WAR

Hamid: noone is syaing it's

Hamid: noone is syaing it's natural or ethical. It is simply a sad commentry on our species, period. No value judgment was intended.

what da...

Ha?

it's natural?

So, because it's natural and instinctive, we ought to let our governments do what past governments in past centuries have done? In hundreds and thousands of years of destroying other nations in the name of conquest, you expect us human beings not to evolve? Not even a little bit?

Blame human nature for what evil we decide to spread. That's good. Maybe we should through our crap at each other and blame it on the fact that we came from apes. Or hang blacks, kill Armanians, and burn Jews because it's human nature. Hey it's "the nature of our species".

How sad is that?

There has to be a difference between us and our fathers. There was a time when washing one's hand before delivering a baby was mocked. Soon after that we realized that it saved baby and mother's life, by 4 folds. That's evolution and learning through mistakes.

I expect us humans to be nicer after so many centuries.

Hamid

Our species nature is Imperial: Gene's propagation of individual

Early American history is one of conquest. There is no denying that. But wars of conquest have been fought all over the planet throughout time, so what's so unique about the America's past?

The whole of Middle Eastern/Asian subcontinent history is one of conquest and the rising and falling empires. I mentioned the Mongols, but there were hundreds of others. The Persians, to take a highly relevant example, were empire builders from very long ago. The Han Dynasty in China built an empire at the Eastern end of Asia that rivaled its counterpart in the West, the Roman Empire. The Arabs during the first millennium built an empire that dominated the known world. The Mughals invaded India in the middle of the second millennium and were rulers of the subcontinent when the British arrived. Even the so-called Red Indians, that you think you know something about, built empires and engaged in conquest long before Christopher Columbus arrived on these shores.

It's unfortunately the nature of our species. So once again, I have to ask, why do you fixate so much on supposed European and American wrong doing? Why not admit we have more in common with one another and instead of hate, try learning and understanding a bit more.
The same pain that was inflicted on some people today , was (e.g. Muslims) inflicted on the Holly Land when the Islamic Armies burst out from the desert, Jihading toward the west.

Islamic armies did murk the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean with desert dust and were stopped at the gates of vienna. The whole of Europe would be speaking Arabic if they had not been defeated.

God's justice work in mysterious ways but it works.

Jesus, can't agree with you more

You said it. You hit the nail right on the head.
It would be interesting to see when and who would be the next war monger of the time on this planet.

another extremely myopic view of history

Yet another degenerate Iranian who lives in the west, takes all the great benefits that it has to offer, much of that benefit coming from the wars and interactions you have listed. When you pay 99 cent at the pump for gas, did you ever say, hey you damn Americans, you know that is exploiting the world market, I like to the pay the real price of $5 bucks. Did you even do such a small thing? but of course not! you like to criticize things abstract, things that can be fragmented, selectively chosen to further boost your self worth. "I am such a great human being who care about everyone, that is why I am so critical of America's history." But god forbid if they take away my Benz SUV that swallows enough energy in one trip than a whole african village uses in a year.
Here is a thing, the European, and American civilizations are, and have been the most dynamic cultures, and societies of the past 400 years (no argument there, you know it, I know it). War is an inherent part of humanity, by contrast, a nation like Iran remains in 13th, 12th, may be 6th century. It therefore makes sense to look at events in that context. When Iran was the most powerful nation on this beloved earth of ours, It waged wars to protect its interest almost always. By contrast, the static societies of European continent were busy figuring our what clothing was! Islam at its most dynamic era wages wars against everyone and everything.
Put it in a god damn context, otherwise your writing will be no better than the pseudo intellectuals running around here trying to convince the rest of us that they are extremely evolved human beings. It is not that Iranians have been extremely civilized, and Europeans have not in the past 500 years. It is because Iranians have lived in static.

Fast Food Nation

Not to slight America/Americans in the least, but what more can you expect from a society that celebrates NASCAR as a godly diversion and conditions its youth to believe that McDonald's and Burger King are the pinnacles of culinary delight ? 

For a good many Americans, MySpace and Facebook are more different than Iran and Iraq - and for a lot them, the former are substantially more important and integral to their daily lives. We must appreciate that the distinctions between Arab/Persian, Shiite/Sunni, Desert/Mountain are truly irrelevant when taken into the broader context of the American experience. Information being limited and ever-so elegantly packaged as it is, one should not anticipate your friend and/or so many others like him to ever fully comprehend the global condition in a way that we may or do as Iranians, let alone sit down to contemplate the veracity of outlandish claims, be they from CNN, Fox News or 1600 Pennsylvania.

It is possibly a consequence of socio-political fate, or maybe even a geographic anamoly that leads us Americans to exist and persist in the mis-information society of present, but at the end of the day when people in Washington, Wall Street and Wal-Mart spend more time analyzing baseball stats and ordering non-fat double mocha lattes than they do reading the front page of the Times, you are undoubtedly bound to produce a thirst for bombing any country regardless of race, creed, region or religion - because really, what else besides Paris Hilton, porn and popcorn chicken produces excitement for a fast-food nation ?!?

Good article, but it's not

Good article, but it's not really fair to include the Civil War in your list because the United States government did not attack another nation. In that conflict, the bogus Conferderate States of America attacked the United States. The CSA while claiming to be an independent nation was not. This, the bloodiest conflict in American history, was a purely internal conflict in which millions of traitorous Americans tried to dissolve an indissolvable union.