Syria: Using chemical weapons, sponsoring terrorism
Iran: Assisting Syria; Actively developing nukes they say they will use, nuclear proliferation, biggest sponsor of terrorism, ....
On the other hand, some people can't use an internet service. Oh! The inhumanity!
Get a sense of proportion.
Was there a single UN report that was able to prove with certainty it was from the government and not the opposition? The Syrian government and Russia were winning the war at the time and it didn't make any sense to cross Obama's "red line". As for sponsoring terrorism, I guess you're talking about Saudi Arabia and the US who funneled money and weapons that ended up in ISIS hands, right? Even if we put 100% of the blame on Syria government, many of US allies have done the same (sponsoring terrorism such as Saudi Arabia or Pakistan etc). The US also tuned a blind eye when SA slaughtered Yemenis, they even kept selling them weapons. Let's be real here, the US doesn't care about all these bad stuff, they only care that Syria is allied with Russia instead of them. Besides, the US used chemical weapons in Vietnam (napalm) and Afghanistan (white phosphorus) so let's not pretend they care.
> Iran: Assisting Syria; Actively developing nukes they say they will use, nuclear proliferation, biggest sponsor of terrorism, ....
Iran is Syria's ally so it makes sense that they are defending them. Why shouldn't Iran have nukes when others in the region already have them?
> Crimea: Illegal occupation by Russia. Ethnic cleansing.
Pretty sure the US has another ally that does some of those things and they seem to be best buddies.
Anyway, my point is not to say that any of these countries are not evil, it's just that the US and its allies does the same horrible things and don't seem to have a problem with it. The only reason the US is punishing these countries is because it won't bend to US hegemony. Not because of the reasons you listed. Let's be real here.
There wasn't, and this fake news has been widely debunked.
That doesn't stop the blood-thirsty types from continuing to claim it happened in their call for war, more war, more endless war ..
Crimea is under illegal occupation by Russia, shouldn't that mean that the whole of Russia is sanctioned and not Crimea, which still belongs to the Ukraine?
Citation needed please because by any metric at all, the US is the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism. Where do you think the Taliban and Isis got their weapons? What about Contra? Learn your history.
Many here and elsewhere on the internet are either not from the US, or - if they are US citizens - do not personally identify with the power-elite that they feel controls the nation, or with the majority of citizens that comprise the national populace. The US being the most powerful and influential nation on Earth can be intimidating to these outsiders, which in them fuels an innate anti-US bias.
This bias means that negative things the US does are maximized while the positive things are minimized in a weighted judgement of the US's moral worthiness.
Substitute any other country as the most powerful in the world and they would suffer this bias as well. If Belgium were to become a superpower, its good actions would be outweighed by its bad actions in the minds of international observers. Whether dealing with individuals or countries, being skeptical of those more powerful than us is an innate human reflex.
That said, because this reflexive anti-US ideology is biased against the US, it can be frustrating for patriotic citizens and the USA's many global supporters.
I believe that the price of being the most powerful nation is that you just need to be extra careful in your actions, similar to how the biggest people need to take extra care to not intimidate others.
Outsiders should also take this analysis to heart when making judgements about the US. Recognizing how biases and reflexive thinking colour our perception is very important in order to avoid developing a skewed vision of reality.
Short-lived minor PR victories are insignificant compared to the long term loss of human life. Was it worth murdering 500,000 human beings for that gain?
The US has repeatedly underestimated how hard it is for functioning democracies to flourish, and that is a critical error on its part that it must learn from going forward.
The Americans I know are very nice people, despite being from a country with an arsenal of over 6,000 nuclear warheads
Get a sense of proportion.
This is not true. They might start doing that now. But it was the US that broke the nuclear agreement with Iran.
You are misinformed, there is no ethnic cleansing in Crimea.
Yet Crimea, Syria and Iran are the bad guys (btw Iran was funded by the US - yes same regime that now the US cries against).
Remember, international "law" doesn't exist. There is no legal/illegal. It's all governered by treaties and gentlemen's agreements between nation's.
Another example: international law bans torture, enforceable under ”universal jurisdiction”. That might be one reason why Bush and Cheney haven’t been to Europe since their days in office.
Not an expert neither but to my understanding, there is no real "democracy" in the international law scenario, and the US has the capacity to veto any UN resolution. If you notice, the sanctions that states like Syria, Cuba or Venezuela have faces are just a decission of the US.
No wonder so many people talks about "US imperialism"...
TLDR; It's dubious that resolution 1441 provided legal cover for the invasion of Iraq.
See this[1] for a discussion
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr...
US has the upper hand in many political matters, and they force their allies to agree with them, even if they don't want to, (of course they benefit from it too). Why do they have the upper hand? Because of their technological advantages and resources. Since you are an ignorant, you'd probably say, of course, US is advanced and they do good and bad with it. Of course, but then read a bit more and you arrive at one of the very dark corners of history, slavery. Then, apply your logic, "how has the US illegally took so many people as slave in all over the world? Illegal under which jurisdiction? For that being consider as slavery, there would be only potential jurisdictions, no? International and/or their own. If it were International, the US would face sanctions. If it were illegal under US law, how could it persist?" (Quoting you while adjusting your logic to slavery)
Ok, now draw an example from today's world. Just look at the current Iran's deal and how US is ignoring the rest of the world. As far as I know, this is the first time that EU ever slightly has decided to -- publicly -- face US and stick to the deal. This is an exception only because Trump is _Trump_ and doesn't seem to respect anything, including EU, and EU had enough of him (and worked hard for the deal). However, if Trump was not as blunt about the whole situation and would have approached it differently, both EU and US probably dismantle the deal and escalate everything easily. Why? Because EU would have been convinced/forced, by a rather more rational US president, to get out of the deal. Again, look back at history, and you'll see that's what happened at Afghanistan and Iraq wars too.
Long story...
all four of these statements are demonstrably more true of the USA than they are of Iran
>No they are not. The U.S. doesn't sell nuclear weapons, nor saber-rattle about using them, nor sponsor the use of IEDs or send people into cafes with bombs.
No, actually they are financing the people behind those actions, as long as it destabilizes regions, whose unstability can then be used by the US to their advantage.
One could argue about only loading the weapon but not pulling the trigger, but that is hairsplitting in the end.