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Comment by csallen | Hacker News Reader

> If you still think of the world as divided into good and evil, then I have to break it to you that you have been played.

People don't know the half of it, and in my experience, they don't want to know. It's comforting to feel like the good guys. The media is complicit, in that it intentionally leaves out relevant facts that might make us look bad.

For example, take Iran. In 1953, we overthrew their democratically-elected government in favor of the opposition, because their citizens didn't want BP to have control of their oil. We bribed politicians, street thugs, and demonstrators; incited deadly riots; bombed houses; etc. BP actually contributed funds to help out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état

Or you've probably never heard of Iran Flight 655, where in 1988 a reckless US cruiser drifted into Iranian waters and shot down an Iranian commercial airplane in Iranian airspace. 290 fatalities, including women and children. 8th deadliest disaster in aviation history, nary a peep in the US media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655. But they are the reckless terrorists to watch out for.

And it gets worse, much much worse. Look into our activities in South America, especially Guatemala. Our terrorist activities in Cuba. Our "defense" of Vietnam. Our thinly-justified and roundly-condemned embargoes. (Quite common to see UN votes that are 190-1, everyone vs the US. Or the US and Israel.) We've killed hundreds of thousands, millions of people in many cases. Often explicitly for US business interests.

Honestly, I somewhat doubt a thread like this could make it to the top of HN at a time when most Americans aren't sleeping. Americans don't want to read this stuff.

View on HN

I was living in South East Asia when the USS Vincennes incident took place, and it was widely reported there. But I do remember when I returned to Australia, hardly anybody knew about what had happened. That was my first introduction to 'curated news' by various countries.

Of course, a few years later when the family of the Captain of the Vincennes was targeted in a failed car bomb attack, we heard a bit about this 'terrorist' activity. I thought it interesting that when Western forces eradicate an entire family of a suspected 'terrorist' via anonymous drone strikes, it is considered merely collateral damage, a byproduct of a dutiful and patriotic thing to do, but when Iranian operatives attempt to retaliate against someone who murdered 290 of its citizens in their own airspace, it is an underhanded terrorist activity.

> the USS Vincennes incident took place

Summary for those who like me didn't know about the incident. Our guy shot down a passenger flight, murdering 290 human beings, we gave him a medal but we then paid USD$213,000 in blood money per passenger to Iran without ever admitting fault.

" Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai. On 3 July 1988, the aircraft operating on this route was shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes under the command of William C. Rogers III. The incident took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight's usual flight path. The aircraft, an Airbus A300 B2-203, was destroyed by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles fired from Vincennes. All 290 people on board died

...

As part of the settlement, the United States did not admit legal liability or formally apologize to Iran but agreed to pay on an ex gratia basis US$61.8 million, amounting to $213,103.45 per passenger, in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims.

...

Commander David Carlson, commanding officer of USS Sides, the warship stationed nearest to Vincennes at the time of the incident, is reported to have said that the destruction of the aircraft "marked the horrifying climax to Captain Rogers's aggressiveness, first seen four weeks ago".

...

In 1990, Rogers was awarded the Legion of Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer ... from April 1987 to May 1989.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

Makes the downing of that Malaysian aircraft over Ukraine with a Russian surface to air missile seem almost normal? A medal to mr Rogers even...

Compare it to KAL 007 5 years prior. Wiki has the front pages of News Week "Murder in the skies" vs "Why it happened". Would be interesting to see what to Soviet newspapers were writing - Soviets didn't acknowledge they shot down the plane until 5 days later! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007#In...

In conclusion when an imperialistic superpower makes a mistake don't expect apologies.

Didn't know they gave that guy a medal. That's straight up sadistic.

He got a medal for completing his tour. He didn't get a medal for shooting down the plane. It's normal to get a medal whenever you move in the military. Not saying he deserved one, but the military wasn't going out if it's way to reward the shoot down if a civilian airliner.

The military also didn't go out of its way to punish recklessly shooting down a civilian aircraft.

The guy should have been court martialed, but at the very least not given a medal

> The military also didn't go out of its way to punish recklessly shooting down a civilian aircraft.

It wasn't reckless: it was the right call based on the data Vincennes had, which showed that an Iranian fighter was able to kill it.

Only because no one went out with binoculars to take a look.

The aircraft was 11 nautical miles away, which is over the horizon.

It's only over the horizon if the plane was flying below 200m or so (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon#Distance_to_the_horizo...)

I can't find conclusive evidence, but I think that's unlikely, given that the planned cruising height was 4300m (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655#Shootdown_...), and it was shot down about halfway through its flight.

I'm not sure whether using binoculars at 20km distance makes sense, though. There's quite a size difference, but even if it would be easy to spot the difference from that far away having half a minute or so to find the plane using your binoculars would be challenging (it's about a minute of flight for a passenger plane, but if it were military, you would want to hit it before it had a chance to fire a missile, and according to Wikipedia, the Maverick that they feared an Iranian F14 might carry has a range of over 12 nautical miles)

> it was the right call based on the data Vincennes had,

It was, at the most generous, the right call based on the misinterpretation of that data by the crew.

> Our guy shot down a passenger flight, murdering 290 human beings, we gave him a medal but we then paid USD$213,000 in blood money per passenger to Iran without ever admitting fault.

Vincennes believed it was shooting down an attacking Iranian fighter, not a passenger jet. It wasn't murder; it was an accident (due to faulty electronic data). We didn't give the skipper a medal for shooting down the plane; we gave him an end-of-tour award. And I don't know what the big deal with paying weregild is: that's what you do.

Has Russia paid anything to the families of the Malaysian airliner shoot-down?

No, but horrible things down by other people doesn't really have anything to do with stuff we do. We can't control other countries (well without forcing things) but we can and should control what we do.

Your comment would be far stronger without that Russia bit at the end. You raise excellent points, but the descent into whataboutism overshadows them.

> Has Russia paid anything to the families of the Malaysian airliner shoot-down?

If you want to compare situations, the Malaysian airliner flew over an active warzone, along the same path as Ukrainian military planes that were targeting the rebels.

Surely you can see the situations aren't quite the same.

You are correct on Vincennes. And it was reported. It was talked about. We (Americans) were horrified and apologetic- and angry with our military (at least on the college campus).

The aircraft was surely within visual range. If someone had gone out to look with a telescope perhaps the disaster could have been avoided.

> Vincennes believed it was shooting down an attacking Iranian fighter

This was due to gross incompetence/negligence. This was a Ticonderoga class frigate equipped with the (then state of the art) Aegis weapons system [1] - capable of knocking down an Exocet missile out of the sky with a hose of lead.

From the linked article:

"The Aegis system was involved in a disaster in which USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988 resulting in 290 civilian deaths.

It was determined by a formal military investigation[17] that the Aegis system was completely operational and did not have any maintenance problems. The investigation ruled that if the commanding officer had relied on the complete tactical data displayed by the Aegis system the engagement might never have occurred. Additionally, psychological effects of the crew subconsciously manipulating the data to accord with a predefined scenario greatly contributed to the false identification."

Aside from the fact that the captain of the Vincennes was in Iranian waters (without authorisation - and which the US Navy lied about on formal reports), plus the reports of his rising aggression from colleagues working with him, should push this into a military disciplinary matter, along with demotion or discharge.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Combat_System

>Or you've probably never heard of Iran Flight 655, where in 1988 a reckless US cruiser drifted into Iranian waters and shot down an Iranian commercial airplane in Iranian airspace. 290 fatalities, including women and children. 8th deadliest disaster in aviation history, nary a peep in the US media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655. But they are the reckless terrorists to watch out for.

'Nary a peep in the US media'? Front page in the New York Times and Washington Post?

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/04/world/downing-flight-655-u...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/flight80...

I'm not sure what a would constitute 'a peep' for you.

Compare it to the Soviets shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983. Chomsky writes, "For the month of September 1983 alone, the New York Times index—the very densely printed index of articles that have appeared in the Times—has seven full pages devoted to this story. That's the index, for one month alone. The liberal Boston Globe on the first day of coverage had its first ten full pages devoted to that story and nothing else."

That's what a peep looks like.

What do you think would happen if Iran were to shoot down an American commercial flight in US waters/airspace with hundreds of families on board?

The phrase "nary a peep" means "never one single small sound". The context of this discussion is about entirely unreported drone strikes, not the number of pages devoted to a front page incident.

Your points are fair, but there's no need to start an argument over misreading what the parent comment what trying to say.

This seems a bit disingenuous to me, without your parent's comment I for one would have had a misleading perception of the reality (assuming that comment is true, is it not?).

I was a teenager at the time and I remember watching it on the news on broadcast TV.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/04/world/downing-flight-655-u...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/flight80...

The "Page A01" on the WaPo article is the front page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuWOCLEuXu4

Which is not to say that such events are prominent in the memory of Americans, but it's just not true that they don't get put on the news. 2 of the biggest papers in the country (and I'm sure many others) and major TV news operations covered the event.

You are correct, they are reported, I was overly hyperbolic to say "nary a peep". They are just drastically underreported compared to attacks no the US and its allies.

Very hyperbolic. There was an entire investigation. It was scandalous.

> Honestly, I somewhat doubt a thread like this could make it to the top of HN at a time when most Americans aren't sleeping. Americans don't want to read this stuff.

I completely agree with you, and I'm an American. To claim that Americans are the only ones that need to wake up is a bit disingenuous though. Perhaps we need a wakeup call from the outside. The nations that have allied with the US, or benefit from friendly relations with the US are also complicit in what the US is doing. Where's the sanctions on the US? There aren't as many because sadly others benefit from the actions of the US by simply turning a blind eye.

I'm American too (and I posted this) and I fear that you two are correct. I live on the other side of the world though, hence the posting hours. I was totally surprised to see this at #1 for a bit, though I am just happy that it's getting discussed. No candidate for president will ever get my vote unless they talk seriously about scaling back the American military-industrial complex.

Do you think the HN crowd is the type to bury their heads in the sand? I don't get that impression. I'm on here all hours of the day and I see things like this hit the front page pretty regularly. They don't stay up long, I think, because they're a bit outside the targeted topics for this site.

You can't downvote things off the front page, but people can and do abuse the flag button for this.

There's also an algorithmic penalty for "too controversial" topics with too many comments, I believe.

people can and do abuse the flag button for this

The flag link and the upvote button are both legitimate means for HN members to express whether they feel a submission is appropriate for HN.

Burying one's head in the sand might be a bit rich, but I believe a lot of young liberal types here who've known little more than the Obama presidency and subsequent love-in with his departure have "a bit" of a skewed vision of the way things really are, now and in the past.

It is a bit dishonest to blame other nations for your failings. First because you make sure to harm them when they speak up (remember freedom fries ?), but also because you ignore their protests anyhow (e.g. your present message, when most of Europe is speaking up against your current pres).

Accidents do not make terrorists.

In the Iranian Air Flight incident, a gung-ho boat captain could not get a positive identification after being fired upon. There was no terroristic intent. Bad judgment, but not to the point where the captain intentionally fired upon a commercial aircraft. As for your comment about media notes, the Wikipedia article has a lot of notes.

The 1940's through 1960's actions of the military were in a period of United States of America's mercantilism that was fighting against a sea of red dominoes that were showing up daily. Does this make it right, one cannot say based on the information available at the time.

The fog of war is not easy and that is why the United States of America from the 80's on is so great, we have actively tried to be a better nation. I want to read about this stuff and see that after the cruiser incident happened, there was an investigation and a new approach put in place.

I think much of this 'freedom' has come from The USA's overly elevated global position coming out of WW2.

The USA prospered economically, scientifically and socially all while Western Europe was on its knees. The EU has been, in my eyes at least an attempt at rebalancing of Western Power.

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworl...

Embargoes and sanctions aren't often realized to be the tools of death that they are. People don't realize, but economic stress increases the mortality rate of a nation. Less money for hospitals, unexpected expenses, more stress overall (bad for health). I think it's something like 40,000 deaths per year for every percentage point of unemployment.

Economic warfare is murder all the same as gun and tank warfare. You cripple a nations ability to contribute to global society.

You're making the same mistake as the people you're chastizing. You're filtering this historical events through your own filter to create a good guy and bad guy. It's more complicated then that.

I encourage you to dive into the details of Mossadegh's overthrow. Did the US and British encourage the coup? Sure. Was there significant opposition to his rule among Iranians? Definitely. I argue he would have been disposed regardless of US or British involvement.

I was going to say the same thing as your first point. Parent poster 'csallen' is embracing the exact behavior he/she objects to. There's apparently a clear line of good and evil, and csallen can tell us exactly where that like is. We wouldn't know because we're brainwashed zombies who get our information from the nightly news.

Since the internet, hopefully the average person is getting more information, and appreciates the depth of issues and history not to be so black and white on these matters.

With all this protesting about Trump, I was very surprised to hear him admit that America is no better than the "killers" like Putin. Has a president ever admitted to such a thing? He just comes out and says it. I'm surprised that didn't get talked about more.. perhaps it was.

"You think our country is so innocent?... A lot of Killers around believe me".

https://youtu.be/74DAI2hr9Kk?t=2m35s

I have, actually. Mossadegh was extremely popular, and actually had to be reinstated due to public outcry after his temporary removal. Did he eventually do some crazy things? Yes. But would that have happened without major foreign powers spending tons of money funding agitators and rebellion? Doubtful.

Regardless, my initial point wasn't that the Iranian government under Mossadegh were the "good guys". It's that average American's aren't aware of the kinds of operations our country runs and why we carry them out.

I don't think we're going to solve this here. A few thoughts: first off it wasn't a coup since the Shah had the power to dismiss Prime Ministers. Second, Iran had gone through more than a dozen Prime Ministers in that time period. Mossadegh was one of many who were booted out of office.

Claiming that if it weren't for the CIA that Mossadegh would have stayed in office and led a gov't with the confidence is the people is stretching it.

> In 1953, we overthrew their democratically-elected government in favor of the opposition

No, we didn't: the rightful government (the Shah's) overthrew an attempted dictator. Mossadegh lived out the rest of his life in peace, and died in bed.

> Or you've probably never heard of Iran Flight 655, where in 1988 a reckless US cruiser drifted into Iranian waters and shot down an Iranian commercial airplane in Iranian airspace.

No, it wasn't reckless: the electronic data gave Vincennes good reason to believe that it was being attacked by an Iranian fighter.

> Our "defense" of Vietnam.

The 2 million South Vietnamese who fled their country after North Vietnam conquered sure seemed to have appreciated our defence: while we were there, they didn't take to the sea in boats, fleeing for their lives.

> No, we didn't: the rightful government (the Shah's) overthrew an attempted dictator. Mossadegh lived out the rest of his life in peace, and died in bed.

Only if you define "rightful" as the government that the UK and US decided was favorable to them, and not the one supported consistently by the Iranian people via elections. I don't see how you can argue this point — both the US and UK have outright admitted to their actions (fomenting and supporting the coup) and to their reasons for doing so (oil). And Mossadegh was sentenced to execution, but his life was personally spared by the Shah.

> No, it wasn't reckless: the electronic data gave Vincennes good reason to believe that it was being attacked by an Iranian fighter.

"Three years after the incident, Admiral William J. Crowe admitted on American television show Nightline that Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters when it launched the missiles." Is this not reckless?

"Commander David Carlson, commanding officer of USS Sides, the warship stationed nearest to Vincennes at the time of the incident, is reported to have said that the destruction of the aircraft 'marked the horrifying climax to Captain Rogers's aggressiveness, first seen four weeks ago'." Reckless according to his own colleague.

"Throughout its final flight, IR655 was in radio contact with various air traffic control services using standard civil aviation frequencies, and had spoken in English to Bandar Abbas Approach Control seconds before Vincennes launched its missiles. According to the U.S. Navy investigation Vincennes at that time had no equipment suitable for monitoring civil aviation frequencies, other than the International Air Distress frequency."

Obviously the Vincennes didn't commit a brazen attack for no reason at all. They had some reason to believe they might be attacked. But sailing into another country's waters and airspace with no ability to differentiate between fighter and commercial jet is reckless, and furthermore it was done by a captain with a history of reckless behavior.

> The 2 million South Vietnamese who fled their country after North Vietnam conquered sure seemed to have appreciated our defense: while we were there, they didn't take to the sea in boats, fleeing for their lives.

They were forced to fight a war they didn't support for decades, under a brutal and unpopular autocratic leader, Diem. He forced his pro-Christian and anti-Communist sentiments on his people and oppressed those who disagreed until he was eventually assassinated. Meanwhile the US devastated the country and drove the North into a fight-or-flight state of desperation. Of course the people of the South didn't want to stick around to face their vengeance.

One should be capable of criticizing U.S. atrocities while maintaining perfect moral clarity regarding, for example, anyone whose religion compels them to murder cartoonists.

The world isn't black and white, indeed.

And then there is the shitshow of the Lockerbie bombing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103_conspiracy_t...

And I bet Iranian commercial pilots always remembered to monitor civilian frequencies from that day forward. Lesson learned.

Prevention is better than the cure. Same with Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014. Very bad, Russia probably to blame, 298 fatalities. If only some common sense were applied prior to planning a flight route over a known conflict zone, the lives would have been spared.

Civil aviation is not exempt from negligence in these matters. In the case of the Malaysian Airlines flight, 16 military aircraft had been shot down in eastern Ukraine in the weeks prior to the commercial flight. In the report, Ukraine was also criticized for not closing its airspace to commercial traffic. Another hard lesson learned.

> Our "defense" of Vietnam.

And most people only think of Vietnam itself regarding that conflict, yet Cambodia and Laos were absolutely decimated too. The US dropped more tons of bombs on Laos and Cambodia individually than the combined amount dropped by the allied forces in WWII. There are still 80 million unexploded bombs in the Laos countryside. Landmines sold by the US and China to the Lon Nol government and the Khmer Rouge respectively were up until recently killing 1000+ Cambodians a year. If you've seen these places and met the people there, it's hard to imagine.

What's even sadder is with a few billion much of that uxo could be cleaned up but they struggle for basic funding to clear some each year.

In my mind that displays there is little remorse for past actions.

Here' an example of landmine clearance in Cambodia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWfNZoXr6rQ

(From CmdrFred's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12187512#12190918)

Holy hell. Filming that takes guts. Doing the disarming is the next level of courage.

I just wonder how much deaths did it cost them to get the knowledge and proficiency in clearing those mines.

I suspect by hand land-mine disarming has a very strong survivor bias...

I.e. you don't make it to week 2 of your job if you are clumsy

There are some situations when the mine could be in either of 2 locations, though.

WOW.... that's some brass courage right there.

And to think there are so many of them buried around. It's just heart-breaking.

That's awful. I thought I knew of a lot of the "unreported war crimes" we've done, but I did not know of this.

I knew it had happened but didn't know the scale. Apparently Laos was 'the biggest bombing in history', but they kept it secret at the time. 580,344 bombing missions. Guess that's what you get for being a non violent Buddhist country. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37286520

I had never seen that before, and I read news for a few hours every day.

Yep, I have a friend who worked for a couple of years as a teacher in Laos. He said that there are still many children killed or maimed by unexploded ordinance there each year. Two full generations away from the actual war, and they still pay for it with their blood.

Hence the songs Holiday in Cambodia by the Dead Kennedys and Cambodia by Kim Wilde.

I don't think you understand the lyrics to 'Holiday in Cambodia'

'The song is an attack on a stereotypical, moralizing, privileged American college student. '

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_in_Cambodia

Maybe it was a bit of a stretch.

See also: "Washington Bullets", "Charlie don't Surf" by "The Clash".

Any suggestions on where might be the best place to read more about this online?

> Honestly, I somewhat doubt a thread like this could make it to the top of HN at a time when most Americans aren't sleeping. Americans don't want to read this stuff.

Americans are finally waking up and realizing we need to do something to protect justice, or we'll be next.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out...

We're well past the time to speak out. The time to speak out is now. It's not against Trump. It's not against Clinton. Nor Obama. It's against all of them. It's against a broken system.

I am not sure what your point is in bringing Iran, maybe its to blame the US for the current situation there.

Keep in mind that 1953 was over 60 years ago. To keep on blaming US for acts committed that long ago and apply to today...well, it's ridiculous.

I strongly disagree: it's not ridiculous at all when it comes to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Also, Iran was one example, the list of U.S. aggressions against sovereign nations without U.N. mandate goes on up to very recent times (Syria).

The system of getting UN mandates has become useless because Russia is both on the security council and an offender of the rules it was supposed to defend.

By all rights, there should be a UN mandate to fight IS in Syria. There should have been a UN mandate to fight the Assad regime, for that matter. Not intervening did not lead to less destabilization, just to more war crimes by the original regime.

Make that Russia and the US. Still, it's better that they divide at least some spoils at the table in the UN. The alternative could be on the battlefield :-/

The US isn't getting any "spoils" from the wars it fought. At best they are keeping trade lines open. In no sense did they profit from their actions.

Russia, maybe. The invasion of Crimea may have been profitable, if it weren't for the sanctions. Which is one of the best arguments in favor of these sanctions.

I did not mean literally spoils in the form of land. I meant in the form of influence, economy or whatever is at stake. And that if you have two opponents, it's at least better that they communicate over a conference table than over the battlefield, proxy wars for instance. The UN voting process and security council may seem unpalatable, but it's better to have it than not having it. At least it is more transparent and on record what the various powers that be want. (I agree with what you said above. These sanctions are good. Crimea is the only conquered territory.)

The point of the UN has always been - since its establishment - to keep the nuclear powers from going all-out on each other (and the rest of the world).

You may not like the UN, you may not think it fulfills the mandate that the General Audience gives it (it doesn't). But it keeps the Security Council from nuking each other.

And in this case - that's the design criteria. No nuclear wars, not ever. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is in no way a moral judgement on either Russia or the US's activities in the Syrian-Iraq-Saudi-Iran quadrangle. Or any of the other players involved.

My point isn't that the US is to blame for all the bad that happens in the world. There are plenty of places that are worse than we are. However, we act as if that absolves us of all wrongdoing, which is plainly absurd. I would like to counter that notion.

In addition, we simply don't acknowledge what we've done. Our media won't report on it. I would like to see an end to this mass propaganda and willful ignorance.

Finally, keep in mind that we only know what comes out during congressional hearings, via FOIA requests, and via heavily-redacted releases of classified documents. In other words, we only know the tip of the iceberg. This is not an accident. The US government makes heavy use of classification, often more to keep the public in the dark than to protect sensitive info from foreign enemies. Given these tactics, you can't fault citizens for relying on what information they have access to. And of course, there's no reason to assume that everything has magically changed and we are now angels.

> In addition, we simply don't acknowledge what we've done.

This is spot on, and the biggest difference between America and other countries which commit atrocities. America is allowed to forget. And it's not a trivial or minor difference at all.

Americans barely even really reckon with slavery. Compare to Germans with Nazism. Where's the slavery Auschwitz? There are minor museums here and there but it's completely incomparable.

> Americans barely even really reckon with slavery. Compare to Germans with Nazism. Where's the slavery Auschwitz? There are minor museums here and there but it's completely incomparable.

This is a completely subjective statement. The US has slavery museums in its Washington DC, and it's a topic that is never far from public conscientiousness.

Compare that to Brazil, who's slave trade dwarfed that of North American, no formal recognition or ongoing efforts.

Or Russia slowly and methodologically erasing the crimes of the Soviet union (and Stalin particularly) from public view.

Or China reintroducing Mao as a folk hero, a mass murderer on par with Stalin.

These are real omissions and cover ups. The US could be better, absolutely. But compared to others, it at least tries to reconcile their past with modern society.

The US has "slavery museums". You don't even name them. It's utterly incomparable to Auschwitz.

Then you go on to compare the USA to China, Russia, and Brazil. High standards.

Lastly, there's a lot to be said for 1984-style repression like in those three, and Brave New World-style repression like in America.

Even comedians have nice bits about how a lot of Americans can't even really place slavery well in a timeline, it's something that happened aeons ago and descendants should "stop complaining". The majority of americans treat the idea of slavery reparations like a joke.

America doesn't really try. It makes a good show of trying, though.

> Then you go on to compare the USA to China, Russia, and Brazil. High standards.

I am comparing one country to another, one that does better than the rest. You know, how any comparison is made in any discipline. You can't just hold up an imaginary standard that no country fulfills to make your point that X country could be better.

Some people live in the real world.

> You can't just hold up an imaginary standard that no country fulfills

I can't tell if you're joking. My post was literally about Germany, Nazism, and Auschwitz.

> Some people live in the real world.

The classic riposte of someone who prefers rationalizing to themselves why they are at an optimum than trying to do better. Nice try, Dr. Pangloss.

Normal history classes in the USA are nearly 100% about atrocities, from the large and obvious down to the trivial and questionable. Hardly anything positive is ever said about the USA. One might even get the impression, as you seem to have, that the USA is an especially evil country.

The reality is that every nation, every ethnicity, and every culture has been build upon a hill of skulls. As these things go, the USA has been less vicious than most.

What's a "normal" history class? Is that sufficient to impart the attitude on the population at large?

The USA is, on the whole, an extremely, extremely unrepentant country. Your average american will admit to a good number of crimes, but immediately contextualize so as to not really feel guilt about it. "Why should I pay for the crimes of my ancestors" type stuff, a disconnect from te past.

This is why talk of e.g: reparations is incredibly, incredibly controversial.

Being unrepentant is different from forgetting. You said "America is allowed to forget", but that just isn't true. We are constantly reminded. It gets shoved down our throats all the time by self-loathing types, and most of us reject the guilt trip. Mostly, the rest of the world is far more awful, and we are thus justified in our national pride.

The whole thing is like an original-sin (inherited, as from Adam and Eve) version of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-criticism#Communism

Groups that fail to build a large enough hill of skulls end up being part of a hill of skulls. There is no shame in being on the winning team, but there is plenty of shame if you undermine the success of your team and thus snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

How is it ridiculous when our actions then and since have consistently destabilized the region? Our actions then are still felt today.

Exactly. 60 years is 2-3 generations growing up with that recent history in mind.

What? If 1953 looks ridiculous to you, the cruise missile on a passenger flight was in 1988!

My point is that current situation where Iran is ruled by the religious authorities and the oppression that exist thereof -- cannot be blamed on the US. That is all Iranians' doing.

60 years was a long time ago?!

Everyone old enough to vote for the politicians in power at the time must be at least 78 years old now. How many people older than 78 are running our country right now?

Yes it was a long time ago when nearly every adult alive at the time is dead now.

You just elected president that's 70. I bet at least a few 78s are running the country right now.

Cause and effect. 60 years is not a long time.

The current climate in Iran (being ruled by religion) cannot be blamed on the US at all.

But the "system" that encouraged those acts is still in place and unrepentant. By "system" I mean both the institutions and the set of beliefs that are held by the public and politicians that justify this kind of action.

It shouldn't be forgotten until there's some kind of admittance of wrongdoing and resolve to prevent it. Such as by supporting strong impartial international rule of law. Which would actually help the US when dealing with Russian destabilisation efforts - at the moment they can just argue "you say it's legitimate when you do it".

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