Text 16555, 64 rader
Skriven 2011-04-08 05:18:24 av Bob Ackley (1:300/3)
  Kommentar till text 16502 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Names will never hurt me...
===================================
Replying to a message of Robert Bashe to Bob Ackley:

 RB> Bob Ackley wrote to Ross Cassell on Monday April 04 2011 at 06:41:

 RC>>> I asked one person to provide evidence of the acquisition and
 RC>>> retention of any territory by the USA in their own lifetime, so far
 RC>>> no takers..

 BA>> Restricting the time period is a bit dishonest, isn't it?

 RB> If you don't, you'll have to include the European conquests in the New
 RB> World, the Mongol conquests in Asia and Europe, the Roman conquests
 RB> in Europe and a large number of other instances. I don't call that
 RB> dishonest, I call that pragmatic.

 BA>> The fact of the matter is that the US has always been expansionistic.

 RB> If you confine yourself to the North American continent, I would tend
 RB> to agree. Try to expand that to the world and you'll have quite a
 RB> problem. The only exception I can think of would be Hawaii.

Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa to name three more, I'm sure there are
others.
Okinawa until the US decided to give it back to Japan in 1973 (there were a LOT
of
US military retirees living on the island that got it in the shorts when that
happened).

 RB> Alaska
 RB> was purchased, and only because the Russians preferred to sell it to
 RB> the USA than have the indefensible possession _taken_ by the British
 RB> in what was then British North America (Canada). And the fellow who
 RB> organized the purchase was then pilloried. Remember "Seward's folly"?
 RB> Expansionism looks different.

You neglected what the US did to the native American tribes, particularly in
the midwest.

 BA>> OTOH, areas that the US has conquered and kept include Ameican Samoa,
 BA>> the Marianas Islands (Guam, Tinian, Rota, Saipan), Puerto Rico, the
 BA>> American Virgin Islands and, of course, Hawaii.

 RB> You forgot Liechtenstein. Hawaii is the only one I'd really agree on.

Why not the others?  The US certainly conquered them, and still occupies them -
in the case of Puerto Rico and Samoa for over a century after the conquest. 
About
67 years for the Marianas.

 RB> As for Puerto Rico, they have a "bird's nest on the ground": all the
 RB> benefits and none of the disadvantages of being in the USA. They
 RB> voted _against_ statehood the last time a plebiscite was held. The
 RB> Puerto Ricans are no fools.

 BA>> France has always been a colonial power, the US claims not to be.

 RB> It not only claims, it isn't and wasn't. There are presently French
 RB> troops in the Ivory Coast, protecting French interests. In which
 RB> previous American colony have American troops been similarly active?

Europe and Japan.

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