8 ms·

From the number of comments commited so far, I realise that Americans don't want to touch the subject because it hurts. Noam's book should be read along with al

From the number of comments commited so far, I realise that Americans don't want to touch the subject because it hurts. Noam's book should be read along with all the articles written by Paul Graig Roberts. In the end, the average American will realize that she/he complicit to the warmongering attitude of the United States and how it treats the entire world with 1000+ military bases around the world "spreading freedom". If you ask where the word complicit fits in, then look no further to the average American not voting or voting for politicians who have committed crimes against humanity (Clintons, Bush, Kerry etc) or the ones who will eventually commit (Trump) Good night America.

mkaziz 10y ago
It's easy to forget sometimes that our leaders are still humans. Bill Clinton was as human as Saddam Hussein - the only difference is that the US has strong institutions to check the powers of its human leaders, so Bill never became a Saddam. People like Donald Trump rise when when those institutions are rattled either internally (the GOP sold itself to hurt Obama) or externally (9/11 rattled the national apparatus and consciousness so much that the Iraq war was greenlighted, despite the tenuous link there). The key is to focus on the institutions. As long as the institutions remain strong, we may be able to weather the occasional rogue leader.
- jbattle 10y ago
  I'm often struck how long the roman empire was able to continue operating even with terrible emperors at the helm for years or even decades. You almost get the sense that a Augustus or Trajan or Justinian was able to refill some deep well of energy / tradition / momentum in the bureaucracy that was then able to sustain itself through long decades of indifference or mismanagement. The time scales are mind-boggling compared to our typical 4/8 year perspective.
  - manopeace 10y ago
    Things change more rapidly now a days.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    Don't forget "Sword in Hand" Aurelian. Roman History can be seen as a period of rise, then prolonged decline/decay, punctuated by resurgences helmed by great leaders. The Roman Empire worked because it was able to harness the self-interest of many parties and the population in general. It is a model of oppression through the exploitation of self interest and class distinction. (A system fluid enough for slaves to work their way up to becoming wealthy citizens.) Amazing how many parallels there are between the US and the Roman Empire.
- tremon 10y ago
  Haven't your institutions been subverted already? Secret courts, asset forfeiture, parallel construction, NSLs?
- YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
  So, what institutions are those that enable extrajudicial killings of your own citizens by drone? Or is Obama too, a rogue leader? Guantanamo? Is there an institution that allows that, or was it a "rogue leader" that enabled that? Iraq? Afghanistan? Bosnia? I don't even remember what war Regan was involved in and the guy before him and the guy before that guy. It seems like every US president in living memory, has made it a point to either start or continue an invasion of a sovereign nation against international law, reason and morality alike. (apologies for the harsh tone; please feel free to reciprocate)
e40 10y ago
I'm an American and I agree with this. We have consistently either not voted or voted in people that push the same foreign policy decisions that have gone wrong over and over again. Sadly, a lot of us thought our current POTUS would change that. Yes, we projected. That's why Sanders is getting so much support, IMO, because he has an actual track record to hang our hopes on.
- sremani 10y ago
  The real problem is not America itself, the forces of Geo-Politics are just too damn BIG and beyond the control of the actors i.e. the Nations and the diplomatic core. Its absolutely Naive thinking that a President is going to wipe out and start new, Obama was right, no body starts with a Clean Slate. You are dealt a hand, you deal with it. Now, you can define and refine the approach, but the events themselves hardly controllable.
  - atmosx 10y ago
    Syria and Ukraine was Obama's choice while Libya was Hilary's war. They left failed states everywhere and for what?! I understand that politicians are under huge pressure to do this or that, but the LEAST we can do is hold them accountable. Saying that hey they don't control this, sure and who does? Who takes the decision to invade a country ultimately if not the President of the US?
    - tremon 10y ago
      Libya was a NATO mission with UN approval. The decision to leave a failed state was also a UN decision, although no country (including the US) voted for prolonged presence there, despite requests from the Libya interim government: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-un-idUSTRE79P6EC20111027 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-un-idUSTRE79P6EC2011... Ukraine was a mess even before Russia moved in. Even so, I think the situation in Ukraine is more Europe's problem than the US's, and as a European I do not blame Obama for ignoring it. Saying that hey they don't control this, sure and who does? Eventually, the UN carries that responsibility. The US lost a lot of goodwill in Europe over its "unilateral" decision to enter Iraq the second time around. Obama insisted on going through the UN, and I think that was a good decision. I get the impression that the US' prevailing opinion is that Obama made the US look weak. In Europe, the opinion is more that Obama exposed the UN for the toothless organization it is, and the US only looks stronger for it.
YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
>> From the number of comments commited so far, I realise that Americans don't want to touch the subject because it hurts. Give folks a chance to read through. It's almost 5k words! I for on am going to take my time reading it.
refurb 10y ago
If the alternative is having China or Russia be the world's superpower, I'll take the US, every single time.
- JonathanMoirth 10y ago
  Ah a, I see, therefore I was right: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44605.htm http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44605.htm http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44604.htm http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44604.htm Thank you for reminding that about that "complicit" thing. You should be proud.
  - refurb 10y ago
    Yes I am proud. I would rather have a democratic republic be the world's superpower than a brutal dictatorship. And let me be clear, if any of the Western European countries (or Aus/NZ) were an option, I'd take them over Russia and China too.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
      OK. What about a Swedish dictatorship? With Sweden as the only world superpower and the US, like everyone else, its vassal? Would you accept that? If you're not American, substitute your country for "US". My point is that it's easy for you to say you'd take the US over Russia, China etc any day because it's already your country. To everyone else though it's just a foreign power threatening them with military might.
      - refurb 10y ago
        No, a Swedish dictatorship doesn't sound good. No dictatorships do. Let's look at it another way. If the US were a small country and Canada was a superpower (democratic), would I be annoyed when Canada throws its weight around? Probably, in the grand scheme of things it could be much worse.
davesque 10y ago
What crimes against humanity have the Clintons and Kerry committed?
- hindsightbias 10y ago
  http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/04/weekend7.weekend9 http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/04/weekend7....
  - davesque 10y ago
    And how does that make the Clintons and Kerry war criminals?
- ted12345 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factor...
  - davesque 10y ago
    I still don't see how this makes Bill Clinton a war criminal. For that to be true, he would have had to have attacked the pharmaceutical factory as a means of retaliation against Sudan's civilian population (i.e. not as a result of misunderstanding the factory's purpose). Can you prove that Clinton was indirectly targeting civilians? We don't live in a perfect world. Human collateral alone is not enough to justify the label of war criminal.
okreallywtf 10y ago
I think it is important to be introspective as a nation and overall I agree, but I also agree with others that the US has been far less empire-y than other empires have been, even if we've been equally stupid. I think it is time to work really hard to improve standards of living and education all over the world so that power can be distributed more evenly, but so much of the world is in the hands of even worse people that it will be hard to do that. Perhaps if there is not a true climate disaster things can move that way, otherwise I'm afraid it will go much worse and will become truly an every-country-for-itself model.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  The US has behaved very differently than past empires, but still has been imperialistic. Ostensibly, we aren't an "empire" because we don't do things like establish governors over different places we conquer (and we, again ostensibly, don't conquer anyone). Instead we accomplish the same through the shadows. Encouraging certain dictatorships and coups, discouraging others. Wrecking nations through economic means when they step out of line (or attempt to). This is, in my opinion, much worse than the empires of old. We never control these things we create, which inevitably creates even greater hardship for the people dominated by the dictatorships and economic woes we inspired. And we publicly proclaim a desire for peace and democracy! If we were a proper empire, expanding our domain, we would have ended up bringing new states into our union. The people that we subjugated gaining the right to vote at some point in the future via statehood (initially coming in as territories or protectorates). But we don't want that. We won't the control and influence without the accountability of their votes. This forces people to vote against us via other means. Often violent. We then condemn their actions, which we inspired, and put down these actors, or attempt to, and claim a victory for peace and democracy.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    Ostensibly, we aren't an "empire" because we don't do things like establish governors over different places we conquer There's the Philippines.
    - 10y ago
dbcurtis 10y ago
Well, but let's talk about the collapse of Yugoslavia for a while and the subsequent genocide in Bosnia. Here was something in Western Europe's back yard, and they were totally impotent, letting genocide happen right before their eyes. If US citizens are "complicit" in "crimes against humanity", are not European citizens complicit in the genocide that they let happen? Standing by and wringing your hands until the skin rubs off does not stop genocide. It took the US to get involved with a military deployment for any effective action to be taken. I'm sick to death of being lectured by Europeans who can't be bothered to do anything beyond writing scolding editorials in newspapers.
- selimthegrim 10y ago
  In before the "Camp Bondsteel is nothing but a guard post for oil pipelines!" conspiracy theorists...
  - coldtea 10y ago
    "Americans have been trained by the media to go into Pavlovian giggles at the mention of the word "conspiracy," because for an American to believe in a conspiracy, he must also believe in flying saucers or, craziest of all, that more than one person was involved in the JFK murder" (Gore Vidal)
- mmagin 10y ago
  If you are arguing that Western Europeans were powerless to do anything about it, yes, that is an argument in favor of having a sizable military -- but not necessarily an argument in favor of taking action with it. If you are arguing that they just chose not to do anything, and the US intervention was virtuous -- that does not necessarily show that other US military actions in the past 30 years are similarly valuable.
  - Retric 10y ago
    > but not necessarily an argument in favor of taking action with it. Stopping genocide is the clearest justification for "taking action" with a large military. IMO, the issue is not that the US has a large military. Scale is hard to judge, but the US has a ridiculously huge military. The US military is designed to fight 3 wars at the same time which seems to be vast overkill. The #1 Air Force in the world in term of military strength is US Air Force, #2 Air Force in the world is the US Navy. That's vastly beyond what it takes to deal with local genocide. PS: Consider the F-15 Eagle introduced in 1976 currently has a world wide 100:0 kill loss ratio in Aerial Combat, that took an insane amount of R&D and training. In fact the production is scheduled to in in 2019. While impressive it's hard to call that anything but overkill.
dmerfield 10y ago
Are the 1000+ bases part of a strategy to avoid nuclear proliferation? America agrees to provide security to its allies and in return its allies agree not to acquire nuclear weapons? How else are Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia etc... able to protect themselves against nuclear states?
- krapp 10y ago
  >How else are Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia etc... able to protect themselves against nuclear states? The US is a nuclear state, and the only state to have ever used nuclear weapons in warfare. Who's going to defend the world against the threat of American nuclear aggression? Will the world really be safer when only the US has nuclear weapons? Reducing nuclear proliferation is a noble endeavor, but the United States should not be the one leading the effort towards it as long as it has no intentions of dismantling its own arsenal. The world would be safer without nuclear weapons, but as long as the US remains an aggressive, nuclear military power that kidnaps, tortures and murders civilians in other countries with impunity, undermines their governments at will, supports terrorist groups and wages war on fabricated evidence, a nuclear-free world will remain impossible.
  - greedo 10y ago
    Absolutely no proof the world would be safer without nuclear weapons. Arguably, nuclear weapons have helped deter large scale conflict immensely.
    - krapp 10y ago
      Those conflicts would be limited in their scope and their destructive potential, so arguably the world as a whole would be safer. How many cities can one nuclear-armed submarine destroy and how many such submarines do the nuclear powers of the world have? A thousand conventional wars are preferable to one full-scale nuclear war.
      - AlgorithmicTime 10y ago
ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
The fundamental problem with Chomsky's approach is he's one-sidedly applying criminal justice concepts and 'moral compass' of the western society to international affairs. The side these are applied to is of course 'the evil West'. Then he turns around and acts as all apologetic when it comes to anti-Western regimes no matter how bloody or atrocious they get - going back to whitewashing of Viet Kong atrocities and Cambodian genocide back in the 70s.
- YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
  >> whitewashing of Viet Kong atrocities and Cambodian genocide back in the 70s. He's done nothing of the sort. He was suspicious of the official account of the Kambodian genocide and he had good reason to be suspicious of that account. It turned out it was true, and he admitted it. >> The side these are applied to is of course 'the evil West'. Duh. The West is evil. You don't realise it because you're in the West and you don't live in fear of hellfire missiles from a clear blue sky or a mechanised army rolling over your village. But the rest of the world knows it very well.
unethical_ban 10y ago
Our electoral system makes it exceptionally difficult to break out of the two main parties. And, if you're paying attention to the details of the primaries: at a national level, it is very tough to get a true outsider into a campaign. Sanders got shoved out by the Democrat machine. Trump got in because, whether you like it or not, the Republican primaries are MORE open and democratic! I also think Trump is talking out of his butt a lot, manipulating the voter bases he needs to succeed. I highly doubt he'll have his supposed way on what you perceive to be war crimes - in fact, many republicans are voting for him on the idea that we shouldn't be in the middle east, and that we should be "making deals". The American voting public is a lot more complex than armchair foreigners give it credit for, and it's not as easy as saying "well, you can vote, and the elected are crap, therefore every voter has themselves to blame". Perhaps if we were a parliamentary system, or our legislature a proportional representative format, but it's not.

mkaziz 10y ago

It's easy to forget sometimes that our leaders are still humans. Bill Clinton was as human as Saddam Hussein - the only difference is that the US has strong institutions to check the powers of its human leaders, so Bill never became a Saddam. People like Donald Trump rise when when those institutions are rattled either internally (the GOP sold itself to hurt Obama) or externally (9/11 rattled the national apparatus and consciousness so much that the Iraq war was greenlighted, despite the tenuous link there). The key is to focus on the institutions. As long as the institutions remain strong, we may be able to weather the occasional rogue leader.

jbattle 10y ago
I'm often struck how long the roman empire was able to continue operating even with terrible emperors at the helm for years or even decades. You almost get the sense that a Augustus or Trajan or Justinian was able to refill some deep well of energy / tradition / momentum in the bureaucracy that was then able to sustain itself through long decades of indifference or mismanagement. The time scales are mind-boggling compared to our typical 4/8 year perspective.
- manopeace 10y ago
  Things change more rapidly now a days.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  Don't forget "Sword in Hand" Aurelian. Roman History can be seen as a period of rise, then prolonged decline/decay, punctuated by resurgences helmed by great leaders. The Roman Empire worked because it was able to harness the self-interest of many parties and the population in general. It is a model of oppression through the exploitation of self interest and class distinction. (A system fluid enough for slaves to work their way up to becoming wealthy citizens.) Amazing how many parallels there are between the US and the Roman Empire.
tremon 10y ago
Haven't your institutions been subverted already? Secret courts, asset forfeiture, parallel construction, NSLs?
YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
So, what institutions are those that enable extrajudicial killings of your own citizens by drone? Or is Obama too, a rogue leader? Guantanamo? Is there an institution that allows that, or was it a "rogue leader" that enabled that? Iraq? Afghanistan? Bosnia? I don't even remember what war Regan was involved in and the guy before him and the guy before that guy. It seems like every US president in living memory, has made it a point to either start or continue an invasion of a sovereign nation against international law, reason and morality alike. (apologies for the harsh tone; please feel free to reciprocate)

e40 10y ago

I'm an American and I agree with this. We have consistently either not voted or voted in people that push the same foreign policy decisions that have gone wrong over and over again. Sadly, a lot of us thought our current POTUS would change that. Yes, we projected. That's why Sanders is getting so much support, IMO, because he has an actual track record to hang our hopes on.

sremani 10y ago
The real problem is not America itself, the forces of Geo-Politics are just too damn BIG and beyond the control of the actors i.e. the Nations and the diplomatic core. Its absolutely Naive thinking that a President is going to wipe out and start new, Obama was right, no body starts with a Clean Slate. You are dealt a hand, you deal with it. Now, you can define and refine the approach, but the events themselves hardly controllable.
- atmosx 10y ago
  Syria and Ukraine was Obama's choice while Libya was Hilary's war. They left failed states everywhere and for what?! I understand that politicians are under huge pressure to do this or that, but the LEAST we can do is hold them accountable. Saying that hey they don't control this, sure and who does? Who takes the decision to invade a country ultimately if not the President of the US?
  - tremon 10y ago
    Libya was a NATO mission with UN approval. The decision to leave a failed state was also a UN decision, although no country (including the US) voted for prolonged presence there, despite requests from the Libya interim government: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-un-idUSTRE79P6EC20111027 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-un-idUSTRE79P6EC2011... Ukraine was a mess even before Russia moved in. Even so, I think the situation in Ukraine is more Europe's problem than the US's, and as a European I do not blame Obama for ignoring it. Saying that hey they don't control this, sure and who does? Eventually, the UN carries that responsibility. The US lost a lot of goodwill in Europe over its "unilateral" decision to enter Iraq the second time around. Obama insisted on going through the UN, and I think that was a good decision. I get the impression that the US' prevailing opinion is that Obama made the US look weak. In Europe, the opinion is more that Obama exposed the UN for the toothless organization it is, and the US only looks stronger for it.

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago

>> From the number of comments commited so far, I realise that Americans don't want to touch the subject because it hurts. Give folks a chance to read through. It's almost 5k words! I for on am going to take my time reading it.

refurb 10y ago

If the alternative is having China or Russia be the world's superpower, I'll take the US, every single time.

JonathanMoirth 10y ago
Ah a, I see, therefore I was right: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44605.htm http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44605.htm http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44604.htm http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44604.htm Thank you for reminding that about that "complicit" thing. You should be proud.
- refurb 10y ago
  Yes I am proud. I would rather have a democratic republic be the world's superpower than a brutal dictatorship. And let me be clear, if any of the Western European countries (or Aus/NZ) were an option, I'd take them over Russia and China too.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
    OK. What about a Swedish dictatorship? With Sweden as the only world superpower and the US, like everyone else, its vassal? Would you accept that? If you're not American, substitute your country for "US". My point is that it's easy for you to say you'd take the US over Russia, China etc any day because it's already your country. To everyone else though it's just a foreign power threatening them with military might.
    - refurb 10y ago
      No, a Swedish dictatorship doesn't sound good. No dictatorships do. Let's look at it another way. If the US were a small country and Canada was a superpower (democratic), would I be annoyed when Canada throws its weight around? Probably, in the grand scheme of things it could be much worse.

davesque 10y ago

What crimes against humanity have the Clintons and Kerry committed?

hindsightbias 10y ago
http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/04/weekend7.weekend9 http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/04/weekend7....
- davesque 10y ago
  And how does that make the Clintons and Kerry war criminals?
ted12345 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factor...
- davesque 10y ago
  I still don't see how this makes Bill Clinton a war criminal. For that to be true, he would have had to have attacked the pharmaceutical factory as a means of retaliation against Sudan's civilian population (i.e. not as a result of misunderstanding the factory's purpose). Can you prove that Clinton was indirectly targeting civilians? We don't live in a perfect world. Human collateral alone is not enough to justify the label of war criminal.

okreallywtf 10y ago

I think it is important to be introspective as a nation and overall I agree, but I also agree with others that the US has been far less empire-y than other empires have been, even if we've been equally stupid. I think it is time to work really hard to improve standards of living and education all over the world so that power can be distributed more evenly, but so much of the world is in the hands of even worse people that it will be hard to do that. Perhaps if there is not a true climate disaster things can move that way, otherwise I'm afraid it will go much worse and will become truly an every-country-for-itself model.

Jtsummers 10y ago
The US has behaved very differently than past empires, but still has been imperialistic. Ostensibly, we aren't an "empire" because we don't do things like establish governors over different places we conquer (and we, again ostensibly, don't conquer anyone). Instead we accomplish the same through the shadows. Encouraging certain dictatorships and coups, discouraging others. Wrecking nations through economic means when they step out of line (or attempt to). This is, in my opinion, much worse than the empires of old. We never control these things we create, which inevitably creates even greater hardship for the people dominated by the dictatorships and economic woes we inspired. And we publicly proclaim a desire for peace and democracy! If we were a proper empire, expanding our domain, we would have ended up bringing new states into our union. The people that we subjugated gaining the right to vote at some point in the future via statehood (initially coming in as territories or protectorates). But we don't want that. We won't the control and influence without the accountability of their votes. This forces people to vote against us via other means. Often violent. We then condemn their actions, which we inspired, and put down these actors, or attempt to, and claim a victory for peace and democracy.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  Ostensibly, we aren't an "empire" because we don't do things like establish governors over different places we conquer There's the Philippines.
  - 10y ago

dbcurtis 10y ago

Well, but let's talk about the collapse of Yugoslavia for a while and the subsequent genocide in Bosnia. Here was something in Western Europe's back yard, and they were totally impotent, letting genocide happen right before their eyes. If US citizens are "complicit" in "crimes against humanity", are not European citizens complicit in the genocide that they let happen? Standing by and wringing your hands until the skin rubs off does not stop genocide. It took the US to get involved with a military deployment for any effective action to be taken. I'm sick to death of being lectured by Europeans who can't be bothered to do anything beyond writing scolding editorials in newspapers.

selimthegrim 10y ago
In before the "Camp Bondsteel is nothing but a guard post for oil pipelines!" conspiracy theorists...
- coldtea 10y ago
  "Americans have been trained by the media to go into Pavlovian giggles at the mention of the word "conspiracy," because for an American to believe in a conspiracy, he must also believe in flying saucers or, craziest of all, that more than one person was involved in the JFK murder" (Gore Vidal)
mmagin 10y ago
If you are arguing that Western Europeans were powerless to do anything about it, yes, that is an argument in favor of having a sizable military -- but not necessarily an argument in favor of taking action with it. If you are arguing that they just chose not to do anything, and the US intervention was virtuous -- that does not necessarily show that other US military actions in the past 30 years are similarly valuable.
- Retric 10y ago
  > but not necessarily an argument in favor of taking action with it. Stopping genocide is the clearest justification for "taking action" with a large military. IMO, the issue is not that the US has a large military. Scale is hard to judge, but the US has a ridiculously huge military. The US military is designed to fight 3 wars at the same time which seems to be vast overkill. The #1 Air Force in the world in term of military strength is US Air Force, #2 Air Force in the world is the US Navy. That's vastly beyond what it takes to deal with local genocide. PS: Consider the F-15 Eagle introduced in 1976 currently has a world wide 100:0 kill loss ratio in Aerial Combat, that took an insane amount of R&D and training. In fact the production is scheduled to in in 2019. While impressive it's hard to call that anything but overkill.

dmerfield 10y ago

Are the 1000+ bases part of a strategy to avoid nuclear proliferation? America agrees to provide security to its allies and in return its allies agree not to acquire nuclear weapons? How else are Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia etc... able to protect themselves against nuclear states?

krapp 10y ago
>How else are Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia etc... able to protect themselves against nuclear states? The US is a nuclear state, and the only state to have ever used nuclear weapons in warfare. Who's going to defend the world against the threat of American nuclear aggression? Will the world really be safer when only the US has nuclear weapons? Reducing nuclear proliferation is a noble endeavor, but the United States should not be the one leading the effort towards it as long as it has no intentions of dismantling its own arsenal. The world would be safer without nuclear weapons, but as long as the US remains an aggressive, nuclear military power that kidnaps, tortures and murders civilians in other countries with impunity, undermines their governments at will, supports terrorist groups and wages war on fabricated evidence, a nuclear-free world will remain impossible.
- greedo 10y ago
  Absolutely no proof the world would be safer without nuclear weapons. Arguably, nuclear weapons have helped deter large scale conflict immensely.
  - krapp 10y ago
    Those conflicts would be limited in their scope and their destructive potential, so arguably the world as a whole would be safer. How many cities can one nuclear-armed submarine destroy and how many such submarines do the nuclear powers of the world have? A thousand conventional wars are preferable to one full-scale nuclear war.
    - AlgorithmicTime 10y ago

ChemicalWarfare 10y ago

The fundamental problem with Chomsky's approach is he's one-sidedly applying criminal justice concepts and 'moral compass' of the western society to international affairs. The side these are applied to is of course 'the evil West'. Then he turns around and acts as all apologetic when it comes to anti-Western regimes no matter how bloody or atrocious they get - going back to whitewashing of Viet Kong atrocities and Cambodian genocide back in the 70s.

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
>> whitewashing of Viet Kong atrocities and Cambodian genocide back in the 70s. He's done nothing of the sort. He was suspicious of the official account of the Kambodian genocide and he had good reason to be suspicious of that account. It turned out it was true, and he admitted it. >> The side these are applied to is of course 'the evil West'. Duh. The West is evil. You don't realise it because you're in the West and you don't live in fear of hellfire missiles from a clear blue sky or a mechanised army rolling over your village. But the rest of the world knows it very well.

unethical_ban 10y ago

Our electoral system makes it exceptionally difficult to break out of the two main parties. And, if you're paying attention to the details of the primaries: at a national level, it is very tough to get a true outsider into a campaign. Sanders got shoved out by the Democrat machine. Trump got in because, whether you like it or not, the Republican primaries are MORE open and democratic! I also think Trump is talking out of his butt a lot, manipulating the voter bases he needs to succeed. I highly doubt he'll have his supposed way on what you perceive to be war crimes - in fact, many republicans are voting for him on the idea that we shouldn't be in the middle east, and that we should be "making deals". The American voting public is a lot more complex than armchair foreigners give it credit for, and it's not as easy as saying "well, you can vote, and the elected are crap, therefore every voter has themselves to blame". Perhaps if we were a parliamentary system, or our legislature a proportional representative format, but it's not.