The Folly of Empire

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Imagine the history as the full day. We have morning, then afternoon, then evening and night, and what we have after that? Another day. Similar we have in history, some events already happened in the process of history. Our task, with knowing that fact, is not to repeat them and make lessons.

Our country now reached the highest stage of development and our technologies are the most powerful in the world. We have the most educated scientists which adopt their knowledge from the past generations of scientists. But what about the power of the country, did they take the lessons from the past? No, they didn’t! If you ignore the past you are condemned to fall into the same trap. The history of the United States is full of wars and conflicts. But we will start from the war in Philippines. It is the first try of the US to transform the country into the desired model. The result of it was strong movement and destruction of the order. The situation didn’t change after the centuries and arose similar problems. It would be difficult to state where American campaign succeed in establishment of democracy and order. On the contrary, we can find many of countries collapsed after “help” of American Armed Forces. They are: Philippines, Mexico, Vietnam, Korea, Caribbean, Balkans, Afghanistan and so on.

The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. What is the purpose of it all? Transforming the world in its image? What is hidden by such a high words? We will try to shed light to these questions.

At first, the main reason of going with war to other country is desire to enrich the state treasury. It was in the times of Crusades and until our times. Nothing changed but the complexity of cause of launching a war. From the Crusades, it developed into the imperialism. The main feature of it highlights the humankind’s vice – covetousness. But it hinges on the strength of the country. At the beginning of imperialism, France, England, Holland and Spain were the strongest. Becoming independent, America tried to extend its boarders by struggle with Spain in the Caribbean and Pacific. However, their attempts were doomed to failure. Spanish nation is a freedom-loving nation; they will never accept domination of some nation after the long oppression of Ottoman Empire. So, here started the story of failures in establishing of the colonies by USA. This example should be useful for those, who have power, but they ignore it and try again. And misfortune overtakes them again. That’s a given. (Judis, 2004)

God cannot alter the past, though historians can. Many people believe that appearing of the multilateral system of security in Europe will help to prevent major conflicts in the world, but the history tells another thing. Moreover, UN and Europe even support advance of the US armies in the East. UN security council justified the invasion of the US forces in the Kuwait and driving Saddam Hussein’s forces out of the Gulf Kingdoms. So, now the history have been forgotten by administration of the Bush in the year 2003. Or maybe they didn’t forget it, but revised for the sake of the new nationalism and neo-conservatism. It can lead only to the new major conflicts and disorder in the countries which never accept the power of transatlantic centers of empires. They suffered the same fate, and people suffered after their help. If someone wants to assist the country, to establish democracy or other type of order, he can’t force them to do it, but only after adaptation the nation to the new order. All presidents of the USA should remember proverb “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink”