"The Perils Of Empire" by Paul Kennedy

[ub4me]

Linky

Interesting article.

 

[Alistar7]

"Will the American artificers of change do better in today's Middle East? Perhaps. But the odds are not good. Even if the United States manages to impose order in the next few weeks or months, it has embarked on a difficult and dangerous enterprise. The region is still criss-crossed with rivalries and blood feuds between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Conservative sheiks sit uneasily upon their precarious thrones. The Kurds and other minorities are bursting to get free."

The Kurds in northern Iraq have been free, living under democratic secular rule since 1991, Sunni and Shia are marching together in pilgrimages banned under Saddam,inconsistencies with the truth make for a very poor arguement.

America has no desire to turn Iraq into part of a vast empire. The author also forgets to mention the hundreds of years of civil and foreign war in Cuba due to their colonization by Spain until the US intervened. I could go on, but his point is taken for what it's worth and it's goal.

 

[AndrewR]

More of your U.S. bashing.

Paul Kennedy has a history of calling for the decline of American power, and again he jumps on the bandwagon. His most lauded book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers sought to place American power, which is economic and cultural and not based on distant land holdings, on the same level as British Imperial power which depended on the resources of distant colonies who were subjugated to British rule. This recent article just demonstrates his lack of understanding of the power of the current U.S. military. Last time I checked, the British in 1919 couldn't strike any target in the world in hours.