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Suppressing the Tianenmen Square uprising. From a UK diplomatic cable describing the scene: > STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS
by save_ferris 6y ago
Suppressing the Tianenmen Square uprising. From a UK diplomatic cable describing the scene:
> STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS.
Say what you will about the US, we still haven’t run citizens over with tanks and hosed them down drains.
Source: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_Massacre https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Squar...
- door99 6y ago> Say what you will about the US, we still haven’t run citizens over with tanks and hosed them down drains. do you know what happened in iraq?
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoTo our own citizens? Not that, not even in Iraq.
- entropea 6y agoBecause it's better if USA kills innocent foreigners?
- esyir 6y agoHonestly? Yes. I judge a country first and foremost by How it treats its own citizens.
- OpieCunningham 6y agoThat’s an odd distinction. Perhaps you judge your country firstly by how it treats its citizens, because you want to be treated well. But if it’s not your country, what’s the difference? Perhaps you live in a country that provides for your well-being by slaughtering and plundering all around the world. In that case your country is rather horrible. Objectively, the US actions in Iraq were far worse than China in Tianamen Square. In any case, China is obviously a horrible country (Uyghur treatment is just one example).
- entropea 6y agoExcellent, you may want to bone up on your knowledge of the United States economy and learn about its current and past far reaching surveillance laws and past intelligence work that has led to the assassination or jailing of many of its own citizens. I'm not defending China, but saying USA is any better is in my opinion, not living in the reality of the majority of the citizens of USA. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533 https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
- aswanson 6y agoThe united states is, on balance, a rather stupid country. We re-elected a dolt that invaded Iraq on the premise they caused 911 when they obviously didnt. That said, China poses a unique threat: a panopticon, freedom supressing government, with next to no option for change, and trying to expand its borders. Scary.
- entropea 6y agoThere are many around the world and in USA who would say the exact same about the USA and I'm sure China says the exact same about USA. I personally see no difference between the two except they're both fighting to be the world superpower and China is really stepping in to take that role from a USA in distress.
- refurb 6y agoHmmm... US invades Japan, turns it from a militant authoritarian system into a democracy, then gives it independence. Invades, then turns Philippines into a sovereign nation. Same with South Korea. Same with Western Europe post-WW2. Has China done that?
- save_ferris 6y agoFeel free to enlighten us.
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoEstimates of up to a million people dead, for something they didn't do. It was pretty bad.
- frequentnapper 6y agoAmericans didn't kill a million Iraqi people, the taliban and loads of other groups did.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Americans didn't kill a million Iraqi people, the taliban and loads of other groups did. The Taliban killed approximately zero Iraqis (you may be confusing al-Qaeda with the Taliban, and the group that after the war temporarily adopted the name “al-Qaeda in Iraq”, before becoming the Islamic State—that erupted into a major force because of the American mismanagement of the post-invasion occupation, most notably the almost entirely unmanaged demobilization of the security services—with al-Qaeda itself. Americans killed a lot themselves, as well as launching an unprovoked war of aggression which produced the context in which many others were killed beyond those Americans killed directly. But all of those deaths are America's fault and responsibility, even those that are also someone else’s fault and responsibility.
- frequentnapper 6y agoTaliban moved into Iraq after Saddam's fall. Yes I do agree that it was Bush administration's fault for toppling him and letting the mayhem loose, but to say that Americans killed a million iraqis is disingeuous.
- claudeganon 6y agoTanks are a bit showy when you can just have the police and National Guard shoot protestors without consequence: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Park_(Berkeley) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Park_(Berkeley) Shooting workers that unionized was also common: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattimer_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattimer_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Road_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Road_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_Mine_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_Mine_massacre
- gruez 6y ago>Tanks are a bit showy when you can just have the police and National Guard shoot protestors without consequence: uhh... what? Have you checked the "legal action" section? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings#Legal_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings#Legal_act... or did you expect that the guards' heads be put on a pike? Oh, and don't forget that we can talk about what happened freely. Try doing that in China.
- claudeganon 6y agoYes? They were never convicted of anything. Perhaps read it again yourself.
- save_ferris 6y agoHard to compare these two scenarios. Look, I’m not arguing that US officials throughout the course of history have been perfect. Kent State was an atrocity, no question. But anyone with a gun can pull the trigger. It takes an enormous amount of coordination to uniformly run over people with tanks, burn their bodies, and flush them down drains. The incidents you’ve linked are undoubtedly dark chapters, but they are not comparable to what we’ve seen in China.
- claudeganon 6y agoI would never say that the US is an authoritarian state on par with the vileness of the PRC. But your specific claim was that we’ve never done to our own citizens what happened to the protesters at Tiananmen, which I now guess hinges on how coordinated the killings were. I think this is historically inaccurate, absent engaging in this kind of special pleading.
- joveian 6y agoAs far as I can tell this is completely false and none of the eyewitnesses have corroborated that account. The famous photo of "Tank Man" provides evidence of a case where this didn't happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man The main wikipedia article on Tianenmen square discusses other estimates of the number of deaths (all others being much lower): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests There are a number of people involved in the protests who have left China and provided accounts. At least one person wrote a book, although there is no English translation as far as I know. The British government has itself killed quite a lot of civilians and is hardly a reliable source considering their history with China.
- save_ferris 6y ago> The famous photo of "Tank Man" provides evidence of a case where this didn't happen. I disagree, that photo could’ve easily been taken before the killing started. The fact that tank man’s identity or whereabouts are unknown provides evidence that he was probably killed in the demonstrations. > The British government has itself killed quite a lot of civilians and is hardly a reliable source considering their history with China. This is completely fallacious. The fact that Britain has killed civilians has no bearing on their truth-telling here. You’re essentially arguing that no country is capable of telling the truth because it’s not realistic to name a country that hasn’t killed civilians at some point, no?
- joveian 6y agoPlease read the article I linked, it was the day after the square was cleared and was witnessed by a number of people. There is a quote from one of the leaders of the protests saying that he saw many people blocking tanks. He did not say he saw tanks running over anyone. I do not think in general governments are a good source of facts and even in the best circumstances most seem incapable of telling the truth. The British government reporting on China is nowhere near the best circumstances. The account you quoted now serves as propaganda for people who want to believe that China is uniquely monstrous. A number of people have quoted it on HN and it is at odds with eyewitness accounts. Even the Chinese government admits it killed hundreds of people during the protest. Possibly the number is over 1k, but 10k deaths is not credible nor is the vivid account.
- entropea 6y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoYou seem to be trying really hard to steer the conversation away from China. Yes, the US has done plenty of things that are wrong. We talk about them frequently, including here on HN. But this conversation is about China oppressing the people of Hong Kong. Do you mind letting us discuss that, without distracting us with "But the US!!!!!" all over the place?
- entropea 6y agoThats thought ending. There isn't even a downside, you learn history.