Japan, Philippians, China, puerto rico, Hawaii, the canal, etc etc.
All of them have their good and their bad, but a general pattern appears. These zones are better than they were before, and better than if Europe
would have been present.
Oh...where to start.
OK...the Philippines became US Protectorates at the end of the Spanish-American war in 1898. The FOLLOWING YEAR the people of the Philippines
revolted against US rule and we sent 126,000 soliders to fight the Philippine-American War. We suffered 4,234 casualties and 200,000 civilians died.
We then fought lengthy and costly political and economic battles attempting to control the Philippines for the next 36 years as the the Philippinos
struggled for the right to govern themselves instead of being essentially a US colony. The transition of power was scheduled to be complete in
1946.
However...the substantial US interests in the Philippines that still remained gave the Japanese a bunch of conveniently located targets for them to
attack us at during WWII. The US lost another 53,487 American troops in the Philippines during WWII attempting to defend the interests of private
businessmen....including a whole bunch of them on the Bataan Death March.
As scheduled, on July 4, 1946 we permitted the Philippines to govern themselves once again...and made this possible by shoveling billions and billions
of dollars of GRANTS to their new government in exchange for the governments help in hunting down and killing their own citizens who were suspected of
being "socialists".
In 1965, Ferdinand Marcos won the Presidential election and continued the proud tradition of accepting US funds in exchange for persecuting and
torturing his own people who were accused of being "socialists"...which many times meant simply people who thought that the rich should pay more
taxes. In 1972, Marcos declared Martial Law which remained in effect until 1986.
By 1987 the leftists had finally won and People Power Revolution party candidate Corazon Aquino became President and began the long road to
establishing a bicameral legislature and a constitution which recognized civil liberties. However, the US military presence continued to an issue
with Philippino people and there would six different attempts at military coups during the next 10 years. In 1992 the Philippines decided NOT to
renew or extend the leases on US military bases and for the first time since 1898 the average standard of living for Phillippino citizens began to
increase.
In 2001, US-backed, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (daughter of the US backed president from '61-'65) became president and promptly began working to
dissolve the bicameral legislature and replace it with a unicameral federal parliamentary system which greatly consolidated power back into the hands
of the executive branch. Until, of course, she was convicted of election fraud. She's currently in prison and the Philippino people have once again
elected a leftist, Benigno Aquino III...the son of Corazon Aquino who was responsible for delivering her people from the iron-fisted rule of US-backed
Ferdinand Marcos.
If that's what you call a "success story" you are completely out of your mind.
The ONLY lesson to learn there is that setting up puppet governments might likely result in lots and lots of dead US soldiers and enormous amounts of
tax dollars going overseas and even MORE dead civilians to force a way of life upon people which can ONLY be maintained by a dictatorship and a
permanent US military presence.
Although in fairness...I guess you can claim that Puerto Rico and Guam might be better off as post Spanish-American War US
protectorates...although...that's not saying very much considering that they are little more than rock outcroppings in the middle of the ocean.
Hawaii doesn't count...we didn't "nation-build" we annexed them into this country and gave them full legislative representation.
The US nation-building in Japan in the 1800's was more or less reserved to acting in a consulting role to help the emperor in modernizing his
military...a decision which would result in the loss of 248,000 dead American soldiers and about 35 million dead civilians less than a century later.
Proving once again that sooner or later we almost ALWAYS wind up fighting those that we arm and train.
You can support an action while not supporting the deaths involved in the action.
Not when that action is defined by killing lots and lots of civilians. I'm not saying that the GOAL of getting Ghadaffi out of power was necessarily
bad...but the METHOD sure as hell was. I draw the line at US intervention when it necessitates violence. If the Libyans want to revolt...great.
Call us when it's over, but not before because it usually ends badly
For example, I rather like capitalism. I don't like the literal millions of slaves and death camps in china produced from it.
Agreed. So...it's the METHOD that you don't li