Everyone is talking about the American soldiers killed in Jordan. But I don’t know why they were there to begin with.
The King of Jordan has been a long standing US ally, and one of the most stable partners in the region.
The Jordanian military has quite a bit of U.S. military equipment like F-16’s and Blackhawks.
They also have 3000 troops stationed. Mainly for support roles and cooperative efforts.
Jordan is a long term ally of the U.S. and honestly not a bad spot to visit if you have a chance. I’ve been there probably a dozen times on business.
I’ve always wanted to see Petra in person, definitely some beautiful and historical scenery there.
During Iraq / Afghanistan, Al Qaeda lost significant power in the terrorist-world. In its place, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq / Syria) began to gain power. This destabilized Syria / Iraq / Jordan. USA put troops in Iraq / Jordan to help our allies (Kurds, Israel) and that’s that.
Iran is also worried about the instability there, and they have their Shia-militia there.
There’s a complicated set of politics between USA, Kurds, Iraq, Israel, Iran (and their militants), ISIS, and Syria (backed by Russia). Its a mess. The important thing is that Iran-backed militants attacked US troops in this region because of this whole Israeli flareup, but the region has been a mess for decades.
but the region has been a mess for decades.
A statement that you could go literally any point in the last 5000 years and say and it would STILL be the understatement of the century.
Islamic golden age and Ottoman rule was relatively stable actually. Sure there was a Crusade every century or so, but its not like the infighting we see today. From the Muslim perspective, it was the Crusader Kingdoms that were the source of that instability as well. But the Crusades were still relatively rare in the great scheme of Year 1 through Year 2000.
A big problem is that us Westerners (as a whole) don’t realize how much these people crave the stability of the Ottomans. Literally centuries of peace, disrupted after WW1. And we ignore their culture and history, and wonder why they hate us… We have to remember the Muslim contributions to the world and the stability and peace that they once knew. Acknowledging that should go a long way towards peace IMO.
I’m not saying the Ottomans were necessarily a good kingdom or empire mind you. They were a middle-age Nobility that somehow survived into WW1 as a world power. But they did offer peace and stability to the regions they controlled, a peace and stability that has been ruined since the collapse of the Ottomans after WW1 treaties. The collapse arguably was going to happen anyway (Ottomans were definitely on their way out and is part of the reason why they lost WW1 so decisively). But I don’t think this attitude of “they were always a mess” is historically correct, or useful in the scope of modern diplomatic discussions.
I agree with you, the Ottomans were a source of stability and were generally failing by WW1. I believe the drawing of the new borders while ignoring cultures and histories of the people left in the former Ottoman Empire is also a huge source of instability.
American soldiers are literally everywhere.
…watching me poop?
That’s the NSA.
No, just the snake alien from Stephen Kings Dreamcatcher.
We’re a global imperial power, so like all empires we maintain a military presence near resources, allies, sites of likely resistance, etc.
That’s a generalization. What is our mission in Jordan? We don’t just put people there. They have orders.
That’s a generalization
Yep! Plenty of people here have already talked about reasons we have bases specifically in Jordan. I thought it was worth remembering the big picture, that we dot the world with our military presence to shore up our various imperial interests.
Imperialism is when you conquer a region. If Jordan didn’t want us there, they can kick us out. So its really not Imperialism at all.
If this were Roman times or other such actual Empires or rule of Imperialism, we’d be forcing these states to be paying us directly and they wouldn’t be allowed to kick us out.
Empires still have allies and aligned interests. It makes sense for Jordan to host a US base because we’re the most powerful imperial power on the planet.
The roman empire is a great example because their forts were all up and down their trade routes.
Imperialism is when you conquer a region
Even the dictionary defines imperialism much more broadly:
“1. The extension of a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political dominance over other nations.” (American Heritage dictionary - I just typed ‘imperialism definition’ into my browser)
We absolutely have economic and political dominance - and massive military dominance - over other nations.
My favorite definition of an empire is a military, economic or bureaucratic institution that siphons resources from the periphery to the center. That can be done with a military, like we did in iraq, but it’s much smoother to do by offering reasons for local elites to buy in and only deploying force when unavoidable.
The Iraqi Constitution says that Iraq is in charge of the oil, and what US imported we paid a fair price for.
And most of Iraq’s exports is oil. So how is this imperialism? Iraq keeps it’s most precious resource and we pay a fair price for it despite militarily enforcing the area. In fact, there is a lot of criticism from the Republican base that we didn’t take advantage of the Iraqis.
Are you saying that we SHOULD have take the oil??
We overthrew their government and the government we put in power is more friendly toward us. How is that not imperialism?
I’m not denying that we got rid of Saddam. What I’m saying is that the move isn’t as self-serving as many critics try to force. The earlier post is trying to argue that we’ve somehow stolen the resources of Iraq, but no such thing has happened.
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Its not US troops who’d destroy Jordan though. Its all their neighbors (ISIS, Syria, and Iranian Militia).
That’s my point. US Troops are the source of stability here. A good thing for everyone. Meanwhile, actual Imperials were like… I dunno… how the Soviet Union treated the Polish.
There are US troops across Europe, as well. Wtf is all this talk of imperialism when the US was invited?
Its kind of like sexual assault when there’s an imbalance of power.
Technically, the CEO asked for a blowjob, but you still want to have a job on Monday.
But in this case, its Jordan who wants to have its border defended from ISIS, and the USA also wants to kill ISIS, so why not make a deal between us where we can have a military base that does both?
Win-win for both parties. This is more like the CEO wanting to give a pay-raise to the employee, and the employee accepting it. Both sides are happy.
Just because there’s a power imbalance doesn’t mean that there’s any ill-will or problem. US-Jordan relations are very close, and have been great for decades.
They were all assigned to the 718th Engineer Company,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Moore
Tower 22 is near Al Tanf garrison, which is located across the border in Syria, and which houses a small number of U.S. troops. Tanf had been key in the fight against Islamic State and has assumed a role as part of a U.S. strategy to contain Iran’s military build-up in eastern Syria.
Tower 22 is located close enough to U.S. troops at Tanf that it could potentially help support them, while also potentially countering Iran-backed militants in the area and allowing troops to keep an eye on remnants of Islamic State in the region.
i can’t find where the 718th sits in Fort Moore, but I’m not trying very hard. It seems that Tower 22 is a position that is very far inside of a political border that has wanted intelligence and presence for the US military.
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Keeping the peace and sprinkling freedom and democracy all around
Like a giant fairy spreading
bulletsmagic dust all over the place
