Yes yesFLBear5630 said:Redbrickbear said:FLBear5630 said:Those career bureaucrats spend their lives working on areas and develop expertise that the majority of elected officials need.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:You badly misapply history to fit the "American Imperialist" narrative.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:The proper answer is, we've never invaded them with the intention of including them into our union.Redbrickbear said:False equivalence?whiterock said:Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.Redbrickbear said:We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914FLBear5630 said:When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.Sam Lowry said:Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.whiterock said:a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.S said:So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?Quote:Quote:This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.Quote:Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.Quote:I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.Quote:
I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.
Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."
Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.
We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.
Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.
It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"
It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.
How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?
The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/
Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.
[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]
And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion
We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?
Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?
FLBear asked when was the last time we invaded mexico, canada, or cuba.
I gave him the relevant dates.
I made no argument or statement as to the justification or wisdom of those invasions/interventions.
Well we certainly invaded parts of Mexico & Canada with the intention of placing them in our union (or large parts of them in our union)...some times successfully and some times not so successfully.
https://www.history.com/news/how-u-s-forces-failed-to-conquer-canada-200-years-ago
In both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812 the U.S. tried to conquer Canada and bring it into the Federal Union.
Obviously we know that Mexico was forced the cede half its territory to the United States.... "55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming"
So while there has been not real invasion with the intent to annex these areas for over 130 years....we can't pretend there were never any instances where this happened.
WHY was Mexico forced to cede territory to us?
They lost a war with us.
WHY did that war happen?
Mexico tried to enforce territorial claims NORTH of the Rio Grande.
HOW did Mexico try to enforce those claims?
They attacked a US military unit in sovereign US Territory.
We actually offered to PAY them for the disputed territory (and more).
They refused.
Then they attacked.
Then we won.
So, WE are the oppressors?
Did we send in little green men?
Did we just invade and take it all (like Russia did in Ukraine?)
No.
Of course not.
Congress approved a Declaration of War after a Mexican attack on US military units on US soil.
Again,
You have to place words in my mouth in order to have an argument.
I never said the USA was an "imperialist" power toward Canada or Mexico.
The question was asked when the USA invaded Canada or Mexico. And if it was ever contemplated to have all or parts of these nations join the Federal Union.
I gave the relevant dates and said yes....some parts of Mexico were brought in to the USA as States. And that there was in fact discussion all through the 1800s about Canada possibly joining the USA.
So instead of just accepting the true of these statements you run some defense of a position I never took...."muh Mexico lost land because it lost a war with the USA!" Uh I never said or implied anything different.
p.s.
If you want me to take a position on these things.... I personally think Polk was betrayed by his negotiator in Mexico. We almost got all of modern Northern Mexico (Baja California, Baja California Sur...maybe all or parts of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo Len, Sinaloa, Sonora and Tamaulipas) but instead he undermined the negotiations and settled for far far less.
[Trist's negotiation was controversial among expansionist Democrats since he had ignored Polk's instructions and settled on a smaller cession of Mexican territory than many expansionists wanted and felt he could have obtained. A part of this instruction was to specifically include Baja California. However, as part of the negotiations, Trist drew the line directly west from Yuma to Tijuana/San Diego instead of from Yuma south to the Gulf of California, which left all of Baja California a part of Mexico, and Polk was furious. In the end, Polk reluctantly approved the treaty since he wanted to have it signed, sealed, and delivered to Congress during his presidency. Trist later commented on the treaty:Upon return to Washington, Trist was immediately fired for his insubordination, and his expenses since the time of the recall order were not paid. After his dismissal, Trist moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, and then to Philadelphia, where he worked as a railroad clerk and paymaster. Trist finally recovered his expenses in 1871, at the urging of Senator Charles SumnerQuote:
"My feeling of shame as an American was far stronger than the Mexicans' could be
Trist supported Republican Abraham Lincoln for U.S. president in 1860]
Trist decided to let is own personal views be placed above the will of the American people and the elected President's own specific instructions.
I mean how many times have we seen that in modern times were career bureaucrat decide they know what is best.
So instead of the USA getting most of Northern Mexico (basically uninhabited/low population at the time) we got far less than what we could have.
Ever talk to an elected official? They are expected to vote on a myriad of things without any knowledge about them. Even their ideas, which may be great, they have no idea how to actually get it done. That is what the bureaucracy you make fun of excels at doing. Try getting something accomplished without the supporting structure, you end up Trump. Just yelling.
So they never make mistakes or fail to carry out the lawful orders and instructions of their constitutionally elected superiors?
Man you love and trust the Federal government and its ever growing army of bureaucratic workers almost as much as Trey and Whiterock
But I do love you swinging in to defend helpless Nick Trist (and the honor of Federal bureaucrats everywhere) he obviously knew better than the President of the United States.
[the British commissioner Dr. Richard Robert Madden wrote U.S. abolitionists about Trist's misuse of his post to promote slavery and earn fees from the fraudulent document schemes. A pamphlet detailing Madden's charges was published shortly before the beginning of the sensational Amistad affair, when Africans sold into slavery in Cuba managed to seize control of the schooner in which they were being transported from Havana to provincial plantations. Madden travelled to the United States, where he gave expert testimony in the trial of the Amistad Africans, explaining how false documents were used to make it appear the Africans were Cuban-born slaves.
This exposure of the activities of the U.S. Consul General, coupled with the complaints of ship captains, caused a Congressional investigation and eventual recall of Trist in 1840.]
[President Polk was unhappy with his envoy's conduct which prompted him to order Trist to return to the United States. General Winfield Scott was also unhappy with Trist's presence in Mexico...
However, the wily diplomat ignored the instructions to leave Mexico. He wrote a 65-page letter back to Washington, D.C. explaining his reasons for staying in Mexico]
Trust, no just the millions of thankless professionals that get you water, roads, air travel, products from overseas, pipe away your **** (literally), deal with waste, try to protect the food supply, law enforcement, run prisons, try to manage the border etc...
You seem to think this stuff just happens.
Instead of dealing with the specifics of this off the reservation diplomat you have decided to use this thread to mount your own pulpit about the virtues of American bureaucrats.
Yes many do fine work. One uncle of mine worked in Texas government for 40 years.
Thank you Mr. White Knight
