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>> Bear in mind that the US has been fighting wars against far weaker opponents for over sixty years now That is only natural. The democratic peace theory (se

by berntb 13y ago

>> Bear in mind that the US has been fighting wars against far weaker opponents for over sixty years now That is only natural. The democratic peace theory (see Wikipedia) seems to work, not even USA have wars with democracies but with really unpleasant dictatorships. With the dictators that have nuclear weapons, you had (have) MAD as in "Mutually Assured Destruction". Not even USA starts a war. Which is why every torturing, murdering and stealing junta wants nukes... The dictators without nukes come in two flavors. With oil -- or really poor, which implies weak military. (The juntas with oil tend to be corrupt, so no good military either. Iran might be partly an exception.) The open question here is what happens with China and democracy when the GNP/capita goes up a bit more.

Tloewald 13y ago
Only if you define dictatorship as someone the US doesn't like and democracy as someone the US likes. There's no evidence that the government of north vietnam was worse than the organized crime cartel the US backed in the south (that had monks immolating themselves in the streets in protest against them). The US also backed Saddam Hussein against Iran, overthrew a left-wing but democratically elected government in Chile and replaced it with a brutal dictatorship. Castro, for that matter, was no worse than they guys he overthrew. The US repeatedly helped quash popular uprisings in aouth america to help out corporate interests. The US was vetoing sanctions against South Africa as late as 1988. Oh, and check out our awesome middle eastern ally Saudi Arabia. Learn some freaking history.
- berntb 13y ago
  Sigh... The subject was war not realpolitik games of common interests, which all countries play (and lie about). Most of those games also went away with the cold war. An irrelevant question about your claims: I don't know about Cuba's number of political prisoners, executions at revolution time, control of information, police state mentality. It might be less bad than the previous junta, but it is worst in the Americas now since the other unpleasant juntas disappeared... Afaik, the south Vietnam regime was horribly corrupt but can it really be worse than a communist place?! (Is that ideology? Do you have references?)
- Tloewald 13y ago
  @bertb Communism isn't worse than anything no matter how bad. It's hard to determine how bad some of the less nasty communist regimes such as Cuba and Vietnam would have been without massive economic sanctions from the US. (Both Cuba and Vietnam wanted to be US allies.) There are several cases among my examples of the US taking action against real democracies. Some references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_South... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d'état http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d'état http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état
  - berntb 13y ago
    The subject was war. You started talking about your USA hatred. I asked for examples after the cold war (stupid of me to feed the trolls). You don't have anything relevant here either, so you list cases that are 40+ years old... This is a common pattern -- you can excuse anything (including burning food on the stove) with that a bad dictator had common interests with USA 50+ years ago... It is seriously funny when left wingers blame that all communist countries are dictators on USA. As I noted already, the non-communist dictators in that part of the world are gone since a long time. So Batiste would almost certainly be gone too. If Cuba implemented human rights, left governments in West Europe would take care of them. >>Communism isn't worse than anything no matter how bad. Oh my, I hope you are trolling. I've seen this before. If I e.g. mention millions of dead repeatedly, you will do a "no true scotsman" variant. Or some more strange logic. I know the QED anyway, all the dead are USAs fault... Enough.
    - Tloewald 13y ago
      I see you've inferred I am a "left winger" full of "USA hatred" and a "troll". You've also skillfully defeated arguments I have not made (e.g. blaming millions of deaths or lack of democracy in communist countries on the US). And having done this you've declared "enough". Well played. Incidentally, I love the US and happen to live here. I simply wish the US would stop making really foolish decisions that waste blood and treasure on idiotic adventures which harm its standing in the world. I certainly don't think that any other power, either historical (e.g. the USSR) or speculative (e.g. China or India) is likely to do a better job, or be any "nicer" than the US has been thus far. But we can always do better, and the way to do better is to recognize past mistakes.

by berntb 13y ago

Tloewald 13y ago

Only if you define dictatorship as someone the US doesn't like and democracy as someone the US likes. There's no evidence that the government of north vietnam was worse than the organized crime cartel the US backed in the south (that had monks immolating themselves in the streets in protest against them). The US also backed Saddam Hussein against Iran, overthrew a left-wing but democratically elected government in Chile and replaced it with a brutal dictatorship. Castro, for that matter, was no worse than they guys he overthrew. The US repeatedly helped quash popular uprisings in aouth america to help out corporate interests. The US was vetoing sanctions against South Africa as late as 1988. Oh, and check out our awesome middle eastern ally Saudi Arabia. Learn some freaking history.

berntb 13y ago
Sigh... The subject was war not realpolitik games of common interests, which all countries play (and lie about). Most of those games also went away with the cold war. An irrelevant question about your claims: I don't know about Cuba's number of political prisoners, executions at revolution time, control of information, police state mentality. It might be less bad than the previous junta, but it is worst in the Americas now since the other unpleasant juntas disappeared... Afaik, the south Vietnam regime was horribly corrupt but can it really be worse than a communist place?! (Is that ideology? Do you have references?)
Tloewald 13y ago
@bertb Communism isn't worse than anything no matter how bad. It's hard to determine how bad some of the less nasty communist regimes such as Cuba and Vietnam would have been without massive economic sanctions from the US. (Both Cuba and Vietnam wanted to be US allies.) There are several cases among my examples of the US taking action against real democracies. Some references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_South... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d'état http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d'état http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état
- berntb 13y ago
  The subject was war. You started talking about your USA hatred. I asked for examples after the cold war (stupid of me to feed the trolls). You don't have anything relevant here either, so you list cases that are 40+ years old... This is a common pattern -- you can excuse anything (including burning food on the stove) with that a bad dictator had common interests with USA 50+ years ago... It is seriously funny when left wingers blame that all communist countries are dictators on USA. As I noted already, the non-communist dictators in that part of the world are gone since a long time. So Batiste would almost certainly be gone too. If Cuba implemented human rights, left governments in West Europe would take care of them. >>Communism isn't worse than anything no matter how bad. Oh my, I hope you are trolling. I've seen this before. If I e.g. mention millions of dead repeatedly, you will do a "no true scotsman" variant. Or some more strange logic. I know the QED anyway, all the dead are USAs fault... Enough.
  - Tloewald 13y ago
    I see you've inferred I am a "left winger" full of "USA hatred" and a "troll". You've also skillfully defeated arguments I have not made (e.g. blaming millions of deaths or lack of democracy in communist countries on the US). And having done this you've declared "enough". Well played. Incidentally, I love the US and happen to live here. I simply wish the US would stop making really foolish decisions that waste blood and treasure on idiotic adventures which harm its standing in the world. I certainly don't think that any other power, either historical (e.g. the USSR) or speculative (e.g. China or India) is likely to do a better job, or be any "nicer" than the US has been thus far. But we can always do better, and the way to do better is to recognize past mistakes.