Never before have I wished death upon any as I wished for this fat idiot. And a horrible one he deserves for his lust for war on a nation that has yet to invade or subjugate anyone. He is going to witness hell like has never seen before in his life time. Does he not see how the USA is collapsing all around him
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- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
By trying to compare feudalism and capitalism, the implication is that I am defining them as a political, economic, legal and social system (particularly the Lord-Vassal relationship, land, ownership, taxation and means of production rights).
If the West was snatching up colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Oceania - whilst still being feudal states in the beginning - written into law and practiced, then this is the before/after I am referring to.
Did they not need to start changing and tweaking their systems: privateers; charter companies; serfs/peasants-cum-free colonists and settlers (hitherto they were vassals to their lords - an actual ‘legal’ contract); carried interest etc.? This is what I meant by imperialism (using European colonial expansion as an example) necessitating or at least hastening the change of political, economic, legal and social systems - to what I had collectively termed, ‘capitalism’.
I was disregarding connections to ancient empires (like when I said “well duh” and “obviously”). I should have left that out for clarity in hindsight.
The Dutch would be a good example of my 3rd paragraph above. They were coming up with charters, creating the VOC (East India Company), carried interest, blowing up stock markets through speculation and Jan van Riebeeck landing in isiSeko saseKapa (you might call it Cape Town) - all while their Heerlijkheid system was still a thing.
US vs China... 
So you can have capitalism, ownership and “free enterprise”, or go settle in a colony to pillage the indigenous population - if you’re still [legally, economically, politically and culturally] tied to your Lord and his lands?
EDIT: I apologise if my tone was off, because one thing is at least clear - it doesn’t matter what colour the capitalist and imperialist cats are - we seem to dislike them much the same.
AFGHANISTAN: GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES
Afghanistan is a notoriously difficult country to govern. Empire after empire, nation after nation have failed to pacify what is today the modern territory of Afghanistan, giving the region the nickname “, ” even if sometimes those empires won some initial battles and made inroads into the region.
The Mughals (the last empire controlling the Indian subcontinent before falling into the British colonizer), Britain, Soviet, United States.
We first get a clear glimpse into Afghanistan’s history around 500 BCE, when it formed the eastern part of the ACHAEMENID PERSIAN EMPIRE. Parts of Afghanistan were previously part of the ancient Indian kingdom of GANDHARA, a region in what is now northwest Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.
Presumably, much of southern and eastern Afghanistan was already inhabited by the ancestors of today’s PASHTUN (also known as AFGHANS historically); their PASHTO LANGUAGE is an ancient eastern Iranian language closely related to the even more ancient AVESTAN, the original language of the ZOROASTRIAN scriptures.
Afghanistan was relatively lightly populated at this time, as Alexander the Great is reported to have swept through the area with little resistance. Following this, the MAURYA EMPIRE from India controlled most of Afghanistan, although a Greek successor kingdom arose in BALKH (BACTRIA) in northern Afghanistan.
BUDDHISM AND HINDUISM spread throughout the region during this period. It was only after the collapse of the MAURYA EMPIRE (after ASHOKA THE GREAT's rule) circa 185 BCE and several invasions from Central Asia that the mountains of Afghanistan began to “fill up,” and acquire its reputation of being the home of many warlike peoples defending their individual turfs. Many of the invaders assimilated into the tribal structure of the PASHTUNS, adapting their language.
Various tribes founded empires within the Afghanistan region before breaking up into mini-statelets. These included the Greco-Bactrians, the Indo-Parthians, the SAKA (SCYTHIANS), the great Buddha-building KUSHANS, the Kidarites, and the Hephthalites (WHITE HUNS).
By this time, the region already acquired a difficult reputation. When the ARABS arrived in the region at the dawn of the 8th century, it was a patchwork of small but tough principalities. Attempts to conquer the Zunbils of Kandahar failed spectacularly, the first major setback faced by the ARABS after their great conquests began.
An expedition of 20,000 men sent against the Zunbils returned with 5,000 people. It took almost 200 years for Afghanistan to be ISLAMICIZED from west to east, a process that only neared completion when Ya’qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar, a Persian blacksmith born in Zaranj, in Afghanistan on the border with Iran conquered Kabul. Even then, the HINDU SHAHI DYNASTY held out for another hundred years in the easternmost parts of today’s Afghanistan until conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni (also in Afghanistan) around the turn of the millennium.
When the MONGOLS arrived in Afghanistan, they faced so much resistance in the BAMIYAN VALLEY, which they besieged in 1221, that the grandson of Genghis Khan was killed. In fury, the Mongols killed most of the valley’s original inhabitants: most of the MODERN HAZARA who live there are descended from a MONGOL GARRISON, some of whose men took TAJIK WIVES. Fragmentation ensued again after the weakening of the MONGOL EMPIRE.
Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babur, the first Mughal emperor, managed to get himself a kingdom in Kabul for two decades before conquering India. Most of the Hindu Kush region would remain under loosely Mughal control until 1738 when it was conquered by Nader Shah and inherited a decade later by Ahmad Shah Durrani, who founded modern Afghanistan after Nader Shah’s death.
The HINDU KUSH REGION is a great mountain system of CENTRAL ASIA. Broadly defined, it is some 800 kilometers long and as much as 240 kilometers wide. The Hindu Kush is one of the great watersheds of Central Asia, forming part of the vast Alpine zone that stretches across EURASIA from east to west. It runs northeast to southwest and divides the valley of the Amu Darya (the ancient Oxus River) to the north from the Indus River valley to the south.
To the east the Hindu Kush buttresses the PAMIR RANGE and KARAKORAM RANGE near the point where the borders of China's Xinjiang, Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, and Afghanistan meet, after which it runs southwest through Pakistan and into Afghanistan, finally merging into minor ranges in western Afghanistan. The highest peak is Mount Tirich Mir, which rises near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to 7,690 meters.
Mughal rule over Afghanistan was a combination of control over a few urban centers, and benign neglect coupled with paying off tribes in the region, a formula later replicated by the British. However, Mughal rule was always precarious, as they were faced with constant tribal revolts. An especially serious one from 1672-1677 led by the poet Khushal Khan Khattak was eventually defeated by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, but Mughal authority never extended beyond main roads again.
The MUGHAL EMPIRE extended as far west as Ghazni and Bamiyan in central Afghanistan; after fighting with the Persian Safavids for Kandahar for decades, they lost it permanently during the reign of Shah Jahan. The Safavids also had to deal with unruly Afghan tribes.
Eventually a revolt against the Safavids broke out in Kandahar in 1709 due to Persian attempts to control Pashtun tribes and convert them to Shia Islam. The Afghan revolt brought down the Safavid Empire; although partially checked by the rise of the warlord Nader Shah and his empire, eventually modern Afghanistan was founded in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, who picked off territory from Nader Shah’s descendants in Persia, the Mughals, and the Uzbeks to his north.
Since then, as both the BRITISH and SOVIETS have learned, that while it is possible to conquer territory in Afghanistan temporarily, and defeat Afghans militarily in open battle, it is virtually impossible to hold the region down for long, when it is filled with guerrillas, tribes, and castles that can constantly weigh down a foreign power.
The people of Afghanistan have nowhere to go, and can fight their whole lives (foreigners, beware in particular of the Kandahar region), a luxury that outsiders do not have. The United States should have learned from the history of Afghanistan and understand that escalating the war will have no particular impact on the outcome.
Minus a permanent occupation -- which would be ineffective at best, and bloody and cost-prohibitive at worst -- the only way to deal with Afghanistan is to deal with its plethora of local powers. And if this means accepting the Taliban, in exchange for a modicum of stability, then so be it. The alternative is an unwinnable, never-ending war.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Hmmm. The world at large is starting to see more and more of the truth and ultimately may come to the conclusion that for the sake of world peace, the USA may have to be snuffed out as a nation completely as this racism is so ingrained in the nation foundation that nothing less then the complete removal of its status as a world super power by and means necessary is going to be able to forces these racist people to even begin to mend their evil ways, only that it may end up being too late regardless
As the predominant legal and political system - no it most certainly did not.