> I think it’s fair to say that the covert illegal activities of the US government probably exceed that of any other country by any reasonable measure. Not eve

> I think it’s fair to say that the covert illegal activities of the US government probably exceed that of any other country by any reasonable measure. Not even close, and I say this as a citizen of a developing country that has seen its fair share of superpower influence operations. The covert illegal activities of China and Russia equal or surpass those of the US in most regions. There are Russian operatives committing sabotage on European industrial facilities, and the country has an entire private army (Wagner, now rebranded as Africa Corps) that has been conducting dodgy activities all over Africa for decades now. The recent string of military coups in the Sahel clearly have Russian influence involved, given how quickly Wagner/Africa Corps rushes in immediately after. There are increasing reports of Russian and Chinese influence operations designed to sway my country's next national election, including the emergence of an entirely new political party which espouses extreme traditionalist and anti-Western views and somehow has endless funding for rallies, advertising, and other campaigns all over the country. It was discovered a few years ago that the computer and telecommunications systems that China generously donated to the AU Parliament were riddled with surveillance equipment. There are many more examples out there. >And we also manufacture and ship weapons all over the world, including to horrible regimes like Saudi Arabia. We are currently about to ship over $1 billion in weapons to a country actively perpetrating a genocide. Yes, and the US deserves criticism for that, but by and large the US is a lot more selective about who it sells to and what it sells them than Russia and China are. In fact, it's because of concerns about the consistency of US munition supplies that Saudi Arabia (and the UAE) have invested substantially in setting up their own bomb, missile, and other armaments factories so they're less reliant on the US. The US retains the right to refuse weapons that it sees as pursuing policies it disagrees with, so it has for instance in the past agreed to provide surface to air missiles or air to air missiles but paused the delivery of aircraft bombs. Nearly all of the weapons driving wars in Africa are Russian and Chinese, with a sprinkling of Iranian, Turkish, Emirati, and those of a few other small players, and they never block any shipments over human rights concerns. The genocide happening right now in Sudan is not driven at all by American or even Western weapons, and the flow of weapons hasn't slowed down despite the existence of sanctions. It's good to hold the US to a high standard, but it's silly to let that turn into a belief that it's uniquely terrible among the world's nations. That's far from accurate.