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Comment by littletimmy | Hacker News Reader

There is really no international justice. The international arena is an anarchy, where countries operate to keep each other in check while expanding their own sphere of influence. NO COUNTRY has ever intervened to "bring justice" to another country.

Even during World War II, the Allied powers went to war against Hitler's expansionism, and not on account of the holocaust. If Hitler had just concentrated on killing people in his own country (like Stalin), no one would have clamored for bringing the Nazis to justice.

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> Even during World War II, the Allied powers went to war against Hitler's expansionism, and not on account of the holocaust. If Hitler had just concentrated on killing people in his own country (like Stalin), no one would have clamored for bringing the Nazis to justice.

Not sure if we can say that. There were reports of what's going on smuggled out of Nazi territory, but they were mostly ignored; public opinion learned about the genocide only when Allied soldiers stumbled upon the concentration camps in 1944. Hard to tell what would have happened if people listened to the reports that came even before the war.

When you won't accept a ship full of Jews, and given how many Stalin killed, I don't think anything short of the UK actually being invaded or Perl Harbor would have got the US into WWII. Lot of anti-semites in leadership positions pre-WWII. Hell, Wilson was a KKK member and re-segregated the federal government.

> Wilson was a KKK member

I don't think this is true. A brief search finds nothing that says he was, and several places that don't say he was where I'd expect them to. E.g. http://www.weatherimagery.com/blog/president-woodrow-wilson-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson#Civil_rights

President Wilson was a racist. The screening on March 21, 1915 of "The Birth of a Nation" that he so enjoyed (probably because he was friends of the author of the book it was based). You can search on all that information.

The Wikipedia page ignores all the other articles (do the search) about Wilson's beliefs, friends, and civil rights record. It is also ignored in HS history books just as President Lincoln's dealing with the Dakota is ignored. Let's also remember he was happy about the biggest KKK march on DC in US history. Never mind his dumb meeting after WWII in Paris.

I never said he wasn't a racist. I said he wasn't a member of the KKK. You haven't provided any evidence that he was.

"Not being a member of the KKK" doesn't mean someone wasn't a racist. If he was a racist, we can say that without saying he was a member of the KKK. You'll note that I linked an article titled "President Woodrow Wilson was a Racist", which successfully accomplished this.

The book I saw as the source "Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White" detailing 5 Presidents who were members. The only dispute I see about the book is its deemphasis of churches over Republicans.

I wasn't think the US, particularly amongst the general population, particularly cared if the UK was invaded. There was strong anti-British sentiment, further boosted by the UK effectively defaulting on its WW1 war debts to the US, much of which came out of "ordinary" Americans' pockets.

:) "perl harbor", very HN typo ...

I always do that - I program in perl a lot at work - thanks

I think there were enough folks that would have cared just from a self preservation view if the UK had gotten invaded.

Considering that anything else is pure speculation, we can safely say that the Allied powers went to war to stop Hitler's expansionism.

> NO COUNTRY has ever intervened to "bring justice" to another country.

Except the US when dealing with Manuel Noriega.

I think that you need to move that quotation mark one token right.

One could instance India's intervention in the then East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh; the always bad relations between India and Pakistan had plenty to do with it, but I don't think were the deciding factor. It has been a while since that was in the news, though, and I haven't read up on it since.

From my brief look at that conflict, how the fight in East Pakistan was spilling over into India, millions? of refugees fleeing and that sort of thing that compelled them to act. That they could poke West Pakistan in the eye was just gravy, that this was a humanitarian action was incidental, sort of like Vietnam's intervention in Cambodia which put paid to the Khmer Rouge's extraordinary demoniacal regime. They didn't invade to do that, or have their National Guard equivalent give the PRC a drubbing, they did it to stop the Khmer Rouge from going across the (disputed) border and slaughtering their own people.

Noriega was not a justice or humanitarian thing. It was a regional politics thing. See also Saddam.

If we were serious about justice and humanity, we'd have intervened in Rwanda and NK and other disasters long ago.

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