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> Sudan, Ethiopia/Tigray, and Syria Yes, but these are not western allies with immense financial and industrial resources, shared among themselves, whose leade

> Sudan, Ethiopia/Tigray, and Syria Yes, but these are not western allies with immense financial and industrial resources, shared among themselves, whose leadership have signaled for decades their intent to create a new world order in the ashes of the wars they have intentionally fought - for decades. Certainly the genocides in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Syria are atrocities which must be addressed. But they are not the world’s biggest bully thugs. The US and its coalition of willful criminal states, including Israel, are the worlds biggest bully thugs. Sudan doesn’t have a nuclear threat regime which promises to eradicate all life on earth if it doesn’t get its way, politically, across the globe. > But it's incorrect to treat US/Israel as uniquely competent I disagree completely. The US and Israel are extremely powerful nations capable of the industrial might required to assemble nuclear weapons. They very definitely should be held to to task - especially since one funds the other, providing immense military power where they could, instead, be using that overwhelming industrial capability to build peace. Like China does, for example.

woodruffw 2y ago
I don’t think Western versus non-Western provides absolution. You asked for examples of military conflicts with similar degrees of civilian harm, and I’ve given you three examples that demonstrate that you don’t need to be the world’s primary superpower (or its close ally) to cause damage on its scale. Consider your own case: China has done plenty to immiserate minorities within its own borders, has made it clear that civilian harm comes secondary to its own development (cf. indirect financing of the Ukraine war), and has geopolitical designs on Taiwan, etc. that entail putting civilians in harm’s way. Unique virtue is not a thing among countries, nor is the capacity or desire for the kinds of violence that affect the world’s innocents today unique. (Or in other words: having nuclear weapons is mostly a red herring, given that most civilians in conflicts die from the kinds of conventional weapons that have been killing civilians for hundreds of years.)
- MomsAVoxell 2y ago
  This century, China has lifted a billion people out of poverty into what we would consider ‘middle class’ conditions .. while the west has waged war and created conditions, for example, where 36 million refugees from our wars clog the worlds borders. The order of magnitude of ‘help versus hurt’ is, rather astonishing. And, frankly, sad.
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    I don't think you get a free pass for doing bad things if you also do good things. The US imposed domestic shortages for a decade following WWII to keep Europe fed while also rebuilding it; this doesn't somehow offset everything else we've done over the last 80 years. China has done remarkable things for its citizens, much like the Soviet Union did. It did those things while doing terrible things, both to its own citizens and to those within its sphere of influence (looking, for example, at China's willingness to ignore atrocities in North Korea). This is a universal theme with country-level activity: there is no uniquely good country, only shades of (dis)reputability across history. To tie it back to the original question: with enough perspective into global affairs, it's almost impossible to discern the West and non-West in terms of brutality towards civilians during conflicts. Differences in wealth and power are real, but are not immediately relevant to civilians being harmed with the same basic weapons (rifles) and techniques (privation, exposure, insecurity) that are present and readily accessible to every country on Earth.

woodruffw 2y ago

I don’t think Western versus non-Western provides absolution. You asked for examples of military conflicts with similar degrees of civilian harm, and I’ve given you three examples that demonstrate that you don’t need to be the world’s primary superpower (or its close ally) to cause damage on its scale. Consider your own case: China has done plenty to immiserate minorities within its own borders, has made it clear that civilian harm comes secondary to its own development (cf. indirect financing of the Ukraine war), and has geopolitical designs on Taiwan, etc. that entail putting civilians in harm’s way. Unique virtue is not a thing among countries, nor is the capacity or desire for the kinds of violence that affect the world’s innocents today unique. (Or in other words: having nuclear weapons is mostly a red herring, given that most civilians in conflicts die from the kinds of conventional weapons that have been killing civilians for hundreds of years.)

MomsAVoxell 2y ago
This century, China has lifted a billion people out of poverty into what we would consider ‘middle class’ conditions .. while the west has waged war and created conditions, for example, where 36 million refugees from our wars clog the worlds borders. The order of magnitude of ‘help versus hurt’ is, rather astonishing. And, frankly, sad.
- woodruffw 2y ago
  I don't think you get a free pass for doing bad things if you also do good things. The US imposed domestic shortages for a decade following WWII to keep Europe fed while also rebuilding it; this doesn't somehow offset everything else we've done over the last 80 years. China has done remarkable things for its citizens, much like the Soviet Union did. It did those things while doing terrible things, both to its own citizens and to those within its sphere of influence (looking, for example, at China's willingness to ignore atrocities in North Korea). This is a universal theme with country-level activity: there is no uniquely good country, only shades of (dis)reputability across history. To tie it back to the original question: with enough perspective into global affairs, it's almost impossible to discern the West and non-West in terms of brutality towards civilians during conflicts. Differences in wealth and power are real, but are not immediately relevant to civilians being harmed with the same basic weapons (rifles) and techniques (privation, exposure, insecurity) that are present and readily accessible to every country on Earth.