Dancing with the Stars

--PlayBill, Mr. Fish


I'm sick of their timid, lying morality
--Col. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now

Never interrupt your enemy
while he is making a mistake
--Napoleon Bonaparte

Kiss his boots or you'll be through
Out of the night comes a soldier right
Line you up in his gunsight
His mind's exploded, ego's overloaded
--The Cult, Soldier Blue
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Happy Day After Thanksgiving -- hope everyone enjoyed a nice holiday. I'm sure we all count our blessings. We are grateful for our many kind readers, without whom this project wouldn't fly. We began the blog as naifs, and feel fortunate to have established friendships with many fine and fascinating people along the way. For that, we are thankful.

p.s. -- and if you suffered a bit of familial stress over the holiday, today's graphic is in the spirit of offering a little larf (those screwy Republicans, always upping the outrageousness bar ... )

Today, Ranger presents a two-part ramble through history, a whirlwind tour with a goal; Ranger's history lollapalooza. As always, commentary is welcome.

Let's dance through U.S. and world history reflecting upon our choice of partners and tunes as we whirl around the dance floor to the tunes being played. Just for fun.

Up first: Spanish-American War. This put the U.S. firmly in the imperial club by adding former Spanish colonial possessions to the U.S. collection of colonial properties. This was seen as a good, forgetting that democracy and colonial domination are contradictory terms.

The Spanish-American War can be seen as the initial campaign of World War II since U.S. possessions and interests in the Philippine Isles led to direct imperial and colonial conflict with the Japanese. This Spanish war was fought with a large professional Navy and a small professional Army augmented with volunteer-type militia units.

The Spanish-American War got the U.S. into the business of insurgency. In the Cuban theatre the U.S. supported the anti-Spanish insurgents and in the Philippines we fought the anti-colonial forces of evil. Those fighting against U.S. forces failed to recognize the beauty of being colonial possessions. An older generation of McArthurn led troops in that Philippine Insurrection. Let us not forget that this and the colonial Boer Wars were the first modern historical British and American usage of large concentration/internment camps for civilians.

The U.S. then became involved in the Boxer Rebellion suppressing Chinese insurgents who erroneously believed that China should be ruled by the Chinese. Silly naive and ignorant Chinamen. The U.S. at the time was originating a counterinsurgency policy which boiled down to the basic tune: Do what we say, or you're going to meet the U.S. Marines. And we all know that is a fate worse than messing with Mother Nature herself.

Next up, World War I, offering to "Make the World Safe for Democracy." A joke, since the war was actually a European family squabble about which nation was to get the largest share of the colonial pie. U.S. allies called themselves democracies and they were, except for the fact that the sun never set on the British, U.S. French, Dutch and German colonies.

Democracy triumphed, and France and England got to appropriate former German colonies. The Middle East became a playground for British and French interests and Southeast Asia became a French plaything. So the Allied victory in WWI secured democracy, but it is difficult to find any beneficial recipients of this blessing.

WWI set the stage for WWII in the Pacific theatre, which in turn caused U.S. entry into the continuation of WWI in Europe, the continued squabble between old enemies and friends.

The inspection of the Pacific War boils down to the U.S., British and French desires and policies to deny Japan any Imperial colonial aspirations. The white men can do as they please, but the little yellow people were denied the same possibilities.

So the U.S. fought a two-front war to deny Hitler and Hirohito hegemony, replacing these enemies with a Stalinist Eastern Europe and a Communist China, not forgetting that the French are still playing around in SE Asia.

Next: Korea.