• wpb@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    When has the US military defended the nation? I got the impression that they’re mostly used for invading foreign countries for financial gain, cf Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Sudan, Panama, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Guatemala, Korea.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      7 hours ago

      Yeah. That’s kind of America’s whole thing. Making money. Exploiting everything. Americans are the Ferengi.

      Defending America = defending capitalism = doing whatever they can to make American, capitalist companies more profitable.

      I don’t hate capitalism. Don’t get me wrong, but I generally don’t like capitalists.

      • Tiger666@lemmy.ca
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        4 hours ago

        Capitalists are what makes capitalism capitalism. How can you hate one without the other?

    • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      This is what Americans call “defending the nation”; making war in other countries than their own, believing themselves to be the world police.

      I think America has only ever been attacked… Twice… In all of history (Pearl Harbour and 9/11), and both times the defense was pretty piss poor.

      • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        I’m not sure either of these events can even be counted as an attack. Pearl Harbour is roughly 3800km from the mainland. It’s basically an overseas territory. An attack there is like saying the Falkland War was an attack on the UK.

        And 9/11 was a terrorist attack, not a war. While it was a big attack, it was still only carried out by a handful of non-state-actors. That’s quite a different thing than an actual military attack by a country.

        Afaik, the last war on US soil was the civil war.

        • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          Hawaii was not a state for almost 2 decades after pearl harbor, so yeah.

          The original white house was burned to the ground by British/Canadian troops in 1814.

          Not to mention about 100 different American Indian Wars, though some of those were more slaughter than war.

          • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            The original white house was burned to the ground by British/Canadian troops in 1814.

            Yeah, ok, that counts as a war on US soil, but that’s still over 200 years ago.

            Not to mention about 100 different American Indian Wars, though some of those were more slaughter than war.

            Hard to really count them as wars for the reason you mentioned.