Canada Can't Pretend America Is Still the Good Guy

thewalrus.ca

21 points·Teever··6 comments

It seems like a false premise to see the Iran war as a fundamental divergence from America's foreign policy patterns.

The divergence is the casual way this administration commits war crimes in public

The United States (not exceptionally so) has often casually committed war crimes in public. I mean, this was a huge argument during the Vietnam war protests and the Iraq war protests when the Bush administration elevated the use of torture. I'm not saying don't be mad, in fact I'm saying be madder! But thousands of innocent victims of past American wars, are wondering when America was the good guy.

The framing is pure propaganda, I think to make people less mad and soften the blow of criticizing America.

Right, American law also considers multiple types of murder based on intention.

It's amazing how coments like GP vaguely hand wave the start difference as if their POV is from the outside when that opinions looks mostlike like a far right nationalist POV also. "This is just what america does, why you guys getting made this time?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

We seem to have this argument every decade "America is not the good guy anymore" after war crimes in Vietnam, after war crimes in Iraq. 5 years from now we'll launder this moment and America will be the good guy again when people need something from America. Maybe we should look at the world through sober analysis and not "good guys" and "bad guys", so we have a shot at stopping the next set of war crimes before they happen.

As a Canadian, I think our government should do more to disentangle our defence and intelligence services from the USA's. But we also have to remember that much of the USA's current behaviour is being directed by a certain Russian gentleman.

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