I don't think what we've done in the middle east is remotely good but it's substantially different.
But sure, if I have to pick which country to live in, on this metric I'd probably pick the US (we're smoothing over some extremely significant internal problems in the US here, but not directly comparable to Xinjiang, so OK, let's side-step them for the moment).
But that's a pretty selfish view. Good conditions at home don't justify imposing awful conditions abroad. To think so is literally imperial logic. I realize using phrases like "imperial" induces eye-rolling in some, but it's appropriate for the concept we're discussing here. The US's cold calculating cruelty is perhaps less obvious, but it undoubtedly impacts far more lives and deaths. So while I won't weigh in on whether the US is an empire (don't care), if you buy into the logic that "we're only evil abroad, at home we try to be nice", then that is imperial logic.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/15/politics/immigration-customs-...
> https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/15/politics/immigration-customs-...
The hysterectomies weren't US or ICE policy, they were the result of poor oversight of one contract doctor who was committing malpractice.
https://theintercept.com/2021/05/20/ice-irwin-hysterectomies...
> ICE stopped sending immigrant women to Amin after the allegations of nonconsensual and unnecessary procedures came to light. The FBI is currently investigating Amin for a series of unnecessary, rough, or abusive procedures, according to a report in Prism by Tina Vásquez earlier this month.
Amin is the doctor.
Well the hysterectomy thing was the one doctor (and the facility failing at its duty to properly oversee him). However, it wouldn't surprise me if there were other issues there as well.
We agree.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/21/congress-ice...:
> At least 43 women at Irwin county detention center (ICDC), in Georgia, have now alleged misconduct by Amin. He is accused of operating on migrant women without their consent or performing procedures that were medically unnecessary and potentially endangered their ability to have children.
https://www.ajc.com/news/congressmen-georgia-doctor-should-n...:
> Ogburn, who has worked as a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist for nearly three decades and who has led organizations that develop patient care standards, said Amin did a variety of tests and surgeries for patients that “did them little or no good, and potentially caused harm.”
> “In summary the care provided by Dr. Amin did not meet acceptable standards based on the review of these records,” Ogburn wrote as part of his complaint. “My concern is that he was not competent and simply did the same evaluation and treatment on most patients because that is what he knew how to do, and/or he did tests and treatments that generated a significant amount of reimbursement without benefitting most patients.”
1. Less than 43 women is not "mass sterilization." It's well within the scope of damage could be expected from one incompetent doctor.
2. It's quite believable to me that the jail officials never questioned the medical activities of the doctor (let alone understood what he was doing was malpractice) and just ignored complaints they received from the detainees. For comparison, this outrageously incompetent guy (https://www.propublica.org/article/dr-death-christopher-dunt...) managed to avoid oversight for two years while he was maiming and killing people.
> Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy—just about everybody.
Nurse Wooten, who filed the whistleblower complaint.