1997 America was probably at the height of its power. A bunch of freak shows calling themselves “neocons” just fucking make an entire ideology about conquering earth like a fucking Risk board game. Every single choice made since then has just made America more alienated and hated by other nations and even allies. It also allowed hilariously large windows of opportunity to what these men consider our adversaries.Russia, Iran, China are all significantly stronger then they were in 1997.

I get they all got wealthy as fuck, but America went from “end of history” to just another empire in less than a decade.

My belief is If you signed a PNAC document you should be stoned strike at your family home.

  • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I give you Portugal , good analogy..

    Battle of Alcácer Quibir

    it fits nearly 1 to 1 on a hubris level..

    Be 24 Year old King without an Heir .. Stupidly War in the Desert when your empire is the Sea... Die....

    Abd Al-Malik was succeeded as Sultan by his brother Ahmad al-Mansur, also known as Ahmed Addahbi, who conquered Timbuktu, Gao, and Jenne after defeating the Songhai Empire. The Moroccan army which invaded Songhai in 1590-91 was made up mostly of European captives, including a number of Portuguese taken prisoner at the battle of Alcácer Quibir.[18]

    For Portugal, the battle was an unmitigated disaster. Sebastian died on the battlefield along with most of the Portuguese nobility. The captive nobles were ransomed, nearly bankrupting Portugal. Despite the lack of a body, Sebastian was presumed dead, at the age of 24. In his piety, he had remained unmarried and had sired no heir. His aged, childless uncle Henry of Portugal, a Cardinal of the Roman church, succeeded to the throne as closest legitimate relative. His brief reign (1578–1580) was devoted to attempting to raise the crippling financial reparations demanded by the disastrous Morocco venture. After his death, legitimate claimants to the throne of the House of Aviz, which had ruled Portugal for 200 years, were defeated by a Castilian military invasion. Philip II of Spain, a maternal grandson of Manuel I of Portugal, and nearest male claimant (being an uncle of Sebastian I), invaded with an army of 40,000 men, defeating the troops of Anthony, Prior of Crato at the Battle of Alcântara and was crowned Philip I of Portugal by the Cortes of Tomar in 1581.

    Later, at the beginning of his reign, Philip II ordered that the mutilated remains said to be Sebastian's (and so recognized after the battle by some of his close companions),[citation needed] and still in North Africa, be returned to Portugal, where they were buried at the Jerónimos Monastery, in Lisbon. Portugal and its Empire were not de jure incorporated into the Spanish Empire, and remained as a separate realm of the Spanish Habsburgs until 1640 when it broke away through the Portuguese Restoration War.

    Partly in reaction to the national trauma of this disastrous defeat, a cult of 'Sebastianism' which portrayed the lost monarch in terms similar to King Arthur arose.[19] The legend of Portugal's "Once and Future King" who would some day return to save his nation has ebbed and flowed in Portuguese life ever since.[20]