs an additional 44,446 locally hired foreigners. The Pentagon claims that these bases contain 44,870 barracks, hangars, hospitals, and other buildings, which it owns, and that it leases 4,844 more.
Once again I don't support the use of the word 'empire', but I think it's fair to say that the American sphere of influence extends very far accross the world, heavily influencing the foreign policy of many key countries. I'm not saying that Americans are evil imperialists. I am saying that America is the most powerful nation on Earth, and that the US does meddle in the affairs of foreign nations not directly related to the defense of the country. When you're the biggest person in a packed room, it's difficult not to tread on toes.
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