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Comment by travisgriggs | Hacker News Reader

This highlights one of my growing ethical dillemas.

I am a US citizen, and sometimes I am really ashamed of my country. We have done some really bad stuff. We’ve done a whole lot of shady stuff that is complicated to pass simple judgement on. But the US has done good stuff as well. They loan money, send aid, rebuild, provide. Some times the motives are duplicitous in these acts of good. But the bottom line is, when I travel abroad I feel like I can confidently say “we’re like a two year old, sometimes we do sweet/good things, and other times we’re naughty.”

When it comes to USSR/Russia, I am not aware of the good acts. It’s not just that thy do bad things, it’s that I never hear of any of the good things they do in the world at large.

And so I’m honestly curious, is Russia as a foreign actor just that much more self interested? Or do we not hear about it in the West, because it doesn’t pay to report on it.

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> I am a US citizen, and sometimes I am really ashamed of my country

Is there any country in history with comparable economic and military power to the US that has a "cleaner" record in terms of "bad stuff"? I'm specifying comparable power to specifically exclude tiny nations that never had the capacity to do "bad stuff."

None of your potential candidates have ever nuked any other country, which in terms of war crimes rates pretty damn high.

I would still rate it a magnitude below https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

At the time Nuking a country wasn’t a war crime. Also fire bombing raids on other cities (eg Dresden) were actually worse than the nuclear bombing. Additionally it could be argued that the nuclear option actually killed fewer civilians than the alternative.

Strongly recommend Dan Carlins podcast on the rise and fall of imperial japan to learn more.

> When it comes to USSR/Russia, I am not aware of the good acts. It’s not just that thy do bad things, it’s that I never hear of any of the good things they do in the world at large.

The red army took Berlin and ended the Nazis. It was an Allied victory but it came about because Russia put their full might into stopping Hitler.

This is not insignificant if you don't like what the third reich was up to.

It came at a tremendous cost to mother Russia, 20M of her sons died in the process.

I encourage you to visit the war memorial in Treptower Park. It is built out of the red marble stripped from Hitler's Reichschancellery, and it is a hauntingly powerful place.

That was 80 years ago and since then the Soviet Communist regime killed more people than Hitler. Their "good deeds" are becoming thinner and thinner.

While undoubtedly true, one should keep in mind that Stalin first cynically entered into a non-aggression pact with the nazi regime, showing blatant disregard for Poland in the process.

Not to mention that a significant part of the Soviet Union's losses in WW2 came about from a similar disregard for the lives of its own soldiers.

This is not to discount the sacrifice made by those who fought and died, though.

(And Treptower Park is, as you say, hauntingly powerful. I've been there on three occasions when visiting Berlin.)

Remember the USSR was allies with the Nazis and only turned on them because they were betrayed.

Spending your citizens lives cheaply is not a noble thing.

The US had nukes and its manufacturing and soldier population was massive. Coupled with the Western allies Germany was going to lose once America entered the war (see Churchill’s memoirs). USSR did accelerate it though.

What Russia is doing now is terrible and completely fucked up, but having the US as the only superpower is also not good.

We need a place where Snowdens of the world could go.

Did you consider the possibility that you're like many (most?) of US people just brainwashed (hard to believe, I know, after all you live in the capital of the said free world)? It might be that simple. * For more info ask: Iraq, Vietnam, China, Korea, KSA people (not you ally royal family), Africa, Native Americans, Iran (1952, 1979), Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Japan, US Black people, Cupa, Chile, Brazil, Egypt, South Africa.........

I dont see anything especially bad about the US. The notion that other countries would have acted better is often betrayed by their own history. The US just historically had more capability. Additionally the pax americana has saved millions of lives. If your a male the odds you die in combat have decreased globally by more than an order of magnitude since the US became a super power. Global poverty has also rapidly decreased etc.

> When it comes to USSR/Russia, I am not aware of the good acts. It’s not just that thy do bad things, it’s that I never hear of any of the good things they do in the world at large.

There is an interview from Yale University with Vladimir Pozner that is very worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ

It is absolutely insane that western media does not report anything positive on Russia and I hope it is obvious that it can't be a the case that a state can be that comically evil. And if not foreign policy at least cultural stuff should at least receive some positive attention with Russia having a rich tradition in theater, ballet, music and so on.

The USSR did plenty to support its lesser developed republics. In fact that is is why many Russian nationalist saw it very critically, seeing as their land would give more that it received. Even today Russia has extremely good relations with the countries of central asia. As for foreign aid not only did it sent lots of aid to other socialist regimes but also many national liberation movements speeding up massively the de-colonization of Africa.

The Russian Federation is also doing plenty of good. They help keeping the massive dominance of the US and it allies at least a little bit in check supporting many countries that are shunned by them. Syria would have been overrun by terrorists by now if Russia had not helped them.

Of course you can twist every good news to make Russia look bad. Russian athletes are successful? Only the result of doping. Stability in Syria? Supporting a bloody dictator. Protecting Snowden? Ugh, just cheap propaganda. Developed Covid Vaccine? Totally rushed and fake numbers.

If you believe "the West" to be the good guys then everything that Russia does will appear bad.

This is a shockingly bad take. Nobody else is poisoning political rivals with radioactive umbrellas in London. Nobody else had a Gulag Archipelago. Not even Hitler killed half as many people in concentration camps.

Russian Fed is an organized crime family with a hundred million hostages controlled by mob bosses Putin is a dictator.

I would say not only abroad, but also at home only small fraction of Russian population can thank their government for what they are doing. It's a kleptocracy rich in natural resources.

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