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Comment by FourScore | Hacker News Reader

The US gives more aid around the world than any other country on Earth. The US has been an advocate and global protector of human rights and civil freedoms around the world for over half a century. The US has toppled brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein and kept the global peace. The US has given more to the world through its scientific and industrial innovation in the last 50 years than any other nation over the same span of time.

China has basically just kept to itself and has a terrible record on human rights and civil freedoms.

Most of the complaints about the US focus on comparatively small mistakes the US has made which people obsess over in support of their bitter agendas.

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>The US has toppled brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein and kept the global peace

Those two statements directly conflict: Saddam kept things under control a lot better than the violent mess that exists in Iraq now.

Tell that to the Kurds and other persecuted minorities who were tortured and killed en masse by Saddam.

Were more Kurds killed and tortured annually under Saddam, or after the US occupation?

It was not the US that perpetrated the violence after it toppled Saddam. It was the radical elements within Iraq. They're the ones that bear responsibility.

..so what exactly are we supposed to be telling the Kurds? That the US isn't responsible for the indirect effects of occupations that were started on lies to begin with?

We wouldn't need to tell them, they know. The radical elements in Iraq who actually perpetrated the violence in pursuit of extremism are responsible for the violence.

There is a reason why Kurdistan is one of the most peaceful and developed regions in the Middle East: they act the way you must act to be a prosperous modern people. The violent radicals who squandered the post-Saddam opportunity to build a modern Iraq are to blame for the killing and the chaos.

"The US has toppled brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein and kept the global peace."

John Bolton, is that you?

The relative loss of life due to war and occurrence of war around the world since 1945 is far lower than at any other point in human history. This is directly due to the US acting as the global superpower.

The Pax Americana is a widely recognized phenomenon.

This "Whatabout WW2 deaths" has little to do with killing 180,000 Iraqi civilians over false information. This type of war mongering justification is what GP is talking about with regards to people outside the U.S. not sharing the opinion that it's benign.

They neither give the most aid in total nor in % of gross national income.

https://assets.weforum.org/editor/large_hdWeyZ2KVp7f-1Coc9ss...

>> Most of the complaints about the US focus on comparatively small mistakes

Taking down democracy in Iran. Supporting dictators in Latin America and Africa and assisting them in hunting down democracy activists. Financing terrorism in Angola for two decades. Fabricating an incident in order to attack North Vietnam, killing 3 millions people. Supporting "Asian Hitler" Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Tacitly supporting Pakistan's genocidal attack against Bangladesh. Selling weapons to the terrorist regime of Iran, and then using the money to support terrorists in central America. Fabricating a threat in order to invade Iraq (hundreds of thousands of dead, millions displaced). Supporting terrorist groups in Syria. Waging undeclared wars in (at least) seven countries at the moment.

"Small mistakes."

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