Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "" video.

  1. The USA isn't riding on European colonialism. It's been carrying out European colonialism since World War I. It's infuriating, because it is contrary to the principles on which the USA was founded and in which most Americans believe. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, I consumed a lot of WW II history (as told by the winning side). I remember thinking "How crazy are the Japanese? Where the hell do they get that 'Die, Imperialist pig!' from?" Then I learned a little bit about the long history of British, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and German colonialism in the preceding 3 or 4 centuries. Then I saw Commodore Perry's triumphant trip to Tokyo Harbor in the 1920s. "Trade with us on our terms or we will destroy you." Japan knew its future was in manufacturing. Manufacturing required oil. Lots of oil. They knew that European powers would gleefully shut down oil imports if they didn't do as the Europeans said, and it would wreck their economy. I'm not saying I'm a fan of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," the mantle under which Japan sought to hegemonize the region, but I have a much greater understanding of why Japan thought it was a good idea. It might have worked, except they had the same problem the Germans had, only more so: contempt for the conquered. "If you had honor, you would fight to the last man, and never surrender. If you surrender, you get whatever's dished-out. If you had honor, you would commit seppuku rather than be captured." They treated the conquered as they would expect to be treated if THEY were conquered. In the German case, there was just utter contempt for the conquered. It came from a slightly different place, but it played out almost exactly the same way. Welcomed as liberators in Eastern Europe, the conquered peoples quickly learned that the Nazis were even worse than the Soviets! The entire populace turned on the Nazis, and the Nazis had to waste a lot of men and materiel to keep their supply lines intact. This was similar to the French in Spain under Napoleon Bonaparte. The guerrillas ("guerrilleros"?) in Spain made it necessary for the French to send a regiment along with their message couriers, just to make sure the messages got through. Wellington defeated France in the peninsula with a relatively small expeditionary force. In the current context of Syria, think about how Assad might have been one of the main reasons the American-Kurdish foothold in the north has persisted as long as it has. Assad couldn't attack those American installations for fear of massive reprisals against the Damascus government. Now, there's chaos, with jihadi groups everywhere. If these jihadi groups start raiding north into American/Kurdish holding, there's no one person or government to punish. It becomes a war against insurgents - a game of whack-a-mole. It's one thing to overthrow a foreign government. It's quite another to create stability and govern. I think this will backfire against the USA and Israel in the long run. I think that the American installations in the north will come under increasing pressure from insurgents of all colors and flavors. In other words, I think the American presence in northern Syria just got a lot more complicated and more expensive. There's a lot of oil there, so I can see how it's paying for itself, short term. But they've gotta get that oil out and deliver it to the U.S.'s so-called "friends" in Europe. That's what I see becoming prohibitively difficult, without massively beefing-up security. And they won't be fighting against a nation-state. They will be fighting against rebel groups that come together for a purpose and then dissolve into separate groups (due to bickering and where the money is). What I think is more important than the strategic aspects is the plight of all the innocent people caught in the middle of all these unnecessary conflicts. That's the worst part. Our leaders don't care about the people. They care about the pocket books of the donor class, and retaining the support of the (basically wicked and amoral) donor class. This kind of "strategy" yields short term benefits that are enormous, but they sow the seeds of eventual decline. This is what happened to the British. Then the Americans came along and became their proxies around the world. You want to talk about Israel? That is ALSO a project of the waning British Empire. And America foolishly carries out the wishes of the British Empire, which is supposedly defunct, but is it really?
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