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I clicked expecting to enjoy another public black eye for the School of the Americas, and instead I’m left with dread that the USA has privatized that training.

• SkyMarshal 5y ago
  If it makes you feel any better, many US citizens hate it too. It's stupid both to privatize the military, and to provide military training to repressive authoritarian regimes. America and our democratic allies spent half a century fighting totalitarianism, only to turn around and treat the post-Cold War "peace dividend" as carte-blance to sell out everything we had just finished fighting for. Now authoritarianism is on the rise again as a result. This has to be most idiotic own-goal in history.
  • drewcoo 5y ago
    > spent half a century fighting totalitarianism By destabilizing and ousting democratically elected leaders around the world and replacing them with our puppets? Or do you mean fighting those puppets when they became inconvenient? I suspect what happened is not the history you think it is.
    • knownjorbist 5y ago
      Your picture may be as narrow-minded as the person you're replying to, but in the other direction. The US also uses its economic clout to push for social, political and economic reforms in other countries as well.
      • yetihehe 5y ago
        Definitely, but it's very clumsy and many times it backfires.
      • cycomanic 5y ago
        The problem is if there is a conflict between economic and and "ethical" interests the economic interest always won (let's not even get into all the political reasons why totalitarian regimes were supported). The US (and much of the west by extension) certainly has a very spotty history of supporting democracy, especially if it was in their economic interest to support the totalitarian regime.
        • reducesuffering 5y ago
          The US supporting democracy (or atleast classical liberal enlightenment values that would eventually lead to a functioning democracy) in Vietnam, Iraq, Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, and more has by far been a net negative economic interest. We've paid dearly while Europe mostly enjoyed social welfare benefits.
          • chmod775 5y ago
            Right. Europe just loves dealing with the millions of refugees that the US-led destabilization and destruction of the middle east caused. Also I'm not sure what you mean by "social welfare".
            • reducesuffering 5y ago
              Social welfare as in funds for safety nets and public spending, like free healthcare, education, and improved disability, unemployment, and welfare benefits. US chose to spend trillions militarily that otherwise generally could've been allocated to those types of public spending within the US as well. Refugees that Europe deals with is mostly Syrian and Afghani. The US supplied weapons and support to Syrian rebels and weapons to anti-communist mujahideen. Now, hindsight is 20/20, but Assad was literally using chemical weapons on Syrian citizens. The Taliban was wantonly wreaking destruction across Afghanistan causing the refugee displacement. These are complex issues when it comes to human rights abuses and geopolitics. My point is that the US paid a price in attempting to be world police, regardless of the outcome. It wasn't economically beneficial as the grandparent comment stated.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • Intermernet 5y ago
        For every example of this you give me, I can give you a pertinent counter example. This should tell you that these actions aren't altruistic.
      • akudha 5y ago
        Yes, the U.S govt does good things abroad. They also do lots of bad stuff. We can criticize them for the bad things they do and appreciate them for their good deeds, at the same time.
        • knownjorbist 5y ago
          Agreed! In fact, that's basically what I said.
    • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      > By destabilizing and ousting democratically elected leaders around the world and replacing them with our puppets El Saud was put in place as rulers of Saudi Arabia by the British, not the Americans.
      • bigbillheck 5y ago
        But across the gulf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état
      • pkphilip 5y ago
        US has done "regime change" in many countries replacing elected officials with warlords/monarchs/dictators etc. Consider Mossadegh in Iran - an elected, secular politician who was replaced to put Shah - a monarch, in power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh Then, of course, all across Latin America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
        • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
          Yes, but the linked story was about Saudi Arabia, not Iran or Latin America.
          • pkphilip 5y ago
            I was replying broadly on the issue of regime change
    • refurb 5y ago
      Destabilizing oppressive regimens controlled by the Soviets. Arguably still oppressive after we’re done but better than before.
      • _jujw 5y ago
        „At least we’re not Stalin“ It really baffles me how indoctrinated Americans still are, long after the cold war has ended. I see dogmatic, almost conditioned responses so often. Many of you seem to be literally unable to even explore „soviet“ ideas even in thought, or allow yourself to question the factual, not mythical, relationship between capitalism and human welfare. Do you realize how these things are researched and talked about outside the US? In „soviet“ Europe? I wish there was a way to make you see how limited your thinking is, when it comes to „communism vs capitalism“. You can stop now. You won. The soviets are gone.
        • viro 5y ago
          The facts are collectivism basically requires oppression. and those governments would just murder you if you didn't like it. So how about no we won't stop.
          • _jujw 5y ago
            Sure thing. Factual existential constraints totally don’t apply to a, your, „free“ capitalist society. Great to have choice, if you can’t afford any, eh? Seriously, your comment is exactly what I am talking about. I can’t even fathom your... Okay this will get ranty! Capitalism has all the murders and atrocities you can think of. It’s just not attributable to a single entity, but hidden behind ideas like „not profitable“. Ebola vaccine anyone? Tuberculosis? Cobalt exploitation? Climate change. Peak phosphorus. Pollution. How many annual death in the US are preventable with a better welfare system? I shiver when privileged Americans talk about social darwinism like it’s a good thing, and it makes me sick that you celebrate videos of people being generous to some poor fucks on the streets. Aww, he bought him shoes! Is it the projection into the imbalance of power? One day being the one to let another live? And GoFundMe campaigns for cancer treatment… W.T.F. Maybe I am missing some degrees of freedom those people indulge in, or maybe… Monetary profit is not a metric for human welfare, no matter your narrative need for it to be. If you put systemic pressure on profit, you won’t select for prosperity and our collective future‘s benefit, but optimize for - can you guess? - monetary profit. Your economic dogma is called overfitting. Don’t mix up correlation and causality, when bringing up stats about global developments. That’s just bad science and you should know better, with the best education system in the world. Or is that an „anyone, but not everyone“ kinda thing too? Or did you sign an NQA to get the crippling credit for your degree? Sorry, what do I know about those things being oppressed by collectivized European education… Funny how not being 100k in debt kinda gives you the illusion of freedom. Like choosing a job I like, over one which frees me of that debt. Or maybe I just travel a bit, maybe to America, and educate my self on real freedom. Working can wait, what’s more important than understanding freedom? Most academic economists don’t believe in the whole unregulated free market fantasy, anymore. For quite some time actually. That’s an American culture thing, believe it or not. Turns out, humans are not really rational actors. Who would have thought? Don’t trust me, tho, look it up, or ask economists (real ones, not some tech bro bitcoin investors): Most markets can’t regulate shit. And please while your at it, ask sociologists about 'freedom' and 'oppression'. Really tho, have you ever allowed yourself a critical take on capitalism? Open outcome? Without defaulting to „Nice in theory, but communism…“? I dare you, fellow human <3
    • weimerica 5y ago
      > By destabilizing and ousting democratically elected leaders around the world and replacing them with our puppets? Bit of a bold stance to take on Adolf Hitler /s Truth be told, being Democratically elected doesn't mean all that much if the person in power engages in bad acts.
    • SkyMarshal 5y ago
      >By destabilizing and ousting democratically elected leaders around the world and replacing them with our puppets? Or do you mean fighting those puppets when they became inconvenient? I suspect what happened is not the history you think it is. I hate justifying the US's behavior in this regard, but all such critiques need to at least be context-aware. The USSR was attempting to spread a system of totalitarian social, economic and thought control world wide. At the time, almost everything by comparison was a lesser of two evils. In opposing their efforts, anyone who also opposed the USSR, be it a European Democracy or a third world strongman, became a US ally. Anything to thwart the spread of the USSR's variant of Communism. Supporting strongmen was ugly and unpleasant, but those were also desperate times. The USSR was expanding rapidly and adding satellite states left and right. Any strongman who 1) opposed the USSR, and 2) who was strong enough to maintain control of their country despite USSR attempts to destabilize and gain proxy control of it, was a potential valuable ally in the greater contest. Sometimes the strongmen were the only ones in a given country who could meet both criteria, and the US had to work with was available. Ugly, but c'est realpolitik. Though I'm not sure Iran can be justified even under that framework. Fomenting a coup in a country with a democratically elected government and liberalizing society just so we can take their oil instead of buying it at market rates is unjustifiable, even in a Cold War context. Their oil could potentially tip the military balance of power, but surely an alternative to a coup was some kind of oil-for-military-aid treaty with a fellow Democracy.
  • f6v 5y ago
    > America and our democratic allies spent half a century fighting totalitarianism Maybe they weren't fighting totalitarianism in the first place.
    • Intermernet 5y ago
      Maybe the real totalitarianism was the friends we met on the way...
      • hackeraccount 5y ago
        underrated comment.
    • refurb 5y ago
      In America, it’s easy to find a party. In Soviet Russia, Party finds you! What a country!!
  • KMag 5y ago
    > Now authoritarianism is on the rise again as a result. Perhaps this is an indirect result of the US providing military support to totalitarian regimes, but I don't see how it accounts for a rise in totalitarian/authoritarian tendencies in Russia, China, and other countries that don't receive such aid. Nationalism and authoritarianism/totalitarianism tend to have more support when economic and other factors make people worried about their futures. In such situations, the natural human instinct is to crave stability at any cost, which opens the door for nationalism and authoritarianism/totalitarianism.
    • SkyMarshal 5y ago
      >Russia, China, and other countries that don't receive such aid. Russia and China received immense amounts of US aid. After the USSR fell, the US was concerned about their nukes proliferating, and gave billions in foreign aid, financial/credit support, and technical assistance to Russia to help them rebuild their economy and maintain nuclear security. For China, we opened our markets and brought them into the WTO, which massively enriched and empowered their economy and government, and without which they would not have developed nearly as quickly.
      • KMag 5y ago
        The GGP was talking specifically about direct/indirect military training leading to the rise in totalitarianism, which I broadened to military support (to which the "such" you quoted refers). It sounds like you're talking about direct and indirect economic aid.
• raincom 5y ago
  Many drug cartels in Mexico get their training from the retired army personnel from Israel, USA. So, what can the USA/Israel do in such a case? Either ban any training given by retired folks; or give fat pensions to such people and make them sign agreements that prevent any private training whatsoever.
  • dundarious 5y ago
    > Four Saudis who participated in the 2018 killing of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi received paramilitary training in the United States the previous year under a contract approved by the State Department [emphasis mine] Likewise, the death squads trained by the School of the Americas were not there by some mistake or bureaucratic misstep -- it was known who they were working for, and their training was quite intentional. Sure, we can argue that unapproved training will still take place, but it doesn't let us off the hook for the "counterinsurgency" training that was and is still consciously given to known repressive regimes.
  • yaitsyaboi 5y ago
    Why would the US or Israeli militaries be powerless to say "you can't use your training to help train up cartels and if we find out about it, that's your ass"?
    • cudgy 5y ago
      Same reason that Congress has not said to ex-congress members “you can't use your influence to help train up lobbyists and if we find out about it, that's your ass.” That reason would be … money and power for their “retirement” years.
    • bluedino 5y ago
      Probably the same reason the US is powerless to say "cartels can't sell traffic drugs or humans into the US or it's their ass"
    • refurb 5y ago
      Because the military can’t tell people no longer in the military what they can and can’t do? I mean, Congress could pass laws, but then you’d need to define a cartel, prove it in court, prove they were training, etc.
• croes 5y ago
  Thats the american way of doing things forbidden for a government. Censorship, blocking demonstrations, torture. It is not a problem for a private company and if it is, the company goes bankrupt and reopens under a new name. I'm looking at you Blackwater.
• cyanydeez 5y ago
  basically, either we are ignoring the law or bypassing it through corporate acts.