Talk:American Empire

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[edit] Moved unreferenced paragraph to talk

The majority of the edits are editors who add know references to their own POV sentences. This paragraph is a good example of this, full of bad references, and several weasel words:

Nowadays the term "Empire" has two uncontroversial meanings [citation needed]. In one sense, the United States is not an empire, because it lacks a legal emperor, king, despot, or other hereditary head of state. However, some argue that the U.S. satisfies the definition of an empire, because it possesses sovereignty over territories which have not been officially incorporated [1]. The United States consists of two political entities: states and territories. The American Samoa is the only territory whose inhabitants are not granted citizenship of the United States. Other territories have been extended citizenship, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In the past, the US has also held possession of or occupied, in whole or in part, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (as a League of Nations Mandate).
Controversy exists over whether the U.S. consistently behaves like an empire across the world, and if it would be accurate to describe it as such.
...
The word "Empire" derives from the Latin "imperium", defined in C.T. Lewis' dictionary as "command, order, injunction, direction..." The imperium in Rome had two main manifestations: that of a public office or magistracy, and that of military authority. From the second definition it becomes clear that American military imperialism, whichever its forms or disguises, is the most pure and simple form of empire.[citation needed]

Travb (talk) 05:58, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent edits

RE: [1]

The word "allegedly" is a weasel word and violates Wikipedia:Avoid Weasel Words. Just to show how this word can change a sentence here are three sentences to illustrate:

  1. Jesus is allegedy the son of God.
  2. There allegedy was a Jewish Holocaust during World War II.
  3. Allegedy 3,000 people died in the Twin towers.

Infurating isn't it?

In response to this WP:AWW violation, I removed a large portion of text, unsubstantiated text which people had added over the past couple of months, including the sentence with allegedly, thinking this would solve the problem.

There were three changes today:

  1. "critique" to "concept" change. With the explanation "Need to justify its being a critique"
  2. "what the league took to be" added to "subsequent post-war military occupation and brutalities committed by US forces" and
  3. "Many citizens of the United States" changed to the more weasel word sentence "Many"

Number 1 is a minor change, with a dubious reason, but I can live with it.

Number 2 is as infurating as the allegedly examples above. There were immense war crimes caused by the US in the Philippines, including water boarding, consentration camps and torture, see Lodge committee

Number 3 is changing a statment which is factually correct, into a weasel sentence by making "many" alone.

I will change "critique" to "concept". I hope this clearly explains my concerns.

Travb (talk) 03:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Number 3 was sloppiness on my part. Sorry. Number 1 was made to improve flow. (Think about it, it should be obvious.) This whole article is a joke as it now stands. "... a term relating to ..."? That's barely literate. I'll try to put some time into this in the coming week or so, but not sure I'll find the time. --Cultural Freedom talk 2007-11-15 01:25 01:25, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] fallacy

"Additionally, the U.S. has often provided direct military and financial support of autocratic rulers in its former possessions who accomplish US military and mercantile objectives, including Ferdinand Marcos, Park Chung Hee, Omar Torrijos, and Manuel Noriega"

This seems somewhat odd, seeing as the US eventually had Torrijos assassinated, mainly because he put the Panama Canal back in the hands of Panama, and because he kicked out the School of the Americas from Panama. They also invaded Panama to remove Noriega. It's sort of difficult to support an autocrat while you're assassinating or overthrowing them. It's a fallacy and a contradiction to say that the US 'supported' them while invading and assassinating them.

I'll rework that later when I've got more time

Cam 04:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The statement is true, it is your logic that is fallacious. As with Saddam Hussain, the United States has assassinated and overthrown many despots they previously supported for a variety of reasons after a fall out. Usually because the former despot amassed enough power on their own to feel they could oppose or ignore the interests of their benefactor, the United States.--David Barba (talk) 04:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moved Philippine American War information to that article

I moved about 5 paragraphs to Talk:Philippine-American_War#Moved_from_American_Empire. These paragraphs are a new addition in the past couple of months. Beyond the retained paragraph, which discussed the origins of the term American Empire, everything else has little to do with the argument about American Empire.

The independence of the Philippines several decades later has nothing to do with American Empire. I would guess that competing views kept adding more material.

I never did care for the Mark Twain quote, have tried to remove it more than once, and this appears to be what caused this large mass of irrelevant material.

Please incorporate this material into the Philippine American War or Philippine independence. I really am impressed with the scholarship of this material, it simply is irrelevent to this subject. Trav (talk) 16:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Plea for neutrality

I readily confess that I have altered the article according to a POV, here. The prior divisions of the article, however, not least in the section headings, are written from an incredibly POV anti-American prospective. I beg the editors of the article to take serious consideration in reverting my admittedly unproductive edit, and use it as impetus to improve the neutrality and quality of the article. Tomertalk 09:55, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Page needs fixing bad

I just read the first paragraph and it is a complete mess. First of all, it refers to proponents of the american empire as people who are against the american empire. It is an incredibly confusing statement. I guess the original intent was to say that people who are against the american empire are propenents of using the term "empire" but not actually proponents of the emire itself. It is a complete mess.

2nd, it mentions two liberal/communist groups as being the ones that oppose the empire. Traditionally, resistance to the American Empire has come much more frequently from the right of the political spectrum. You would never know it from the way this article. Byates5637 (talk) 16:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] SERIOUS POV

This is not an encyclopedia article, it is a stick for beating US foreign policy with. That may be good or bad, but it is not the right way of writing a wikipedia article. This article should not be a one-sided forum for complaints about US foreign policy. (As yet I see no sign of its becoming a forum for approving noises about US foreign policy.) Rather, links to articles relating to US foreign policy should be integrated at appropriate points of departure in the text, and those discussions and details should go into those articles. The proper subject is whether the US is an empire, in what senses and perhaps what the consequences would be or how it would be perceived if the US were or were not an empire.

The real encyclopedia article would actually treat the question of whether the US is legitimately described as an empire, rather than taking that position for granted. In particular, would present multiple sides of the argument well, or at least as nontrivial. The article only presents poles, each one is presented in a lopsided way to serve the general POV, and a lot of rhetorical stuff not actually germane to establishing that America is an Empire is presented as more evidence of same.

I would seriously suggest beginning with the nuanced article on empire to get a handle on the vagueness and complexity of deciding whether or not something is an empire (and in what sense). Reading that article, consider the vast array of states which have been called empires, and also why they have been called empires, and finally what effect that has had on their perception and what that implies about when, where and why people would try to press the empire label for a particular state. Some of this complexity and ambiguity should come through here. One person's confidence that the US is an empire is simply not enough to justify the presentation of the position as obvious and factual. And it has got to be admitted that declaring something an empire has huge political value (due to historical associations with colonialism, invocation of balance of power as a way of guaranteeing international safety, etc.) independent of the facts and that there are vested interests in affirming either side of the issue.

Then I would suggest moving on to more balanced presentations of the whole spectrum of viewpoints on this issue - both the different senses of empire which might apply, and the positions on whether the US qualifies, and on the root beliefs underlying these positions. For example, assuming a definition of empire as Great Satan (something which people would disagree on), the real disagreement about whether or not the US is an empire really devolves to the disagreement about whether it is really Great Satan. At this point it could make sense to link to appropriate articles concerning the relevant debates, rather than just railing on and on in this article and only linking to purportedly supportive material on the Spanish-American War.

By the way, it is not acceptable to present all the people arguing one side as scholars etc., while representing the whole other side by only selecting extreme members of one US administration.

I'd also suggest treating explicitly people's attitudes toward US empire. For example, one could easily cite Niall Ferguson as one of the people who has stated that the US is an empire. But you don't have any idea what Ferguson is even saying until you also read that he approves of the US acting as an empire and feels that it is making a mistake by not recognizing and embracing that role (Prince Andrew's complaint covers similar territory). On the other hand, Noam Chomsky has said - I'm paraphrasing - that the word empire is overloaded and impossibly vague, so it is really senseless to apply it, but he plainly does not approve of US foreign policy. It's not entirely honest to say things like this - "renowned historian Niall Ferguson says that the US is an empire" or "even leftist Noam Chomsky is not among those who agree that the US is an empire" - when a lot of the force of calling the US an empire, at least nowadays, is to bring in a derogatory connotation.

There is a whole spectrum of viewpoints on this issue which is not represented. I only see an extensive list of citations and arguments (not presented as arguments but as facts within the main stream of the article) on the side that America is a (probably evil) Empire - set against a few cherrypicked quotes from a cherrypicked list of generally loathed Neoconservatives. This misses a lot of people: ones who think it's a bit pointless to talk about what's an empire, people who don't think US is an empire but that some elements in it want it to be, people who do think it is an empire and want it to embrace that, etc. Consider dimension A as empire-or-not, and dimension B as like-it-or-not. If you must dump lots of quotes into the article, dump a more rounded variety of them.

However you want to do it, it is really not correct for this to stay as it is - POV and not even flagged as such.

83.103.77.181 (talk) 19:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Could you be more specific and concise as to your objections? My impression is you mainly object to presenting the view that the United States is an empire. The article currently presents multiple and competing views on the word "empire" and its respective use in reference to the United States- making for a convoluted and difficult to read article. However the objective is to be sensitive to POV issues in presentation of material.--David Barba (talk) 20:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I also would suggest that in the future the anon IP attempt to be more specific and concise, as well as avoiding INTERNET SHOUTING. As it is, the only specific complaints I see are false or invalid:
  • The article does present a variety of viewpoints, categorized as three schools of thought, and does not present the US being an empire as an established fact.
  • The article does include quotes from respected liberals like John Ikenberry who acknowledge that empires may exist but deny that the US is one, as well as several historians who claim that "empire" is not a meaningful concept.
  • Niall Ferguson is presented specifically in the context of defending US empire as benevolent, so anon's accusation of dishonesty in that regard is pretty bizarre.
  • The "complaints about US foreign policy" are all presented in the context of people using them as arguments for the US being an empire.
Kalkin (talk) 20:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
83.103.77.181 raises very pertinent points. I have been reading several articles related to empires on wikipedia and frankly I find that many of them are below par, and full of vague descriptions of what constitutes an empire, and whether this-or-that country once had an empire. I don't even agree with the title of this article, "American Empire": to my knowledge the United States has never referred to itself as an empire either past or present, unlike (say) the British Empire which, for its duration, referred to itself as such.
Ideally this article should be split, into one about U.S. colonial possessions between the end of the Spanish-American war and 1946, and one about current U.S. hegemony and global influence. Not all this stuff about "Was the U.S. ever an Empire", "Does it behave like an empire now" etc. Let's stick to facts, not political philosophising.
A couple of observations:
1. Having overseas territorial possessions does not automatically make an empire. There are bits of France and its dependent territories stretched across the globe, but no-one talks of the French Empire in any other context than a historical one.
2. Arguably, empires as a political structures no longer exist. Certainly there are none today that bear any resemblance to most historical empires. So any musings on whether the U.S. "behaves like an empire" should be rewritten in a modern context and changed to whether the U.S. behaves like a superpower, a hegemony or whatever term is appropriate for this day and age. They certainly don't belong in an article entitled American Empire (which, as I said, I don't even think should exist).Jarby (talk) 16:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
A few observations of my own:
  • One of the OED's definitions of empire is having overseas territorial possessions. The OED is a more reliable source than you or I.
  • The US has been called an empire by any number of people both opposed to and supportive of US policy. This, not your opinion that the term is outdated nor mine that it is highly applicable, is what determines its inclusion in Wikipedia.
  • Both history ("was the US ever an empire") and political philosophy are within the scope of Wikipedia.
  • The split you recommend was already done, some time ago - there are articles on Overseas expansion of the United States, Foreign relations of the United States, Territorial acquisitions of the United States, and various others, all linked in a handy little box which is, uh, right at the top of this very article. But there have been extensive conceptual debates about the meaning of all that history, which are covered in this article.
Kalkin (talk) 20:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The OED is indeed a reliable source, but by that strict definition that would imply that there are currently several empires still in existance: the American Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, the Dutch Empire, the Australian Empire, the New Zealand Empire, the Danish Empire, and the Norwegian Empire. Even if the OED is a more authoritative source than you or I, it's also pretty hard to argue that these empires still exist. Today they are more accurately defined as countries with overseas territories and possessions. They are certainly no longer referred to empires, neither by themselves or other nations.
To be honest what bothers me about this whole American Empire article is not the content, which is interesting and useful and certainly belongs to the articles that you have mentioned above; but that the term "American Empire" is basically a neologism. At the time that the United States had any significant overseas possessions (namely, the Philippines), it did not refer to its "Empire" and neither did other nations refer to "the American Empire". They simply referred to "the United States". Contast that to France and Britain and the numerous references to their own empires, both during and since.
As for "the U.S. has been called an empire". It's also been called "the Great Satan" but that doesn't mean that it literally is or was. Jarby (talk) 14:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
There may be a sense in which the term is a neologism, though I'm sure you could find some uses going back a century or more, to the time of the Anti-Imperialist League if not before. But that seems to me to be a secondary concern, if the content of the article belongs in Wikipedia. If the content is ok, the question is not NPOV, but whether the article could have a better title, no? There are options - "US hegemony", "US imperialism", etc - but I don't think they are superior.
It turns out Wikipedia does in fact have an article on the Great Satan.
Kalkin (talk) 18:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, those titles are superior, as they describe more accurately the contents of this article. The British Empire article talks about the political entity that was the British Empire. This article is about contrasting views of US hegemony and imperialism, an altogether more intangible matter, and should have a title that reflects that difference. Part of the problem stems from the "Empire" article itself and related ones such as "List of largest empires", I find them to be quite bloated and hazy (by the way, how do you get these words to link directly to the articles? Thanks).Jarby (talk) 15:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The term "imperialism" is more decidedly negative than "empire", and is therefore likely to provoke more controversy about this article. Moreover, defenders of a "benevolent empire" rarely, if ever, use the term "imperialism". US "hegemony" is a related but different concept; few debate whether the US is hegemonic, and the article would not really have a scope for the debates here. I think it is an advantage that someone looking for a parallel to the British Empire article about the US would easily find this article, not a disadvantage
To link to a Wikipedia article, you put double square brackets around a word or phrase.
Kalkin (talk) 21:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced. The contents of this article are rarely described by the word "American Empire" outside of wikipedia. I note with some dismay that Soviet Empire is similarly titled. That the USSR bore similarities to an empire is unquestionable, but it was never known as the Soviet Empire.

Oh well, I'll leave at that: as I said above, this article contains useful information, but I honestly think some of it, if not all of it should be redistributed into the more relevent existing articles about the subject; and really the title should not be about an "empire" that has never been described as such.Jarby (talk) 14:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Jarby, Have you done a simple google search for the phrase "American Empire"? Wikipedia, as with most subjects, is the first to appear, but a lot of substantial material follows.--David Barba (talk) 15:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

User:David Barba is correct, User:83.103.77.181 please be much more concise.

Whenever a person makes an absolute statement such as this:

"Certainly there are none today that bear any resemblance to most historical empires".

...I have found these absolute statements almost always wrong. There are many scholars who believe that the US "...bear[s] resemblance to most historical empires." And there is another group of editors who disagree. Both are represented in this article.

Everyone here, your personal opinion on whether America is or is not an empire is irrelevant, and has to remain on the talk page if you don't have sourced referenced to support your ideas.

I have to laugh again and again at User:83.103.77.181 and everyone else here who claims that this article is POV, when this article covers all 3 perspectives equally and thoroughly. The only conclusion I can figure out is maybe the editors who cry "POV" never actually read far enough down in the article to see their own POV represented, backed up by scholars?

I wish editors would spend more time adding content which supports their POV, then arguing their personal opinion on this talk page. The reality is that a person's opinion is not very relevant unless they have supporting citations. Trav (talk) 13:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed sections

Someone earlier removed this paragraph, I list them here not because I support or defend these statements.

I list them here because although I question their relevance in the article, I don't think they should be forgotten in the edit history, and maybe should be rewritten and restored:

Additionally, the U.S. has often provided direct military and financial support of autocratic rulers in its former possessions who accomplish US military and mercantile objectives, including Ferdinand Marcos, Park Chung Hee, Omar Torrijos, and Manuel Noriega - though all former US colonies, except Cuba (which was never really a colony, merely a protectorate while it set up it's own government), currently have democratically elected governments[citation needed]. Despite the amount of American military bases overseas, all governments of countries with American military presence retain and, in some cases, have exercised the right to expel all US military personnel from within their borders.

Also this:

Old Right journalist John T. Flynn described the position this way:[2]
“ The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells. „

—Flynn, John T. (1944) As We Go Marching.
The proposed solution is typically unceasing popular vigilance in order to apply counter-pressure. Chalmers Johnson holds a version of this view; other versions are typically held by anti-interventionists, such as Buchanan, Bacevich, Raimondo, and Flynn.

The ignorant copyright violation argument I kept lost in the revision history, were it belongs.

Trav (talk) 13:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I removed those paragraphs, as well as the others you restored, after they were tagged by an editor who left a number of inline comments in the article.
Regarding the paragraph quoted above: US relations to the territories it once occupied directly are potentially within the scope of the article, but that paragraph rambles off into a series of unsourced claims about democracy, and I'm not sure how to improve it while leaving it reasonably concise.
Regarding the longer paragraphs I've just removed from the article, again: For the record, I agree with most of the authors cited. However, I think that the discussion of whether or not US empire is good for the US government or for US citizens is beyond the scope of this article. Here, we should confine our attention to the debate over whether the US is an empire; if we get into reasons why that might be good or bad, and what should be done, etc., there's no clear end to the topic.
Kalkin (talk) 17:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I am indifferent User:DKalkin. Here are the removed sections:
This is a common extension of the critique of American empire; Buchanan and, from the opposite side of the political spectrum, prominent writer Tariq Ali, argue independently but similarly that acts of terrorism against the United States, such as the September 11, 2001 attacks, are the direct result of the U.S.'s ill-fated attempts to help others out of the nation's endless reserve of kindness and goodwill. Ali claims that "the reasons [for terrorism] are really political. They see the double standards applied by the West: a ten-year bombing campaign against Iraq, sanctions against Iraq which have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children, while doing nothing to restrain Ariel Sharon and the war criminals running Israel from running riot against the Palestinians. Unless the questions of Iraq and Palestine are sorted out, these kids will be attracted to violence regardless of whether Osama bin Laden is gotten dead or alive."[3]
Ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill is almost alone, however, in extending this critique further to argue that at least some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks - the "little Eichmanns" who "formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of the US' global financial empire – the 'mighty engine of profit' to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved" - deserved their fates.[4] A different extension is more common; many critics of US imperialism argue, like Marxist sociologist John Bellamy Foster, that the United States' sole-superpower status makes it now the most dangerous world imperialist.[5]
Trav (talk) 16:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's what was removed, although for the record the John Bellamy Foster quote remains in the article, it was simply moved to a different place. Kalkin (talk) 16:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel

It reads like weasel words the way it blaims such things on marxists and anarchists. This is the definition I'd use and I'm certainly neither of these.--Him and a dog 09:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't say that no one who isn't a marxist, an anarchist, or a "New Left"-y holds that position. It just says that marxists, anarchists, and "New Left"ys do, in fact, typically hold that position - a claim which it then backs by citing a number of marxists, anarchists, and "New Left" types. Note that it also says below that a couple of schools of conservatives hold a similar position. I'm going to restore the old version. "Many" is a much worse weasel word, IMO. Kalkin (talk) 18:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
In America though to call something Marxist or anarchist absolutely discredits the viewpoint. That's the one bit of the article which comes the slightest bit close to the truth that the American empire has always been there (it being a land based empire like Russia rather than a colonial one like the Europeans). The article though is far more bent towards modern 'evil imperialist' accusations about US foreign policy, the furthest back event being 1898...--Him and a dog 10:58, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that means we should pretend that Marxists don't exist or have never had any intellectual influence in the US. They certainly do exist and have had an influence - in my view much more often than not a positive one. Kalkin (talk) 20:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Not a very big one. They are a small group and really far from the only people who would see that, that's a fairly standard view of history.--Him and a dog 21:45, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image:American Empire.PNG

The American "Empire"
The American "Empire"

This image, captioned as shown here, was recently added to and then removed from the article. It is difficult to tell without labels or a legend, but the image appears to highlight:

in blue:

in black:

Not highlighted, or possibly with highlighting not visible due to scale, are:

It seems to me that the image needs some supporting explanatory material, and might need some revision. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:21, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

agreed, weird map.--David Barba (talk) 04:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Thirded. What I meant in saying it matches no description in the article is that 1) it doesn't correspond to the legal territory of the US at any given point in history and 2) it doesn't correspond to any of the present measures of US influence discussed in the article such as military bases or missions. Kalkin (talk) 20:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

This kind of map belongs more in Overseas expansion of the United States. The trouble with this American Empire article is that it does not describe the same kind of "empire" that were the British Empire, Roman Empire or French Colonial Empire. I get the feeling that people are comparing apples and oranges by trying to paint an apple orange. Whatever the American Empire is, it is not an Empire in the traditional sense (from Antiquity to the mid-20th century). It's something rather different, so having the same kind of maps as there are on other "Empire" articles makes no sense. The map with the military bases around the world conveys a more accurate image of what this article is about. This map, on the other hand, does not.Jarby (talk) 16:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interactive section

I've removed the Interactive section here, perhaps temporarily.

===Interactive===
[http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/american-wars.html American Leadership and War]  Interactive timeline of US military interventions around the world from 1775

Reasons:

  1. The Terms of use specify, in part, "Individuals and non-commercial users may quote, excerpt and link to content with appropriate attribution." and no explicit attribution was provided (I can't guess what "appropriate" means in this usage).
  2. WP:ELNO No. 1 (?? - possibly)
  3. WP:ELNO No. 8 (Flash required)
  4. WP:ELNO No. 13. (This seems only tangentially related to the American empire topic. e.g., U.S. involvement in WW-I and WW-II doesn't seem closely related to the topic.)
  5. There may be other arguments against its inclusion.

It's a spiffy map animation, though it seems oversimplistic. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a spiffy map indeed but I think it belongs as an external link on List of United States military history events. The only one of your arguments against inclusion there that seems to apply is WP:ELNO No. 8 - terms of use can't prevent links, a featured article still wouldn't have an animation, and it would be directly related. I don't know how strict we are with the Flash rule but it seems like the kind of thing where for an occasional unique & worthy animation WP:IAR would apply. Kalkin (talk) 01:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I added it, and I feel it illustrates some of the issues very nicely. It belongs here Chendy (talk) 00:14, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Can you explain why? Kalkin (talk) 14:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Max Boot as too partisan to be simply taken a face value.

I feel Max Boot is too compromised by involvement in present ideological struggles that have upheld the War in Iraq to be presented as merely an authority or an "historian." His credibility must be in question by other readers besides myself. Ideally this is acknowledged not hidden or you do a diservice to the general reader. His treatment can not be sloppy but must contain some awareness of his role as an ideologue. (no personal offense meant)

Readers who have no familiarity with his politics will be willing to take his broad generalizations and opinions as factual even without facts. This undermines the purpose and standards of an encyclopedia. Just because Boot has made it into the highest echalons of American power does not mean his views can stand without facts.

If you consider yourself well-read in Max Boot's books/articles, please carefully support his views with the facts he uses to support his views. If you feel you must simply state his opinions, be sure they are clearly written as opinions or they may appear to carry weight and credibility with Wikipedia.

My changes to the Max Boot section were all edited out. They may not have been perfect, but I know the facts of Philippine history are being distorted. Historical "views" are required to actually BE historical.

Jagak (talk) 19:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Max Boot is a partisan but so are most of the sources quoted in this article. While I find Boot's views abhorrent, an encyclopedia article on the American Empire needs to point out that it has defenders. Certainly, his views should be presented as opinions. But the answer is not to include a line-by-line rebuttal of each of his claims - that disrupts the flow of the article and, unless we cite sources that address Boot specifically, it illegitimate synthesis. Rather, we need to make sure the presentation of his views is neutrally worded and does not endorse them. Getting rid of "points out" was a good start. Kalkin (talk) 19:53, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] POV

The POV issue has still not been addressed in this article. Specifically, the article continues to take it for granted that the US is an empire.

I don't agree. The article says quite clearly in the first section that "Debate exists over whether the U.S. is an empire", and then proceeds to outline three schools of thought, only one of which asserts that the U.S. is currently an empire. Perhaps the intro could be improved - I've reverted to the old version which makes it clearer that the use of "American Empire" to refer to the US role in the world is not consensus. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

This is framing (in the sense George Lakoff uses). Its effect is to turn what should be a matter of open and rational discussion into a buried prejudice or tacit assumption which is not open to examination. It is great for propaganda and within bounds for debate, but it is unacceptable for an encyclopedia.

Insofar as any other viewpoint is presented, it is either neutered and misrepresented as basically agreeing that the US is an empire (eg Joseph Nye)or it is presented by someone marginal with almost no credibility(eg Boot, Rumsfeld). When just a smattering of these are offset by a huge quantity of quotes backing POV, the effect on someone without great ability to sift through such manipulation would be an overwhelming impression of overwhelming consensus from qualified scholars. But that's really not an accurate viewpoint - anyone who read Empire could see that it is less than clear whether the USSR is an empire (and that without a lot of barely relevant invective against the USSR for being racist or dominating etc.) and could also look at the definitions there to see that there is a huge middle ground where people could sensibly say that the US was not an empire on one or another not-crazy idea of empire.

Would it really be acceptable for the entry on Jesus to state that Jesus is the Son of God when (for better or worse) there is substantial sectarian disagreement on the issue? Rather than making a tacit assumption or using weasel words, it would be best to very clearly bring out the uncertainty and difference of opinion. For an example, consider how the Soviet Union is treated in the Empire article: [blockquote]The former Soviet Union had many of the criteria of an empire, but nevertheless did not claim to be one, nor was it ruled by a traditional hereditary "emperor" (see Soviet Empire). Nevertheless, historians still occasionally classify it as an empire, if only because of its similarities to empires of the past and its sway over a large multi-ethnic bloc of Eurasia.[/blockquote]

For a counter-example, consider how the empire article (in a portion copied over from the old version of this article) states that calling the US an empire has "invited controversy" - carefully avoiding any indication of reasonable uncertainty parallel to "had many of the criteria ... but ... nor", "still occasionally ... if only". To repeat myself explicitly, the issue is whether it is clearly communicated to readers that reasonable and informed people (not just people to discount, like crazy ideologues or liars) might, without being delusional or ignorant or misinformed, disagree or raise question about whether the US is an empire. Because, you know, they do. Like the issue with the Soviet Union, this is not something subject to anything approaching scholarly consensus.

For another counter-example in the empire article, consider how the same old source sets a citation of Stuart Creighton Miller against a citation of the extremely unpopular Donald Rumsfeld making a singularly unconvincing presentation of one side of that issue.

Or how it (again the empire article) launches into a whole paragraph about how someone says the US tries to dominate other countries, without ever (honestly) setting it out that empire is defined by trying to dominate other countries (a really clearly untenable definition when brought out into the open, IMO - but if it is used, then brought into the open it must be).

Given the number of points at which the text of this article is infected with POV, it would be impossible to provide specific criticism on every instance of the problem concisely. So I am going to apologize that the below is not concise - you either get concise or you get specific, but you can't have both. I believe it should be enough to point out that the article is basically ruined as it is, but I am happy to walk through insofar as I have time to sit on Wikipedia.

-- "American Empire refers to the political, economic, military and cultural influence of the United States." Does it really refer to that? That depends on whether it is valid in general to say that X Empire is the political, economic, military and cultural influence of X. If the same schema doesn't work to talk about the Canadian Empire, or the Kazakh Empire, then this is not an accurate definition of what American Empire means.

The sentence you quote is, I believe, a paraphrase of the OED definitions in the first section. I don't think it does too badly, but if you have a better version, you're welcome to substitute it. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

What American Empire means, in fact, is that empire which is American/owned by America (a simple possessive adjective is not that tortured). Now here is a question we have to take seriously: IS there such an empire?

I mean, surely no one will allow me to make an article on the King of France which states at the outset that "'King of France' refers to the male hereditary ruler of France" and which then goes on to discuss my biographical details without ever making it very explicit that, in fact, there might be some slippage in describing me as the King of France. (And while perhaps I might present some impressive arguments for why my claim should not be dismissed out of hand, surely no one would be impressed if I included some stuff about how I try to dominate everyone in France at every opportunity I get. Indeed, they would immediately notice the distinction between 'trying to dominate' or even 'occasionally dominating' and 'being the King of'. That is the kind of distinction which is so painfully relevant and yet absent here).

I fail to see your point here. A term may refer to something which does not exist. It appears that you do not agree that the U.S. is accurately described as an empire. Cool. But those who do use the term have a different view, and this article is about the term as it is used, correct? Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- The section on "American Exceptionalism" is interesting enough as it is, but I fear that it is presented as a rhetorical argument for why the US actually is an empire. That would be exactly correct, except it never actually rises to the point of presenting such an argument. Rather, it presents someone who tries to explain why Americans would not agree that they have an empire. This is clever because it smuggles in the assumption that there is an American Empire without having to present support for that thesis (otherwise, what is there to explain - nobody needs to overdetermine why Americans don't believe that the US is an empire, if the reason in fact is that it isn't one or that there is no good reason to believe it is one).

Even a little contextualization (or movement to provide different context) would help offset the impression that we are now putting a nail in the coffin of those fools in the previous paragraph who said that it didn't make sense to call the US an empire.

The concept of American exceptionalism is used to explain the degree of controversy about the idea of an American empire. Its use to frame the article was originally, I believe, modeled on Stuart Creighton Miller's discussion of same. Stuart Creighton Miller is quoted in the article critiquing the idea of imperialism. No assumptions regarding the existence of an American empire are smuggled in here. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- Likewise, it is impressively manipulative to present three bullet points as the possible options regarding American Imperialism, when the only one which does not involve acceptance that the US is imperialist is the one which "denies" and "even asserts" (even - how could they! asserts - how questionable!) that "such things" (whatever things actually and uncontentiously define imperialism, a topic avoided assiduously in this article) could ever happen. This last, of course, is ridiculously strong. By bundling the only way of disagreeing that the US is an empire with a laughably extreme position on why, the laughably extreme stuff becomes a reason to take it for granted that the US is an empire. (Of course, we might always beg off by saying "but that's what Miller says." But then the question arises of why Miller is relevant at this particular point.

Ingenious - but not correct for an encyclopedia.

Actually, two of the bullet points assert that the US is not imperialist. One, which quotes a number of people who are by no means extremists, holds that the US possessed an empire for a brief period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Another, which is indeed scanty but is already labeled with a "please expand this section" tag, holds that the US has never been an empire. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- "Marxists, anarchists, and the members of the New Left tend to view US imperialism as both deep-rooted and amoral." In the same way, I tend to view the King of France as both beautiful and a genius. But let's not put the cart before the horse: is there a King of France, and is there US imperialism? As much as you do not believe that it is even credible to question whether there is US imperialism, this is again hardly a matter of overwhelming scholarly consensus. Might we not intimate that these people view US foreign policy as imperialist, and not just that they view its imperialism (taken for granted, framed in before any discussion) as deep-rooted and amoral?

You may prefer to present US imperialism as a given, and to indicate indirectly that the only debatable items are how superficial and laudable that imperialism is. But, again, King of France. To casually discuss the incidental properties of US imperialism is to already have taken US imperialism for granted as existent. I have no doubt that it is possible to talk about people who believe that P and Q, and also people who believe that P and R, without the article treating P as something that all readers should take for granted.

Similar problem continues throughout the section.

I don't think the current phrasing implies that US imperialism exists. I may view the King of France as an asshole, whether or not he exists. But you're welcome to try to find better wording. Be bold. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- "Historian Sidney Lens argues that "the United States, from the time it gained its own independence, has used every available means—political, economic, and military—to dominate other nations."[11]"

Well, I'm sure he does; insofar as this includes a scholarly citation to a book, it is very scholarly. But that is not the point. If Paddy Roy Bates used every opportunity to dominate nations other than Sealand, what relevance would that have on the existence of Sealand Empire? In other words, if I make an article on Sealand Empire, and then I give a scholar stating that Sealand is not very nice, what has that really added to anyone's understanding of Sealand Empire (or, for that matter, the preliminary question of whether there IS a Sealand Empire) without some kind of connecting argument that being not-nice makes something an empire? And isn't this kind of connecting argument just what I am asking to have brought out in the article?

Lens' book is entitled The Forging of the American Empire. This quote demonstrates what he means by "American Empire", or at least one of the things he means. You are welcome to think that his position is illogical; this section of the article, however, describes his position and that of his co-thinkers, not yours. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- "U.S. military bases abroad as a form of empire"

"Form of empire" is just a weaselly way of saying it's an empire. If you didn't mean to say it was an empire because it had military bases, you would say whatever else (military bases as evidence of military power, for example). So plainly you do mean it. But you are going to try to weasel out by saying "form of," a bit as though you wanted to present masturbation as a "form of adultery." (Do you think it would be OK to go to the masturbation article and add a section on how it is a form of adultery? How about together with a total rewrite meant to pervasively present masturbation as Sin? Is that correct for an encyclopedia, or is it POV? What if I do not say it myself, but I only dump in a lot of quotes from preachers stating my opinion, and then give as perfunctory opposition some quotes on the subject from Anton LaVey?)

Who's "you"? The subsection on military bases describes how some people who think the US possesses an empire interpret that word - they think its network of military bases constitutes an empire. Again, your disagreement is welcome but irrelevant. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- "Theories of US Empire" Why not "Theories of the Sin of Masturbation"? "Though writers of diverse politics share a conception of the US as an empire, and describe many of the same policies and institutions as evidence of empire, even within the ranks of anti-imperialists explanations for US imperialism vary widely." This is fine and lucid and it makes it perfectly clear that this belongs in a section which is more or less explicitly marked as being for the

However, that is presently just about the whole article. Not because of overwhelming scholarly consensus. Because someone dumped in bucketloads of quotes backing their own POV (from miscellaneous left-wing intellectuals most people won't know, described only by respectable and confidence-inspiring titles like 'historian' and 'journalist', and the opposition left to a couple inarticulate and unexplained snips from people like Rumsfeld).

The left intellectuals included in the article are the best known proponents of their views available, and some (eg Chomsky) are very well known, period. No attempt is made to hide their ideologies; rather, the introductory paragraphs frame them - to use a word you like - as either "Marxists, anarchists, and the members of the New Left" or "conservative" "'isolationists'". Ideological commitment is not mutually exclusive with being a historian or a journalist. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- "US empire never existed" Harking back to an earlier issue, do you mean that they EVEN ASSERT it could never happen in their country? Look, same problem: there are any number of reasons to doubt or dispute that the US is an empire, defended by respectable scholars who are not hated doofs like Rumsfeld (e.g. Joseph Nye). I've already discussed the problem with using Rumsfeld as the representative of the only alternative view - you are presenting nutty patriotic revisionism as being the only possible path to challenge a leftist orthodoxy, and that just isn't fair or intellectually honest.

Nye doesn't claim that a US empire never existed. He's quoted in the section on people who believe that the US was once an empire but no longer is. There may or may not be respectable scholars who believe the US was never an empire; I once Googled briefly and didn't find any. But if you know of some, please do add reference to their work in the appropriate place. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- Max Boot I think this has been thrashed out somewhat. I see one problem that it is a bit odd and discontinuous to jump into the Philippines, now that the rest of the article is not as much of an extended rant on how bad America was in the Philippines (whatever precisely that contributes to a discussion of American Empire is still not spelled out, but it sure sounds nasty and plays to the same far-left bias suffusing the whole article). I see another problem that you are again using someone who will regarded as marginal as one of the sole proponents of the alternative to your own obviously favored view. Using those people as the sample is extremely misleading and if that is all you can allow to be in the article, then I would at least like less of that redundant stuff toward the beginning where a bunch of leftist scholars are all nodding at each other that it is an empire.

Again, who's "you"? This article has many authors.
The section on the Philippines could use reworking, I agree; it's the main area of disagreement between Boot and folks like Nye (or even Victor Davis Hanson), who are more critical of the turn-of-the-century US occupation of the Philippines, but this isn't made clear in the article. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- "Empire was an aberration" By manipulating context and phrasing, you misrepresent Joseph Nye as if he accepted that the US was an empire, and as if soft power is just a form of empire, when, in fact, he argues pointedly and explicitly that the US is not an empire.

You're multiply wrong. There's nothing unfair about the presentation of Nye's views, and he is not presented as agreeing that the US is currently an empire, precisely the opposite. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

You label what Nye says as the "official or mainstream interpretation" and this reads to me very much like you want it to be discounted as some bullshit official line. That impression is not at all helped when you back it up with a quote from the United States Information Agency. So propaganda agencies and rabid/wildly delusory nationalists are the only people who disagree with you? I doubt you even believe that.

It's probably not healthy to speculate about what your imaginary interlocutor is merely pretending to believe.
I do agree that "official or mainstream interpretation" is the sort of unverifiable assertion that doesn't belong in the article. I thought it had already been removed at some point, but I suppose either I misremember of it was restored. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

By locating the only real counterarguments to "American Empire" in a section labeled "Empire was an aberration" you suggest that really no sensible person could ever question American Empire, it's just that some people will say wishy-washy stuff about how it wasn't *so much* of an empire or something. Which is transparently ludicrous.

Even if Miller believes those are the only three categories, that does not mean that Wikipedia also has to frame the entire topic to readers in Miller's skewed way, with the only nonacceptances of "American Empire" being from (IMHO) loons like Rumsfeld and Boot.

-- "A variety of factors may have coincided during the "Age of Imperialism" (the later part of the nineteenth century, when the US and the other major powers rapidly expanded their territorial possessions) to spur on American expansion abroad:"

This belongs in an article on US expansion, manifest destiny or something like that. What you have done here is take another highly suggestive item which is technically out of context and dump it in to overwhelm the reader with one POV.

If the US once had an empire and no longer does, it's worth examining what was special about that period. Same as with the "theories of empire" section above. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- Cultural imperialism You repeat the tactic of having a "scholar" sound-bited as agreeing with POV. He states that 'cultural imperialism' and 'political imperialism' are the same and throws in some more of that stuff about exceptionalism (again taking it for granted that exceptionalism is true, and that it is the reason people do not believe that the US is an empire).

But the argument presented is entirely oriented around "scholar says so." Nothing else is even suggested: rather than presenting any evidence at all to bind together cultural imperialism (whatever cultural imperialism, that discussion is conveniently packed away - where nobody can inspect the basic feasibility of the equivalence) you just have Ed Said saying they are the same somehow and that exceptionalism explains why people say otherwise. Well, maybe, but how does anyone actually know that they are the same?

You think the article gives undue weight to anti-imperialist views, but you want to add evidence for Said's position?
Two scholars are also quoted critiquing the idea of cultural imperialism. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

-- "He believes non-US citizens, particularly non-Westerners, are usually thought of within the US in a tacitly racist manner, in a way that allows imperialism to be justified through such ideas as the White Man's Burden.[40]"

Suppose I find someone who says that Swedes, Veterinarians, or any other group are racist. Racism, of course, "allows imperialism to be justified through such ideas as the White Man's Burden." This is a ridiculously shaky argument. Surely Edward Said does not determine whether or not the US is racist, and surely being racist does not mean being an empire. Perhaps I am egregiously racist, but that does not make me an empire; even if I move my racist family out to Sealand, that does not make us an empire; even if I become the racist ruler of Australia, that does not make an Australian Empire. So where is the meat here?

You disagree with Said. Once again your privilege; once again beside the point. Kalkin (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

In summary I see little change in the essential POV problem here - only angry denials that there is a problem and the removal of the POV marker. But that change is necessary because this really does represent significant POV of the type that does not help WP's reputation or mission at all (even if it does advance the agenda of an individual or small group camping the page)

83.103.77.181 (talk) 01:10, 31 May 2008 (UTC)