reply to
post by xpert11
And if the US commercial interests had prevailed the usual ill thought out responses about such things being the only reason for the war would flood
this thread . If the security situation ever permits it will be India and China who fund nation building in Afghanistan. The Chinese will work with
anybody just look how they are buying up Africa left right and center . Cheers xpert11
The key word is INTERESTS. Here’s my not so short answer. Keep in mind the world was already deep into WW2 before the US entered the foray.
Civilization teetered in the balance. Then and now Americans were and remain essentially isolationists. That is, Americans do not want to become
deeply enmeshed in the endless quarrels that afflict the remainder of the world. “Why,” you ask “would that be so because even today 67% of
Americans are descendants of Europeans?”
To that good question, the current historical explanation is that most of people who came here from Europe including 30 million immigrants between
1880 and 1920, were the lower classes. They came here to escape from a society dominated by hereditary wealth, position and power augmented by a
self-serving all too intrusive clergy that supported the status quo if not the status quo ante.
Globalization started for the Spanish in the 1500s with the export of gold and the far more consequential corn and potato plants from New Spain to
Europe. From the very beginning African slaves were imported into the New World. The first slaves arrived at the English colony of Virginia in 1619, a
year BEFORE the chest thumping Pilgrim Fathers stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock in what is now Massachusetts. 1620. The overly religious Puritans did
not come over until 1630.
By the 1820s many Americans had bought into the notion of “Manifest Destiny.” Filled with religion but not with the zealot's religiosity, America
saw itself as a Biblical Israel re-run! A new Jerusalem. The city on the hill! Aside: The GOD of the Enlightenment did not become your own
“personal” GOD until the post War 1 era. The “take Jesus into your heart” movement. I date that to begin with California’s Aimee Semple
McPherson (1870-1944). End.
Reflect that while the Israelite GOD is said to have granted the Land of Canaan to the Israelites that self-same GOD ordered the Israelites to KILL
all the non-Israelite inhabitants. Hmm? Is this the FIRST recorded example of religious extremism at work in its deadliest manifestation?
Many Americans welcomed the “from sea to shining sea” concept early on. Our earliest leaders saw the 13 colonies expanding from the Atlantic coast
to the great Pacific shore! By the mid-1600s Virginia and the Carolinas had become the primary suppliers of hardwood, naval stores, tobacco and rice
to Europe. In 1803 as president, the weak central government proponent Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France. Aside: Showing pragmatism
usually dominates American politics. End. With the 1850 admission of California as a state, the map of the Lower 48 had been filled in!
Before the Electronic Age presaged by Marconni, America was isolated - we prefer to say insulated - from Europe by the 3,000 miles wide Atlantic - a
month to traverse by sail - and the 10,000 miles wide Pacific. For a variety of reasons Central and South America have never posed a threat to the
United States (today’s cocaine excepted). By the 20th century American commercial adventurers had reduced much of the New World south of the Rio
Grande to American colonial status.
For Americans, modern European history begins at the Battle of Waterloo. From our perspective, the result has been nearly endless war. Starting at the
end and looking back, World War Two was the (unavoidable?) product of the misconceived Peace of Versailles following World War One. That war in turn
was made inevitable by the outcome of the 1869-1871 Franco-Prussian War. A newly unified Germany under Prussia’s von Bismark took from France two
valuable (and symbolic) provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. And the historic city of Strasbourg. I said all of that to reiterate that Americans think no
one can solve the issues in Europe or Asia. Especially an inconsistent observer from outside. Only the Europeans and Asians can do that.
Aside: Just as the 1880s Durand Line drawn in Whitehall is now the demarcation line entwined in the insoluable troubles of Afghan-Pakistan
including the ever so closely connected India and Kashmir issue. The world is still trying to sort out the problems both created and left over from
that arbitrary and ill uninformed experiment in geography. Likewise the similarly thoughtless dissolution of the Ottoman Empire - in the early 1920s -
with boundary lines drawn in Paris are still being fought over. The Law of Unintended Consequences is proving to be the MOST difficult and deadly of
all the inexorable Laws of Civilization to avoid. Ignore it at your peril! End.
Just as the “awakening of America” to the seriousness of the threat posed by (foreign) extremists did not happen until the Nine Eleven Event
(September 11, 2001) so also America had not become involved in the European War (1939) or the Asian War (1937) until we were bombed at Pearl Harbor
in 1941.
Don’t forget that by December, 1941, the German Armies were already 600-800 miles into Russia (actually in Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, USSR). The
Japanese were deep into Southeast Asia. Singapore fell on Feb. 15, 1942, barely 70 days after our December 7. Indonesia fell to the Japanese in March,
1942.
SUMMARY. NO. America is not fighting FOR China. For various reasons Afghan has picked its NEAR hegemony over its FAR hegemony. Let’s face it.
You know and I know the US will not stay around in the region for much longer. We have other fish to fry. We are at the beginning of the end, not at
the Bush/Cheney nightmare end of the beginning. China OTOH will be there forever.
Many Americans still WANT to keep out of foreign affairs. We are inhabited by a large number of people who see any involvement abroad as entering a
quagmire. I have likened Br’er Rabbit and Tar Baby in the J. C. Harris’ Uncle Remus series, as a metaphor for our “on again, off again” but
sometimes a successful foray into foreign affairs. I give you the UN as one foray that worked.
Of special note is our oh so easy public acceptance of the glib and purposely undefined rubric “American interests” to justify or provide cover
for our “need” to work the mission! For example, the 22 Chinese Muslims imprisoned (and probably wrongfully) at Guantanamo Bay called the Uyghur
(We-urs?) refused repatriation to China claiming asylum here for religious persecution.
See Note 1. America’s MSM, once alerted to the
problem, has begun to keep closer tabs on the 10-20 million strong Uyghur who live in the FAR WEST of the China People’s Republic. Several months
ago several 100 were killed as the PLA put down riots in that region.
The American general public KNOWS enough to know we are ill equipped to engage on any rational basis into the politicks of far off peoples on ill
defined missions and for non-specific reasons.
Note 1. The vast majority of China's Muslims are Sunni Muslims. A notable feature of the some of the Muslim communities in China is the presence
of female imams.
.
PS. Q. Whence cometh the name YUAN, for China’s currency? A. The Yuan Dynasty endured officially from 1271 to 1368 CE. The Yuan period is
sometimes referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan. The Mongol Emperors of the Yuan held the title of Great Khan of all Mongol Khanates.
en.wikipedia.org...
[edit on 11/1/2009 by donwhite]