Read the Other Posts in this Series: Back To Basics I: American Exceptionalism; Back to Basics II: Science, Back To Basics III: The Economy, Back to Basics IV: Culture; Back to Basics V: Recap; and the drivel that inspired me to action: The Story of Stuff
Two things have really driven this widespread lack of understanding home to me lately. First, during the presidential campaign I clearly remember American Exceptionalism being bandied about a lot. The fact that this was debatable outside of some far extreme fringe subculture of this society was incomprehensible to me. Second, the more recent stark lesson in just how fundamentally screwed up some of our children’s school lessons have become; specifically The Story of Stuff. So I am going to do a series of posts to correct this notion that America is a bad place and has hurt this world. First I want to make one point very clear:
Patriotism
a devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national
loyalty.
I am not arguing patriotism here. Every citizen of every country should love their country and see it as a place with a unique position in history. I am not talking about mere nationalism. I am talking about this country being unique in the annals of all recorded history. This country is different from all others before it and is uniquely different than every other country of the past and present.
ex·cep·tion·al·ism (k-spsh-n-lzm) n.
1. The condition of being exceptional or unique.
2. The theory or belief that something, especially a nation, does not
conform to a pattern or norm.
What is a nation?
Nation 3. A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently
language; a nationality.
What customs and values makes a nation unique? In what ways does a nation distinguish itself? Military Might? Scientific Advancement? A Powerful economy? Cultural Prevalence?
England, Italy(Rome), France, Spain, Russia, Japan, and Germany have all had a lot of military might in the past, what makes the US special with regards to the military? All of the previous countries have conquered other nations and had colonies on new lands. This is the definition of an empire; imperialism. But the United States has (with one near exception) only fought wars to free people not to enslave or assimilate them.
At the end of WWII, only two military powers of any consequence
remained: the United States, and the Soviet Union, and while the Soviets had a large army, They virtually had no navy, and their air force was nonexistent. Not to mention they were starving. Whereas, the United States possessed, intact, the most awesome kick ass Navy the world had ever seen (hell yeah), much larger and more advanced than that of the Mighty British navy that had helped the Brits establish an empire not rivaled since before the time of Christ. We possessed the largest and most advanced air force of any nation. We, alone, had the atomic bomb and the will to use it. (for better or for worse, we had the power to destroy the planet. )
What did we do with this awesome power? Did we do as Conan would have had us to do? “to drive our defeated enemies before us and to hear the lamentations of their women and children” as we settled their lands? No. We did what NO other country in history who has destroyed its enemies has EVER done. We departed the field of battle, returned home, scrapped our military, literally turning our war ma
chine into construction materials, and then returned to the defeated lands and rebuilt the nations that we had just laid waste to. As Colin Powell has been quoted as saying, the only thing we asked for was the space to bury our dead. AND …WE, WE PAID for the rebuilding effort! And in all the time since then despite what many of the Hollywood crowd have implied, nor what many of the hippies and radicals have proclaimed as fact, we have never been imperial.
empire 1. a. A political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority.3. Imperial or imperialistic sovereignty, domination, or control:
This is why Spain France and Britain colonized North America. First the lure of GOLD and then the lure of trees, furs, food, etc. This is a key charge of The Story of Stuff: that we have gotten rich by taking wealth and resources of the third world countries. So, is the US an Empire? Well, where are our colonies? Psst, there aren’t any. We have a handful of very small territories that stay that way of their choosing, and also repeatedly vote not to become states. We do have military 
bases all around the globe, but far from as we see in movies from back in the knight in shining armor days, our armies do not pillage an area, nor do we make other nations pay tribute to us, no declaring our right to prima nocte, but rather we pump vast amounts of money into those other economies. Other nations appreciate the income that military bases produce, and the protection they provide. A little known fact is that if the EU had to provide for its defense they would not be able to afford Socialism. Free trade (Capitalism) is the economic and moral antithesis of imperialism.
But you may say what our “wars for oil.” We have destroyed Iraq twice in the last 20 years and we did it both times in a matter of days. So stop and think, here is what a “war for oil” would look like: First the SEALS would HALO jump right down on the pumping stations and tank farms and in about an hour would secure the oil fields. Then we’d place an armored perimeter around the oil fields using M1A1’s, Bradley’s, and artillery. Lastly, using convoys protected by high flying air superiority fighters, and low flying Apache helicopters we would transport OUR oil to a secure port where it would be pumped onto US tankers and escort
ed out of the region by a Carrier Battle Group. Who would begin to oppose us? We had them, and what did we do in ‘91 when Saddam had set them on fire and they were ours for the taking…?
In all our Imperial Glory We put out the fires and then we came home.
Not much of an empire…I would call that decidedly Anti-Imperial. No country ever in history has done that. That is unique. That’s exceptional.
Part two tomorrow…
Read the Other Posts in this Series: Back To Basics I: American Exceptionalism; Back to Basics II: Science, Back To Basics III: The Economy, Back to Basics IV: Culture; Back to Basics V: Recap; and the drivel that inspired me to action: The Story of Stuff
-KOOK
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Andrew33 103p · 809 weeks ago
madmath1 · 809 weeks ago
Andrew33 103p · 809 weeks ago
Branko R Babic · 799 weeks ago
Fires in Kuwait In early 1991 the world was shocked by the bedlam inflicted on a small, weak but extremely rich country that was not equipped for war. Defenceless against the well armed aggressor, the people of Kuwait were quickly overpowered. Economics seem to have been the bases for the attack on Kuwait and control of the oil wealth of Kuwait was said to be the primary goal of the powers that conceived the war. When western powers moved into Kuwait the retreating Iraqi forces are said to have destroyed some 700 hundred oil wells, crippling the Kuwaiti economy and causing an environmental catastrophe.
The world had never seen a problem of this type before and the specialist services that were instructed to resolve the crisis had no idea how to cope with the scale of the devastation.
The Kuwaiti Government watching the burning of a precious, irreplaceable resource and being advised by the specialist teams hired to put out the oil fires that the task could not be completed in less than two years and could possibly take as long as five. The Kuwaitis were faced with the total destruction of their economy. As a desperate last choice, they invited anyone with containment know-how to come forward and present their concept for consideration.
Branko R Babic · 799 weeks ago
All over the world vast numbers of scientists, specialist firms, oil industry consultants, materials specialist, etc and a huge number of ordinary men and women who have never been near a burning oil well, put forward concepts for the containment of the burning oil wells. Soon after the invitation the agencies set up to handle and oversee submitted ideas were flooded with descriptions and methodology that had never been tried or tested before and it was reported that in the UK the offices receiving submissions were stuffed full of letters, drawings and proposals on how to put out the fires. Rooms were full from floor to ceiling with submissions from various quarters, most of which never saw the light of day.
In this scramble to help solve a unique problem an inventor, Branko Babic, put forward a proposal to the Kuwaiti Oil Corporation in London UK, that was accepted and used to contain over half of all the burning oil wells in Kuwait. A Chemistry degree from London University provided him with know-how, to offer a simple solution for the control of the damaged oil wells. A fire, is a well understood chemical process in which oxygen reacts with a combustible substance to achieve new products and at the same time liberate a large amount of energy. It was the heat of the fires that was the main problem in containing the damage caused to the oil well heads and as soon as the heat was removed from any given site the repair of the damaged installation, was the simplest of engineering tasks.
The patent applied for technology provided by Babic consisted of a long tube about 10 metres in length, that was positioned directly above the burning oil well. The escaping material being under pressure was forced up this displacement tube to emerge at the top of the structure and continue burning above the damaged installation. In this way, the heat generated by burning oil was displaced some distance from the working area and the engineers could start work on cutting and repairing the damaged oil facility, whilst it was still burning. Burning oil wells were put out using basic chemistry principals. A fire is a chemical reaction between oxygen and a hydrocarbon which cannot occur if any of the constituent reactants are absent so that and by removing oxygen from the inside of the tube, the fire was immediately extinguished. Very simply principals applied, no oxygen no fire.
The removal of oxygen from the combusting environment was achieved according to prevailing conditions and was planned to be used by (a) lowering the tube containing the burning oil to the ground thus preventing air from entering the lumen of the tube. The second method (b) was the removal of the displacement tube to one side of the oil well so as to create a break in the burning column of oil. In this case, the oil was burning at the top of the tube and as the long tube was snapped to one side of the oil installation, the hot end of the assembly was moved some distance from the escaping column of oil and not having a source of heat to promote combustion, the escaping oil did not reignite. Thirdly (c), given that the oil wells were sited in the middle of the desert the pumping of nitrogen gas into the tube was proposed to replace air from the combustion area.
By the time the technology was accepted and applied in Kuwait the fire fighting teams had installed piping to duct water from the sea and vast volumes of salt water were used to keep the working areas around the burning wells cool. Once the displacement tube was in position the intensity of the fires was controlled by pumping varying quantities of water into the lumen of the displacement tube and when the fires needed to be put out, the tube was flooded with water as a means of removing oxygen from the combustion equation. See: Displacement Tube
Branko R babic · 799 weeks ago
The displacement tube concept was extremely effective and well over half of all fires were controlled using this methodology. As a means of controlling burning oil wells the displacement tube has become the preferred method of containing fires, particularly highly pressurised well installations.
Much use for the oxygen displacement has emerged since the concept was proposed for use in Kuwait. The fact that basic chemistry is at work means that no fire can occur if any of the components of the fire are missing and by removing oxygen from the equation, a vast number of applications have emerged where combustibles can be prevented from igniting. The concept has successfully been introduced to containers of fuel such as aircraft fuel tanks, fuel carrying super tankers, oil storage facilities, enclosed combustible storage facilities and even controlling fires in contained environments such as housing. Many uses are yet to emerge as the value of the concept of oxygen displacement is further innovated.
Mysterious political pressures were at play at the time and the best technology intended for rapid containment of the damaged oil well heads, ''was NOT allowed'', to be used in Kuwait. In addition to the displacement tubes Babic also designed counter pressure plugs, that were intended to be lowered into the damaged ends of the riser tubes. The technology provided steel plugs with soft metal collars that were lowered inside the burning well head pipes and dropped, to block the opening of any given pipe to staunch the flow of escaping oil. The concept is similar to forcing a cork into the opening of a champagne bottle. The total weight of the steel plug exceeded the pressure of the escaping oil and once the plug was in position the installation could be left, plugged and secure from escaping oil, until the engineering teams had time to repair the facility. See, Kuwaiti Steel Plugs:
Several damaged oil installations could have been contained per day with a team of tree men. The entire Kuwaiti saga could have been resolved within a couple of months. The story of Branko Babic a lone inventor, was documented by the Discovery Science Channel ''“The Inventors”'' on shown on Sky TV