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Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

"We" tried talking, "we" didn't do the warmongering, where is that coming from?

Granted, the US did a lot of warmongering in the middle east; I get that they wanted to retaliate after 9/11, but instead of rooting out the ones responsible directly they made up a motive (WOMD in Iraq) and did a full scale invasion there; I'm not saying Iraq was a pleasant, peaceful country or that Hussein was a nice guy, but the US invaded it under false pretenses and dragged other countries into it, eventually leading to the rise of IS and a lot of other things that I only have a superficial knowledge of.

But Europe hasn't done any of that, as far as I'm aware they've held a "live and let live" line since the fall of the USSR.

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Even when you're admitting that "US did a lot of warmongering in the middle east" you want to give them some excuses, "I get that they wanted to retaliate after 9/11" you say? "retaliate" you say. Against whom exactly? How the (oppressed) Iraqi people or even Saddam Hussein has to do anything with the 9/11? Do I really need to remind you that Saddam was US ally? or that Qaeda was the US ally in the "freedom" war against USSR? "But Europe hasn't done any of that" You say, but this is completely wrong, all or most of US wars were covered by European countries, even Ukraine sent 5000 Soldier to kill the Iraqi people. I get it this was in that weird mysterious place called "middle east" so who cares exactly.

He was a US ally in the 80s. Later he wasn't.

I never said he was US ally during 2003! The point is, Saddam was the same during 80s and 90s the difference is that during 80's he was doing well against the enemies of the US (aka the CAPITAL of the free world).

Honestly, the middle east could have gotten better, there was a possibility that the dictatorships would get replaced by proper democracy, I think the US didn't realize how far down corruption and authoritarianism were rooted in those countries, it is like a Hydra, cut one head, many more grew.

For example, Panama, Chile, Germany, Japan, South Korea all turned out better after US intervention. But Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya got worse.

It is tough to choose the lesser of two evil, when you are in a democratically free country, you do wonder if the opportunity shows up, should you go help others overturn their dictator, and if so, will they then be able to establish a free democracy or will that just replace one dictator with a worse one? But what also happens is the fear, that if more and more countries lose freedom and democracy, and become dictatorships, then countries in free democracies get scared that they will be next, which tend to push them to act and try and overthrow other dictatorships when the opportunity shows up.

Look, long time ago I became aware that most people who use "democracy" or "freedom" like it's a new kind of religion are permanently brainwashed, you can't even know what's trolling anymore. Anyway, I won't go deep into why certain countries are doing well economically (hint, try to think of the current world order as an empire, some people are punished some are rewarded and most of it is controlled by the empire capital, Japan & S.Korea are useful to surround China so they get to play certain role, when Japan do better than expected/allowed it get punished for that with sanctions, etc). The point is even if we accepted "democracy" and "freedom" as the new religion, US is the most anti-new-religion country here, US supported the worst dictatorships and still doing that (Saddam, KSA, UAE, South Africa, Sadat & Mubarak Egypt, Jordan, Israel....) and it attempted uncountable number of successful or failed coups around the world since at least 1940's (Syria). All or most US actions can be clearly explained by some geopolitical / Economical reasons. we really can't know if the "middle east" can do better or not until USA leave it alone and stop stealing/controlling it's oil or orchestrating a war there every few years. It might happened that you were born in some rich country that got benefited from the current world order, enjoy that before it ends (it's changing a bit right now actually) but don't assume that you have the higher moral ground to tell how other people should live, because you don't.

> South Korea

Just so you know, there used to be a single Korea. One of them is doing OK now, although it took like 35 years after the US invaded before SK transformed itself into a democratic country, which Koreans did IN SPITE of American support for their dictator. The other one is possibly the worst regime currently active on Earth.

South Korea is really not an American FP win.

And look what a coincidence, shithole Korea is the one the Communists "defended", not the one on America's side.

Korea kind of is a huge long-term win for the non-Communists; the more complicated foreign policy case would be Vietnam.

European countries were pretty heavily involved in the NATO bombing of Serbia. You can debate the justification, but it's certainly not "live and let live".

Absolutely right. Bombs and all, NATO baaad. On the flip side, I'll leave this here, to bring back a bit of perspective. Especially on the "let live" part: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

One atrocity justifies another type of logic?

Genocidal atrocities justify defense, type of logic. HTH!

(FWIW, Srebrenica is not in Kosovo and has nothing to do with the Kosovo conflict: it's just a straw man to vilify an entire nation in the context of this discussion: "Serbian soldiers committed atrocities in Srebrenica, so they must be guilty of whatever happened in Kosovo too")

Care to elaborate what's your definition of defense in this instance? Do you consider that Russia is "defending" East Ukraine population by attacking Kyiv? (like NATO was "defending" Kosovo people by bombing Northern and Central Serbia and even Montenegro)

"Defense" applies to Kosovo population (of course, official Serbian line is to dispute that too), but I don't see how NATO comes into the picture?

> the US did a lot of warmongering in the middle east

The US does a lot of warmongering everywhere. It mongers at China, it mongers at Russia. It's in fact a big bully, all the more dangerous because of the knowledge that they are slowly becoming obsolete. The EU in a lot of ways acts as a sock puppet for the US, so this is definitely the result of a shared responsibility. Collectively, we should have been better. We were not. Now Ukraine is suffering.

You need a reality check I'm afraid. EU has actively supported the wars.. mostly under false pretense for oil and expansion of "capitalism as an end goal"-ideology.

Sorry but please dive a bit into non-western news reports to get a real world view

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