This is a good question.
Why are land acknowledgements stupid? Everybody lives on land where somebody else lived previously. Go far back enough in history, and you’ll find that it’s all about one group displacing another, then getting displaced in turn, and so on forever. Every group is a settler colonialist. And if everybody is something, then nobody is. We don’t call anybody “a person with one head” because there are no people with two or three. There’s absolutely nothing special or unique about the American native groups because they are only “native” in a very historically narrow sense. The only thing unique about America is that it built a wonderful society after displacing the previous groups. Look at Aztecs. They came from elsewhere and started eating everybody in sight. Yet we are supposed to apologize to them for the Spaniards who, with all their faults, didn’t practice cannibalism for gastronomical reasons. Instead, they founded universities where Aztec medicine was studied and taught with the same respect as the European.
Now let’s look at war. War is a natural state of human beings. It’s terrible. I hate it. But it’s always been there. Philip Bobbitt wrote a great book The Shield of Achilles, demonstrating that every new form of statehood was brought by the need to wage war in a new way. I wouldn’t take it as far as Bobbitt but it’s incontrovertible that the nation-state arose out of the need for a new type of warfare. The idea that the US is more war-mongering than any other country is as ludicrous as the idea that Americans are unique (or uniquely cruel) in displacing other groups. For its size and dominance, the US is extraordinarily peaceful. It’s a country that will try absolutely anything before engaging in warfare. When it does wage war, it does so with the greatest economy of means and human losses than anybody else. Mind you, I’m not comparing it to the imaginary world of sweet, kind peaceniks but to the real world where we actually live.
The habit of curling our noses at America and accusing it of being the worst of the worst is moronic and ungrateful whether you are on the Left or the Right.
Clarissa's Blog 
Amen to all of the above.
LikeLiked by 1 person
very well said.
Amanda
LikeLike
“The idea that the US is more war-mongering… ludicrous”
Generally, the US is not disliked by leftsists or those in other countries because of mistakes it has made or terrible things it has done (those do exist but not noticeably higher than average on a per capita basis)
The US is disliked because of its virtues… many hate it precisely because it hasn’t been more warlike or genocidal than other countries.
LikeLike
”The US is disliked because of its virtues… many hate it precisely because it hasn’t been more warlike or genocidal than other countries.”
I’d be very curious to have an example or two of this dynamic. (Not trolling, genuinely curious, and because I want to agree)
LikeLike
“I’d be very curious to have an example or two of this dynamic”
Kamil Galeev did a short video on Americans vs russians. According to him, the usual case in russia is that people keep their ‘real’ opinions hidden under several layers of public opinions…. when russians ask Americans what they ‘really’ mean in private… they hear the same opinion the American said in public…. they can’t believe it and think they’re being ridiculed and end up hating them for being ‘simple’ (i.e. honest).
And again, the US (along with many other western countries) bent over backwards trying to give the former soviet union (esp russia) a soft landing…. and all this did was generate endless hate.
A similar, though far less malign process happened in western Europe after WWII…
And while the US has interfered in Latin American countries it has never gone all out and tried to absorb any, which it could have had it wanted to. It’s not the interference that bothers most of the world, it’s the restraint.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re a gifted rhetorician. Everything you say is seductive, so I have to be careful. 🙂
Yeah, nobody’s arguing against that. By “forever wars” people usually refer to the unquenching neocon thirst for needless wars. What did the Iraq war (and everything that followed) accomplish? Was it a war related to the birth of a nation-state? Why even equate it with colonizers invading the Aztecs. Apples and oranges.
You have a personal stake in the war(s) that the US is currently supporting so I understand. I would do the same if I were in your position. But to me this is sophistry.
Reminds me of the famous Israeli “most moral army” bullshit lol. I mean, when anyone starts talking in these absolute terms you know they’re biased.
LikeLike
The US is not currently supporting any wars. Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia is the only supporter of that war. All the US is doing is the bare minimum that allows it to pretend to fulfill its obligations.
I do confess I’m biased, though. We should all be biased towards our country.
The Iraq war is actually a great analogy with the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs. In both cases, a superior culture wanted to teach barbarians how to live better. One was more successful than another but not enormously. The Iraq war was a flop. But it wasn’t remotely “forever.”
The war in on Afghanistan, on the other hand, was strategically brilliant. Please note that there are no other examples of “forever wars” except the very much not a forever war in Iraq. To make a convincing plural you need at least three.
LikeLike
Nobody in the their right mind would argue that the term “forever” literally means every moment since the Big Bang happened until the death of the universe. If that’s the case, then obviously all the critique of neocon war lust is rendered invalid. There’s nothing to discuss. 🙂
LikeLike