6 ms·

True they just invade their neighboring countries and say the people living in those places wanted them to help

by taf2 9y ago

meri_dian 9y ago
When was the last time the US invaded a "neighboring" country?
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  Panama (1989) was an invasion with troops. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    Yes, almost 30 years ago the US invaded Panama to depose a dictator who had turned Panama into an international money laundering and drug smuggling center.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - zimpenfish 9y ago
      Well, you did ask...
      - mmjaa 9y ago
        .. and more to the point, it didn't work. Panama is still a festering cesspool of money laundering and drug trafficking. Its just that, the USA has its hand in the pie now. And that is the true reason for that heinous war.
  - DonHopkins 9y ago
    Operation Just Cause (we felt like it)
- mmjaa 9y ago
  The USA has a policy of not invading local countries, because they're too close to home. So, its mostly power projection "fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them .. here". Really, this is a fundamental issue to understand. USA is not a peace-bringing nation - it is a war-projection nation. In the same way that one can use fire to fight fires, the USA thinks its war-making is actually bringing peace to the world. I know - it doesn't make any sense. But, the military-industrial complex which runs the USA doesn't care if you think it makes sense. It only cares about dropping bombs, clearing the shelves of inventory with short half lives, and replacing it with new inventory. EDIT: the claim that USA's wars are "just, righteous wars" is highly specious and, frankly, risible. The USA has toppled more democratically elected officials than any other nation in the history of mankind. I urge you to consider the hubris of the statement: "the USA only fights good wars", because there is fiction, and there is fact. The fact is, a lot of people in democratic societies around the world feel that the USA hasn't fought a good war since WW2, and in fact that the opposite is true: the USA fights to put its own dictators into power. Even a casual investigation of this fact yields more than enough evidence to support the statement: the USA is up to no good.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    The wars the US has involved itself in post-WW2 have almost always been wars with the aim of: 1. Preventing the spread of Soviet backed Authoritarian Communism. 2. Removing brutal dictators from power. Both noble and justifiable goals.
    - pyrale 9y ago
      Can you define "almost" more clearly ? I'm not going to judge the people that did it, bceause it was another time, but I hope the US public opinion has evolved so that some of US antics in that period could not happen now. e.g.: involvement in the fall of Mossadegh, support to the Pinochet regime, support to the Shaddam regime, including the sale of chemical weapons during the Iran-Irak war, support to the contras...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- batushka 9y ago
  Usually it's a salvation to be occupied by US compared to Russia - they just kill, steal and trash territory making it doomed (Transnistria, Osetia, Ukraine teritories, Kuril islands) - a true Mordor.
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    So .. where is all that good ol' American-supported living in .. Libya? Syria? Iraq? Afghanistan? Cambodia? Pakistan? Yemen? Nigeria?
    - josephjrobison 9y ago
      Japan Germany South Korea Every Western nation supported by the Marshall plan You're right, but it goes both ways and not 100% one way or the other
      - mmjaa 9y ago
        Yeah, the USA did do some good for the world. 80 years ago. But what it is doing today is a terrible, atrocious tragedy, and its far beyond the point where the means justify the ends. I mean that as someone who follows closely the cost of American warfare, and as someone who refuses to ignore the human tragedy it is bringing to current generations of people who really, really do not deserve to have had their infrastructure utterly destroyed, their lives ruined, their children left in rubble, on a daily basis, because some smart American decided it had to be so.
        AnimalMuppet 9y ago
        The problem is, we wanted to do Iraq and Afghanistan and get out. If we had done a Marshall Plan in Iraq, we would have had maybe 100,000 troops there for a decade, but it would have been stable when we left.
        pyrale 9y ago
        > we would have had maybe 100,000 troops there for a decade The US has had north of 100k troops in Iraq for 7 years, then about 50k for 3 more years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_troop_surge_of_2007#/media/File:Iraq_Troop_Strength.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_troop_surge_of_2007#/...
saiya-jin 9y ago
Look, if Russia would be the top dog of the Game, then there would be much more focus on them. When Putin says they are good guys in some conflict, only brainwashed russians who only watch state TV take him seriously, rest of the world just smiles and moves on. If US claims constantly they are good guys while supplying arms basically straight to pure evil like ISIS just to play the Game, well that deserves a bit of attention. Plus add other stuff like total internet surveillance and you end up with a feeling that US holds too much power. Without a record of action showing that we should trust them any more than others.
JRITSRob 9y ago
Banana Republic. Cuba. Let's not pretend the world superpowers don't all do this stuff to advance their position. Russia does it to advance it's national position. China does it to advance it's national position. US does it to advance their corporate position (largely tied to national position, just a vaguely alternative setup of the same stuff). Tribalism, to feudalism, and any point in between we see the same situations play out. Look at all the empires over the ages. We're all just incrementally advancing the same playbook each time. I don't have any suggestion as to how this cycle would ever be changed. The only thing that differs is the move makers. The moves all look pretty similar. One nation crumbles, proffers change, wants to avoid repeating/continuing discovered atrocities, another nation/empire is ready to take it's place. We can call out the atrocities globally as we see them. Try to fight each individual fire. There's no pretending that every nation isn't guilty of trying to advance it's position by any means necessary. Offering the humanitarian excuse as a "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" deal is universal. Doing what you can to avoid the aforementioned "calling out".
mmjaa 9y ago
Whereas the USA just invades [wherever] and says "its because you're not democratic/have too many terrorists/whatever".
lawnchair_larry 9y ago
This is not what happened at all.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  In eastern Ukraine and Crimea, that is almost exactly what happened.
  - Sommersonn 9y ago
    Looks like our Russian friends strongly disagree with you.
  - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
    It's honestly not even close. Have you read about the events in detail? I too was under that impression until looking more into it. Are you aware of the unknown sniper agitators?

True they just invade their neighboring countries and say the people living in those places wanted them to help

by taf2 9y ago

True they just invade their neighboring countries and say the people living in those places wanted them to help

meri_dian 9y ago

When was the last time the US invaded a "neighboring" country?

zimpenfish 9y ago
Panama (1989) was an invasion with troops. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
- meri_dian 9y ago
  Yes, almost 30 years ago the US invaded Panama to depose a dictator who had turned Panama into an international money laundering and drug smuggling center.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    Well, you did ask...
    - mmjaa 9y ago
      .. and more to the point, it didn't work. Panama is still a festering cesspool of money laundering and drug trafficking. Its just that, the USA has its hand in the pie now. And that is the true reason for that heinous war.
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  Operation Just Cause (we felt like it)
mmjaa 9y ago
The USA has a policy of not invading local countries, because they're too close to home. So, its mostly power projection "fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them .. here". Really, this is a fundamental issue to understand. USA is not a peace-bringing nation - it is a war-projection nation. In the same way that one can use fire to fight fires, the USA thinks its war-making is actually bringing peace to the world. I know - it doesn't make any sense. But, the military-industrial complex which runs the USA doesn't care if you think it makes sense. It only cares about dropping bombs, clearing the shelves of inventory with short half lives, and replacing it with new inventory. EDIT: the claim that USA's wars are "just, righteous wars" is highly specious and, frankly, risible. The USA has toppled more democratically elected officials than any other nation in the history of mankind. I urge you to consider the hubris of the statement: "the USA only fights good wars", because there is fiction, and there is fact. The fact is, a lot of people in democratic societies around the world feel that the USA hasn't fought a good war since WW2, and in fact that the opposite is true: the USA fights to put its own dictators into power. Even a casual investigation of this fact yields more than enough evidence to support the statement: the USA is up to no good.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  The wars the US has involved itself in post-WW2 have almost always been wars with the aim of: 1. Preventing the spread of Soviet backed Authoritarian Communism. 2. Removing brutal dictators from power. Both noble and justifiable goals.
  - pyrale 9y ago
    Can you define "almost" more clearly ? I'm not going to judge the people that did it, bceause it was another time, but I hope the US public opinion has evolved so that some of US antics in that period could not happen now. e.g.: involvement in the fall of Mossadegh, support to the Pinochet regime, support to the Shaddam regime, including the sale of chemical weapons during the Iran-Irak war, support to the contras...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
batushka 9y ago
Usually it's a salvation to be occupied by US compared to Russia - they just kill, steal and trash territory making it doomed (Transnistria, Osetia, Ukraine teritories, Kuril islands) - a true Mordor.
- mmjaa 9y ago
  So .. where is all that good ol' American-supported living in .. Libya? Syria? Iraq? Afghanistan? Cambodia? Pakistan? Yemen? Nigeria?
  - josephjrobison 9y ago
    Japan Germany South Korea Every Western nation supported by the Marshall plan You're right, but it goes both ways and not 100% one way or the other
    - mmjaa 9y ago
      Yeah, the USA did do some good for the world. 80 years ago. But what it is doing today is a terrible, atrocious tragedy, and its far beyond the point where the means justify the ends. I mean that as someone who follows closely the cost of American warfare, and as someone who refuses to ignore the human tragedy it is bringing to current generations of people who really, really do not deserve to have had their infrastructure utterly destroyed, their lives ruined, their children left in rubble, on a daily basis, because some smart American decided it had to be so.
      - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
        The problem is, we wanted to do Iraq and Afghanistan and get out. If we had done a Marshall Plan in Iraq, we would have had maybe 100,000 troops there for a decade, but it would have been stable when we left.
        pyrale 9y ago
        > we would have had maybe 100,000 troops there for a decade The US has had north of 100k troops in Iraq for 7 years, then about 50k for 3 more years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_troop_surge_of_2007#/media/File:Iraq_Troop_Strength.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_troop_surge_of_2007#/...

saiya-jin 9y ago

Look, if Russia would be the top dog of the Game, then there would be much more focus on them. When Putin says they are good guys in some conflict, only brainwashed russians who only watch state TV take him seriously, rest of the world just smiles and moves on. If US claims constantly they are good guys while supplying arms basically straight to pure evil like ISIS just to play the Game, well that deserves a bit of attention. Plus add other stuff like total internet surveillance and you end up with a feeling that US holds too much power. Without a record of action showing that we should trust them any more than others.

JRITSRob 9y ago

Banana Republic. Cuba. Let's not pretend the world superpowers don't all do this stuff to advance their position. Russia does it to advance it's national position. China does it to advance it's national position. US does it to advance their corporate position (largely tied to national position, just a vaguely alternative setup of the same stuff). Tribalism, to feudalism, and any point in between we see the same situations play out. Look at all the empires over the ages. We're all just incrementally advancing the same playbook each time. I don't have any suggestion as to how this cycle would ever be changed. The only thing that differs is the move makers. The moves all look pretty similar. One nation crumbles, proffers change, wants to avoid repeating/continuing discovered atrocities, another nation/empire is ready to take it's place. We can call out the atrocities globally as we see them. Try to fight each individual fire. There's no pretending that every nation isn't guilty of trying to advance it's position by any means necessary. Offering the humanitarian excuse as a "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" deal is universal. Doing what you can to avoid the aforementioned "calling out".

mmjaa 9y ago

Whereas the USA just invades [wherever] and says "its because you're not democratic/have too many terrorists/whatever".

lawnchair_larry 9y ago

This is not what happened at all.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
In eastern Ukraine and Crimea, that is almost exactly what happened.
- Sommersonn 9y ago
  Looks like our Russian friends strongly disagree with you.
- lawnchair_larry 9y ago
  It's honestly not even close. Have you read about the events in detail? I too was under that impression until looking more into it. Are you aware of the unknown sniper agitators?