But my friend from Iran said he likes America and we have it pretty good here. I saw it as a valid difference of perspectives. Later I learned of a massacre in Iran where the government of Iran killed thousands of political prisoners in secret. [1] It helped me appreciate that for all our problems, at least we don’t do that.
That said, we’re currently providing direct support for a war in Yemen where an estimated 85k children have died of in the last three years [2], and countless civilians have been killed by our bombs. We even bombed a school bus full of children [3].
The death toll for our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over 200k [4].
So it’s hard for me. Does the US respect human rights? Clearly China is not respecting human rights, but what kind of example are we setting? How can we condemn others for their atrocities when we ourselves commit so many? Could we ever change our ways and set a true good example?
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_executions_of_Iranian_p... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/21/yemen-young-ch... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/19/us-supplied-bo... [4] https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians