Through the use of data visualizations, the Economist makes the case that Putin is uniquely evil because Russia is pursuing the tactic of a direct military invasion in Ukraine.
Here is where the propaganda comes in. The 3rd figure they use showcases the relative imperial nature of Russia as compared to other countries conveniently leaving out the US!
Evidently, the propagandists at the Economist thought that when it came to the last 200 years it would be more relevant to include data about total territory acquired through conquest by showcasing Italy and the Ottoman empire, rather than US.
The Economist leaves out the US for the obvious reason that it looks far worse than Russia when their own arguments are applied.
Let’s take a look at just a few conquests that the US was involved in over the last 200 years that led to gain of territories (not an exhaustive list):
- The numerous wars of western expansion against a variety of indigenous societies. A few examples: (Black Hawk War (1832), Second Seminole War (1835–1842), Texas Comanche Wars (1836–1875), Cayuse War (1847–1855), Apache Wars (1849–1924), Navajo Wars (1849–1866), Puget Sound War (1855–1856), Rogue River Wars (1855–1856), Great Sioux War of 1876 (1876–1877).
- Mexican–American War (1846–1848): Lead to the conquest of most of modern day Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah.
- Spanish–American War (1898): Lead to the conquest of Cuba
- Philippine–American War (1899–1902): Lead to the conquest of the Philippines
- United States occupation of Nicaragua (1912–1933): Lead to the conquest of Nicaragua, managed under a US controlled protectorate government.
- United States occupation of Haiti (1915–1934): Lead to the conquest of Haiti, controlled by US military regime.
- United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1916–1924): Lead to the conquest of the Dominican Republic, controlled by US military regime.
- Occupation of Japan and west Germany in World War II (1941–1945): It can be argued that the USA conquered these territories for a number of years after the war with near total control.
- Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan (recent history): Though a bit more fuzzy you can make a good argument that the USA conquered and had relatively near total control over these regions.
I hate how everytime you try to tell people to be wary about this, you get hit with nonsense like: ‘QUOTING PUTIN I SEE. GO TELL THAT TO THE UKRAINIANS AT THE FRONT!’ or ‘THIS IS WHAT THE FAR RIGHT WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE!’ as if nuance is a taboo or something.
And it’s the liberals and the intellectual socdems that do this the most even. You know, the people that always claim to be correct. They are brainwashed the hardest it seems.
Those people are just openly white supremacists who believe they have the monopoly on virtue and anyone opposing their society of virtuous genociders must be evil incarnate. And of course evil must be met with the civilizing force of a protracted bombing campaign against civilians. Some mistakes will be made but the moral arc of the universe bends towards their disgusting perception of enlightenment.
And if Exxon ends up with their enemies’ resources, that’s just incidental. And if their child plays with soccer balls made by other children, that’s also just incidental.
Well those people are corrupt and lack strong institutions like the whites have. It’s such a racist tautology. Unfalsifiable orthodoxy and all that. Really makes my skin crawl interacting with these losers.
Yep, that’s why I don’t debate or talk with libs or Americans in general on politics. Their logic always shifts to make them the good guys. They even find justifications for droning children so how do you have conversations with these people.
To them, nuance is a taboo if it causes them to think favorably of the people they’ve been told are their enemies. Anything that leads to an even remotely favorable view of anti-imperialists is taboo to them.
Brainwashed or denying the truth of how they have so much and everyone else so little? I mean these people always have a justification for their conflicts, which also changes by the season.
Interesting to find out what they mean by ‘conquest’, because colonial powers were quite creative when it came to explaining how they got their colonies, even way back when. And it may have been short-lived, but what was Britain doing in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan since Mossadegh for it not to be counted as conquest?
It’s also strange to see ‘Russia’ listed as if it’s had a neat, straightforward history.
I wonder what this diagram would look like if it in any way explained that the USA and other settler states began as conquests for the other powers listed. (Starting at 1820 seems rather arbitrary.)
And Ottoman Empire? Why separate this from Turkey and exclude cypres? They’ll separate these but not Tsarist Russia from the USSR from the RF. Peak intellectual honesty.
That ‘other’ category is going a lot of work. Hello Israel.
It’s a good example of bourgeois thinking. A display of the idea that so much history can be neatly split into separate, unrelated chunks. Like, does it count as a conquest if Britain acquires a protectorate over land that France conquered?
Some of these wars the US faught were outright massacres. For example Coquille writers have called the Rouge River “Wars” a holocaust. It was one of the most devastating and onesided series of violence committed by militias and the US army. The hard fast devastation is still felt today as Indigenous scholars and their occomplices try to peice together the cultures, languages, and histories of so called west Oregon.
Anyway I say this out of solidarity, and out of hatred for the US and the insidious propaganda that covers its crimes and advances its agenda. Despicable. I always have to read the economist for school. Nothing has changed since Lenin roasted them.
Since you listed some US imperialism examples I’m just going to add on in that same vein (in case the info will be helpful to anyone). Edit: Note these are not specific to explicit territory gain (though some include it; Edit2: and not to forget the US’s entire settler-colonial expansion…).
More examples: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/United_States_imperialism
Liberation School wrote a pair of articles that are pretty good for getting a big picture of US imperialism too: 1916-1990, 1990-2015
And this somewhat recent Multipolarista article: US launched 251 military interventions since 1991, and 469 since 1798
