[foldr]

What land did Tony Blair grab? You can disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq without making the exaggerated claim that this was part of some kind of long-term imperialist occupation. The UK currently has fewer military personnel in Iraq than it has in, say, Germany. And Britain doesn’t control the Iraqi government.

[coldtea]

>What land did Tony Blair grab? You can disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq without making the exaggerated claim that this was part of some kind of long-term imperialist occupation.

Yeah, just a few decades years, to secure oil deals and/or keep control of the region. No biggie.

That this can be said with a straight face about invasions to two countries that created civil war, suffering, hundreds of thousands of deaths, displacement, etc, is telling of the ever-present colonialist mindset.

[foldr]

My post wasn’t defending the Iraq war. It was just pointing out that the war was not a land grab. Iraq is not now a part of the UK or US (in contrast to the situation with Russia and Crimea, for example).

[roenxi]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military...

For anyone else interested, negotiations that could lead to the US leaving Iraq and fully returning control to the Iraqi people are also going swimmingly, according to reports.

[foldr]

The US military presence in Iraq is already far smaller than its presence in Germany and many other countries. Certainly, the US is a global superpower (albeit a declining one) that exerts influence via its military strength. But Iraq is not occupied by the US any more than Germany is.

[roenxi]

If Germany wants the US to leave, do they have to negotiate to get that to happen?

[foldr]

It’s hard to say. What would happen if Germany demanded that US forces leave? Germany undoubtedly has the right to do this. I don’t think anyone can say what would happen with any confidence, as it’s quite an outlandish scenario. My guess is that, ultimately, US forces would leave, NATO would collapse, and relations between the US and Germany would decline precipitously. But hey, actions have consequences. This does not mean that Germany cannot get rid of US forces if it wants to; it just means that it doesn’t want to because it would be a bad idea.

[dgroshev]

Saying that it's the invasions that created civil wars and suffering in Afghanistan and Iraq is just exceptionally ignorant. Here's a taster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Ba%27athist_Ir...

For all their failures, the allies never bombed cities with nerve agents.

[ZeroGravitas]

Your page says:

> Saddam committed crimes of aggression during the Iran–Iraq War

Which links to a page about the war:

> Iraq was aided by [...] the United States, the United Kingdom,

> After years of military and economic losses, decreasing morale, intensifying Iran–U.S. relations, and little international action against Iraqi attacks on Iranian civilians, Iran agreed to a ceasefire with Iraq under United Nations Security Council Resolution 598.

So they basically did.

[dgroshev]

I don't think anyone engaging in a good faith discussion would make the conclusion you just made.

[ZeroGravitas]

Why not?

What do you think an llm would say if you asked it:

> Did the US and UK support Saddam Hussein when he was using weapons of mass destruction on Iranian civilians?

[dgroshev]

The question is completely different from the point I was making. "X did bad things on their own" and "Y had absolutely no relationship with X at any point" are two points so blindingly obviously different that I'm having a hard time accepting that you are genuinely confused about the difference.

It's a motte-and-bailey fallacy that starts with countries and leaders having relationships in a global, interwoven world and ends with excusing a blood-thirsty dictator as if they had no agency.

[specproc]

I think something Brits don't fully understand is the extent of our vassalage under the US.

We do, as you rightly note have quite the history of a policy of imperialist land grabs, now we just play a support function to somebody else's empire.

[foldr]

Ok, but you can say the same for the US. It also has vastly more troops in Germany than Iraq, and it also does not control the Iraqi government. And the less said about Afghanistan the better. So where is the land grab?

[specproc]

One does not need to dictate every item of policy to control a country, one just needs to ensure that there's alignment on strategic issues. I think this was America's key point of learning when it took over the reins of the European empires after WW2.

In Germany, historically the strategic issue was anti-communism, but now it serves as a military logistics hub; in Iraq, it's about trade in oil in dollars and access to Iraqi oil fields for US companies.

The UK is more complex and more total, ranging from support in the security council, to access to markets for US goods and services, to stationing of US troops and hardware. Most of our economy is geared up for the benefit of US investment funds.

Any government, whether it be Germany, Iraq or the UK, which tries to alter any of these fundamentals will quickly find out the extent to which their land has been grabbed.

[foldr]

Or, to put it more succinctly, Iraq is occupied by the US in about the same sense that Germany is. And while the US no doubt exerts influence over Germany in part via its military power, I think the position that the US military presence in Germany is part of a “land grab” would be a rather fringe one.

[specproc]

It depends where you're sat and when. It's almost certainly a fringe perspective in the US, because I don't believe American's really think about it that much.

Whether troop presence is viewed as occupation or not in each of the >50 [1] countries currently "hosting" troops is very much a matter of personal perspective, the fringeness of which will vary from country to country.

I don't believe that it really changes the fact that yes, US troops occupy the UK, Germany and Iraq, and many more. The most substantial deployments, e.g., Germany, Japan, South Korea, and until recently Iraq and Afghanistan, were very much the product of invasions. At the time of those invasions, many of those on the receiving end would have very much felt on the receiving end of a land grab. It's just their grandchildren have been conditioned to view this state of affairs as natural.

The general pattern is "bomb the bejesus" [2] out of a country. Plant base. Install a friendly government and ensure a favourable operating environment for US interests. The UK is an exception in that it wasn't bombed by the US, but the upshot is the same. We're a wholely-owned subsidiary of corporate America, and a giant aircraft carrier on the other side of the Atlantic -- as the US's latest adventure in Iran has clearly demonstrated.

You may quibble over the "land" in land-grab, but the strategic bits (e.g., oil fields, bases) are very much owned, and the territory as a whole controlled by pliant governments.

[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_oversea...

[^2]: Kissenger, 1972

[thegrimmest]

I don't think it's fair to compare US foreign policy to actual imperialism as practiced by the Soviets, the British, etc. The US does not maintain colonies, and, as you point out, does not even attempt to exert total control. Pursuing your interests and forcing total political and cultural domination are not equivalent. The US is more than happy for Germans to be German, Japanese to be Japanese, etc, as long as US interests are prioritized. This is clearly not the case for other major powers.

Nations (and people) exist in an ecosystem, and so will always behave accordingly, and always in their own interests. There are some emergent properties of ecosystems, one of which is that optimal behaviour is to acquire the maximum you are physically capable of defending, not the minimum that you need to survive.

It's perfectly reasonable for the US, the big fish in the pond, to leverage its advantages accordingly, and to the maximum. It would be a disservice to the US people if it did not. Smaller fish should indeed be glad that the big fish is as placid and strategically (rather than ideologically) motivated as it is, given the historically experienced alternatives.