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Most of the countries that I listed are not US allies. A minority of them receive US military and other aid because it's deemed a necessary evil. The classic

Most of the countries that I listed are not US allies. A minority of them receive US military and other aid because it's deemed a necessary evil. The classic example is Saudi Arabia. We don't like what they do internally and we don't like that they push their puritanical form of Islam around the world, but they're an essential ally in a very unfriendly region; and the collapse of their monarchy would create a very dangerous power vacuum. Pakistan is another example where the US has had to bite the bullet and deal with a very flawed ally, because the alternative is deemed to be worse. As for the UN being unable to do much without US approval, it's simply not relevant to this discussion. This has nothing to do with the Security Council, which is where the US can exercise its veto.

vacri 11y ago
Looking at the wiki page for Vietnam, they seem on par with the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Vietnam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Vietnam - Minorities pushed off their land so the majority can settle on it? Hello American Indians. - Holds 160 political prisoners? Hello Guantanamo Bay. (not to mention the US imprisons 5x as many people by proportion of population, some operating as labour camps) - A bloke arrested and charged with subversion? Hello Snowden, who barely escaped. Vietnam doesn't have freedom of political affiliation or freedom of speech (rates very low on the press freedom index, for example), but apart from that, the US seems to be quite happy to engage in the same kinds of human rights abuses. Even right down to corruption in police: witness the state of civil forfeiture laws in the US, which isn't recent either - Jello Biafra was singing in the 80s about having his property seized and legally sold before he was tried in court. Or the police abuse of blacks. I mean hell, one of the greatest violations of human rights in the 20th century was the US war in Vietnam. Atrocities left, right, and centre. I just think it's a bit much to be painting Vietnam as having an atrocious human rights record, all the while implying that the US is some sort of gold standard.
- mljet 11y ago
  You make valid criticisms about the human rights record of the US, but what is missing is a sense of proportion. Is it really your view that the US human right record is on par with Vietnam, particularly if you need to qualify it by excluding "freedom of political affiliation or freedom of speech" from your comparison?
  - vacri 11y ago
    Eh, I didn't really exclude it - I noted it. I was trying to show that abuses of human rights aren't limited solely to political affiliation and assembly. And yes, arguments of proportion cut both ways - look at the incarceration rates in the US, a huge proportion of which is for a victimless crime (possessing drugs). Vietnam also doesn't go pounding its military around the world - there are hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, all due to a war started to shore up domestic support in the US, for example. Human rights extend to all humans, not just citizens of the state in question. Edit: I guess my fundamental point is that the implication was that the HRC would do better if the US was a member, based on members' track records. But the US's track record isn't particularly good either (particularly in regard to non-US citizens)
  - bjelkeman-again 11y ago
    In the US it also takes other shapes. Incarceration rates at 1% of the population, including something which could be argued is corporate slavery, with a heavy bias for a particular portion of the population. If you aren't part of that demographic it may not seem so bad. But the numbers are absolutely awful.
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    Can we include the illegal invasion of countries and the subsequent clusterfuck of death and destruction as a human rights violation?
  - DominikR 11y ago
    Proportionate? The US has killed 4 million Vietnamese and poisoned large parts of the country with chemical weapons. I doubt that their "regime" has ever done something comparable. How many millions did any Vietnamese government in past or present kill in the middle east. How many terrorist organizations are currently run out of Hanoi in comparison to those run out of Washington? Does the Vietnamese president sign kill lists and run torture camps across the globe?
mcv 11y ago
I think the close relationship with Saudi Arabia is really more about oil than anything else. Saudi Arabia is probably the biggest financier of Muslim terrorism in the world, and yet is conspicuously missing from the US list of countries that fund terrorism (yet Cuba was on it until recently). Of course Saudi Arabia is also the world's largest producer of oil, and that's the primary reason why the US (and most of the oil consuming world, really) wants to be their friend. It is of course also why they have so much money to fund terrorism.
- deleted 11y ago
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vacri 11y ago

Looking at the wiki page for Vietnam, they seem on par with the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Vietnam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Vietnam - Minorities pushed off their land so the majority can settle on it? Hello American Indians. - Holds 160 political prisoners? Hello Guantanamo Bay. (not to mention the US imprisons 5x as many people by proportion of population, some operating as labour camps) - A bloke arrested and charged with subversion? Hello Snowden, who barely escaped. Vietnam doesn't have freedom of political affiliation or freedom of speech (rates very low on the press freedom index, for example), but apart from that, the US seems to be quite happy to engage in the same kinds of human rights abuses. Even right down to corruption in police: witness the state of civil forfeiture laws in the US, which isn't recent either - Jello Biafra was singing in the 80s about having his property seized and legally sold before he was tried in court. Or the police abuse of blacks. I mean hell, one of the greatest violations of human rights in the 20th century was the US war in Vietnam. Atrocities left, right, and centre. I just think it's a bit much to be painting Vietnam as having an atrocious human rights record, all the while implying that the US is some sort of gold standard.

mljet 11y ago
You make valid criticisms about the human rights record of the US, but what is missing is a sense of proportion. Is it really your view that the US human right record is on par with Vietnam, particularly if you need to qualify it by excluding "freedom of political affiliation or freedom of speech" from your comparison?
- vacri 11y ago
  Eh, I didn't really exclude it - I noted it. I was trying to show that abuses of human rights aren't limited solely to political affiliation and assembly. And yes, arguments of proportion cut both ways - look at the incarceration rates in the US, a huge proportion of which is for a victimless crime (possessing drugs). Vietnam also doesn't go pounding its military around the world - there are hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, all due to a war started to shore up domestic support in the US, for example. Human rights extend to all humans, not just citizens of the state in question. Edit: I guess my fundamental point is that the implication was that the HRC would do better if the US was a member, based on members' track records. But the US's track record isn't particularly good either (particularly in regard to non-US citizens)
- bjelkeman-again 11y ago
  In the US it also takes other shapes. Incarceration rates at 1% of the population, including something which could be argued is corporate slavery, with a heavy bias for a particular portion of the population. If you aren't part of that demographic it may not seem so bad. But the numbers are absolutely awful.
- EliRivers 11y ago
  Can we include the illegal invasion of countries and the subsequent clusterfuck of death and destruction as a human rights violation?
- DominikR 11y ago
  Proportionate? The US has killed 4 million Vietnamese and poisoned large parts of the country with chemical weapons. I doubt that their "regime" has ever done something comparable. How many millions did any Vietnamese government in past or present kill in the middle east. How many terrorist organizations are currently run out of Hanoi in comparison to those run out of Washington? Does the Vietnamese president sign kill lists and run torture camps across the globe?

mcv 11y ago

I think the close relationship with Saudi Arabia is really more about oil than anything else. Saudi Arabia is probably the biggest financier of Muslim terrorism in the world, and yet is conspicuously missing from the US list of countries that fund terrorism (yet Cuba was on it until recently). Of course Saudi Arabia is also the world's largest producer of oil, and that's the primary reason why the US (and most of the oil consuming world, really) wants to be their friend. It is of course also why they have so much money to fund terrorism.

deleted 11y ago
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