On Feb 24, 2012, at 1:11 PM, Marv wrote:
> Imperialist wars, including Iraq and Afghanistan, are fought far more to "impress" the subject populations than the home ones, especially in circumstances where the home populations can be counted on to support these ventures. Ruling classes don't need foreign wars as a pretext to intimidate or suppress their populations. They have many means for doing so in normal peacetime circumstances.
Couple of more comments. The northeastern elite supported the civil rights movement to some degree - why did Eisenhower and JFK send federal troops in support of it? And an important reason they did was to make the U.S. look better against the USSR.