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Technically, the US spies on the world... and shares info about their citizens with a number of other governments. On the other hand, the US isn't currently oc

by ethbro 7y ago

Technically, the US spies on the world... and shares info about their citizens with a number of other governments. On the other hand, the US isn't currently occupying, detaining, and requiring patriotic reeducation for an ethnic minority within its borders. I feel like an "It's already happening, and this is what you get" appraisal cuts less favorably towards China than the US.

freeflight 7y ago
> On the other hand, the US isn't currently occupying, detaining, and requiring patriotic reeducation for an ethnic minority within its borders. Let's just ignore that the US is still running torture black-sites to this day and droning people all over the planet often based on nothing more than metadata and questionable ML algorithms [0] because that's what "the US spying on the world" is mostly about: State-sponsored assassinations and abductions. That's why the US doesn't exactly occupy a moral high-ground on these issues, the only reason many US Americans think they are is that they've bought into the "only protecting you from the next 9/11" narrative, which is exactly the same narrative the Chinese government is peddling to its own citizens to justify its own measures: "Fighting terrorists, keeping the country save". A cynic could now try to measure the bad vs the worse, but the reality remains that both are committing crimes against humanity on a regular basis and both justify them in exactly the same ways. [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-nsas-skynet-program-may-be-killing-thousands-of-innocent-people/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-n...
- ethbro 7y ago
  > Let's just ignore that the US is still running torture black-sites to this day and droning people... For context. Estimated number of people at CIA black sites: < 1000 Estimated total number of deaths from drone strikes, 2001-2014: 2,900 (numbers past 2014 are less clear) Number killed in Tiananmen Square in 1989: ~2600 Number of Uyghurs living in China: 11.3 M Number of Tibetans living in China: 6.3 M > A cynic could now try to measure the bad vs the worse, but the reality remains that both are committing crimes against humanity on a regular basis and both justify them in exactly the same ways. I would call someone who draws a distinction between bad and worse a realist.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - freeflight 7y ago
    That's not context, those are "estimate numbers" about COVERT operations you didn't even source. The drone numbers are even less useful because two different US administrations [0] [1] went through the effort of redefining "enemy combatant" to pretty up the "collateral damage" by drones. That's why Pakistan alone actually tallies up to over 3.400 drone victims [2]. You then compare that with 1989 Tiananmen Square and Tibet, so it is only fair to also factor in 2003 Iraq because just like China hasn't admitted any wrongdoing in Tiananmen Square, the US has yet to admit that going into Iraq was wrong. Which counts just as much regardless of the US "not annexing Iraq", it still was an illegal war of aggression wreaking havoc on a sovereign country, killing hundreds of thousands of people, displacing millions as refugees, with the US government employing tactics like torture and abducting family members to fight an insurgency [3], destabilizing the region to this day. And that's only Iraq, which hasn't been the only "US terrorism interventions" we've had in these past 2 decades but only one out of many. The fact that so many people are unaware/in denial about a lot of this, only shows how effective the US government has been in hiding and legitimizing its own crimes against humanity. And even when international bodies, like the ICC, try to investigate: The US shuts it down by sabotaging [4] any efforts at investigation and flat out threatening involved countries with sanctions [5]. So if we really want to be "realists", we have to be real about all of it, and not just cherry-pick estimated numbers to tally them up against each other. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_combatant#Change_of_meaning_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_combatant#Change_of_mean... [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/under-obama-men-killed-by-drones-are-presumed-to-be-terrorists/257749/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/under-o... [2] http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/ http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_prison_abuse_scandals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_prison_abuse_scandals [4] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/15/mike-pompeo-us-war-crimes-investigation-international-criminal-court https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/15/mike-pompeo-... [5] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45474864 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45474864
    - 7y ago
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  Got millions by whom? USA got millions in re-education camp?
jessaustin 7y ago
Oh yeah we've been very kind to ethnic minorities in USA. Please ignore the Indian reservations and (not current, barely) kidnap-and-assimilate Indian boarding schools. Please ignore the racial disparities in prison. Please ignore The Drug War...

by ethbro 7y ago

freeflight 7y ago

> On the other hand, the US isn't currently occupying, detaining, and requiring patriotic reeducation for an ethnic minority within its borders. Let's just ignore that the US is still running torture black-sites to this day and droning people all over the planet often based on nothing more than metadata and questionable ML algorithms [0] because that's what "the US spying on the world" is mostly about: State-sponsored assassinations and abductions. That's why the US doesn't exactly occupy a moral high-ground on these issues, the only reason many US Americans think they are is that they've bought into the "only protecting you from the next 9/11" narrative, which is exactly the same narrative the Chinese government is peddling to its own citizens to justify its own measures: "Fighting terrorists, keeping the country save". A cynic could now try to measure the bad vs the worse, but the reality remains that both are committing crimes against humanity on a regular basis and both justify them in exactly the same ways. [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-nsas-skynet-program-may-be-killing-thousands-of-innocent-people/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-n...

ethbro 7y ago
> Let's just ignore that the US is still running torture black-sites to this day and droning people... For context. Estimated number of people at CIA black sites: < 1000 Estimated total number of deaths from drone strikes, 2001-2014: 2,900 (numbers past 2014 are less clear) Number killed in Tiananmen Square in 1989: ~2600 Number of Uyghurs living in China: 11.3 M Number of Tibetans living in China: 6.3 M > A cynic could now try to measure the bad vs the worse, but the reality remains that both are committing crimes against humanity on a regular basis and both justify them in exactly the same ways. I would call someone who draws a distinction between bad and worse a realist.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- freeflight 7y ago
  That's not context, those are "estimate numbers" about COVERT operations you didn't even source. The drone numbers are even less useful because two different US administrations [0] [1] went through the effort of redefining "enemy combatant" to pretty up the "collateral damage" by drones. That's why Pakistan alone actually tallies up to over 3.400 drone victims [2]. You then compare that with 1989 Tiananmen Square and Tibet, so it is only fair to also factor in 2003 Iraq because just like China hasn't admitted any wrongdoing in Tiananmen Square, the US has yet to admit that going into Iraq was wrong. Which counts just as much regardless of the US "not annexing Iraq", it still was an illegal war of aggression wreaking havoc on a sovereign country, killing hundreds of thousands of people, displacing millions as refugees, with the US government employing tactics like torture and abducting family members to fight an insurgency [3], destabilizing the region to this day. And that's only Iraq, which hasn't been the only "US terrorism interventions" we've had in these past 2 decades but only one out of many. The fact that so many people are unaware/in denial about a lot of this, only shows how effective the US government has been in hiding and legitimizing its own crimes against humanity. And even when international bodies, like the ICC, try to investigate: The US shuts it down by sabotaging [4] any efforts at investigation and flat out threatening involved countries with sanctions [5]. So if we really want to be "realists", we have to be real about all of it, and not just cherry-pick estimated numbers to tally them up against each other. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_combatant#Change_of_meaning_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_combatant#Change_of_mean... [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/under-obama-men-killed-by-drones-are-presumed-to-be-terrorists/257749/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/under-o... [2] http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/ http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_prison_abuse_scandals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_prison_abuse_scandals [4] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/15/mike-pompeo-us-war-crimes-investigation-international-criminal-court https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/15/mike-pompeo-... [5] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45474864 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45474864
  - 7y ago
ngcc_hk 7y ago
Got millions by whom? USA got millions in re-education camp?

jessaustin 7y ago

Oh yeah we've been very kind to ethnic minorities in USA. Please ignore the Indian reservations and (not current, barely) kidnap-and-assimilate Indian boarding schools. Please ignore the racial disparities in prison. Please ignore The Drug War...