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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Oh, bother.
Carter was overly demonized by the Republicans so some on the left overly sentimentalized him in turn. Objectively he was the weakest of the Democrat Presidents since FDR...and overall I'd rank him as third worst after Reagan and Bush II, just ahead of JFK and Truman. Reagan, Bush II, Carter, Bush I, JFK...would count as the five weakest Presidents in USA since WWII in my view.
@Julian
Way to miss the point on pretty much everything.
Then don't make an argument primarily made by the fringe left. The notion that acknowledging someone's victimhood somehow equates to denying them agency is a ludicrous one. It's an argument that is genuinely more concerned with being PC than actually helping anyone, playing to every right-wing stereotype about leftists and academics in the process.
And for the love of God, don't denounce people you disagree with as "McCarthyist". You don't see anyone denouncing you as a Stalinist or anything equally inane.
No one in this thread, least of all me, would disagree with that second part. Problem is, you were trying to use Saddam as part of your effort to defend authoritarian states, which means you are, in point of fact, justifying and vindicating his reign.
The comment that you were responding to when this started was my comment about how modern democracies are superior to modern dictatorships. Saying a stable dictatorship was better than an invasion and civil war in no way addresses that point. Saddam's regime was a nightmare.
And your point is what? Of course some dictators are worse than others. That in no way invalidates the basic point that all dictatorships are bad. Some are better, some are worse, but all are bad. Really, this is a very simple concept. It's not that you can't argue against it, but thus far you're not.
First off, lay off the bold. Nobody wants to deal with a guy who is shouting.
Second, the only person telling people throughout the rest of the world to go fuck themselves, is you—the guy defending dictatorship and claiming that acknowledging the suffering of others is somehow rude.
Third, and I can't believe I have to say this, yeah—vast swathes of the world do live in miserable conditions, under repressive, illiberal regimes. That's a reality. That's a statement of fact. To pretend otherwise is the very sort of intellectual dishonesty you claim to despise. All over the planet, dictatorships are hurting people. It sucks.
PS—Before you claim that this is the kind of thinking that justified the invasion of Iraq, don't even go there. Being aware people are getting hurt does not necessarily mean you invade their country to help them (in fact that's downright counterproductive most of the time).
So? The fact that the US government doesn't acknowledge that those states are bad is one of the many gripes that I have with them. Seriously, you want to act as though the fact that America regularly allies with states it should not somehow excuses the crimes of the states it does not ally with. That's a crock.
That the United States is friendly with, or worse yet, actively backs states like the Saudi government doesn't suddenly transform Saddam's Iraq or Putin's Russia into bastions of human rights. It just means that American foreign policy is not as rooted in morality as it should be—something I think everybody is aware of.
It's totally something that's practised in reality. Dictatorships are bad, and they leave the bodycount behind them to prove it. You somehow keep mixing up "American foreign policy" with "accurate moral judgement" here.
I'll spell it out again—that the USA, or any other democratic power, allies with a dictatorship does not make that dictatorship inherently good, or invalidate my original point, namely that dictatorships are, in general, worse than democracies.
As for historical archival study...keep making those statements. Lots of historians in the world. You don't speak for all of us.
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But that kind of logic is precisely what was used to justify the war in Iraq, and earlier to justify countless interventions, oftentimes toppling democratically elected governments, in the name of fighting some nebulous Soviet threat that had long since been effectively contained in the areas of the world where the United States was operating.
The point Julian is trying to make, I think, is that there's not really a very strong case for "Humanitarian Intervention" being anything more than a modern incarnation of the white man's burden, namely a rationalization for imperialism, presumably believed by just as many of the people in power as its predecessor. For the handful of positive outcomes, you have dozens of democracies toppled, delusional state building projects, and thinly veiled neocolonial wars.
edited 29th Nov '16 8:47:04 PM by CaptainCapsase
Truman dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't think anyone who does that ought to get very far up the ladder. Now I am familiar with the arguments citing the reasons for that, I have read it carefully and I don't accept it...and I don't want to start a debate on that here since that can get ugly. My opinion against that is emotional mostly and born of my convictions and I know that quite a few smart people, like Eric Hobsbawm weirdly enough, have accepted that it was necessary.
Truman domestically let Mccarthyism and HUAC run roughshod at that time, oversaw Taft-Hartley and the Smith Act trials. These were major setbacks and he did not do enough to speak out against it or take a stand especially since I gather he was not 100% on board for but it happened on his watch and as his campaign insisted, "the Buck stops here". Foreign policy wise, he started the Cold War. I gather he also started desegregation in the Army but you know you don't get a prize for doing the right thing after everything else has been tried especially since the Democrat party are the main reason why we had Jim Crow to begin with.
JFK was worse than Truman...Truman's participation in the dropping of the bombs can be excused on inexperience being a VP suddenly put into power on short notice and told about this secret project...JFK on the other hand triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis despite knowing what it meant. He oversaw the disastrous bay of pigs, and the cuban embargo and he got America into Vietnam. I more or less see JFK as the Original Reagan-Trump...incompetent rich-kid playboy who used his TV charm and good looks to sell dangerous voodoo...and who got a permanent halo effect thanks to that assassination, which yes, Oswald did and acted alone.
edited 29th Nov '16 8:48:06 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."No they weren't.
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The original plan was pretty brilliant from a military point of view. Completely bypass fighting their 4-million strong army by destroying their transportation infrastructure. Japan's railways were completely undefended and the only way to deliver food to much of the country.
edited 29th Nov '16 8:54:20 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."Weren't there supposedly some particularly stubborn generals in Japan who wanted to keep fighting to the bitter end? To the point of even contempating a coup when the rest of the government was ready to surrender?
The Far-left have always been pretty badshit crazy.
edited 29th Nov '16 8:53:46 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised@Monsieur: Yes, because clearly Japan was a ravenous horde of foreign barbarians, and not an approximately rational state actor like pretty much any other global power. The hope for a brokered peace became untenable when the Soviet Union entered the war, and Japan's vision of a glorious last stand was a pipe dream that could have never been realized. Their defense would've swiftly collapsed and they knew it, and if they were really insane enough to try it, I suppose you could argue it was for the best since the alternative was a partition between a Soviet Puppet state and an American puppet state as was the case in Korea.
edited 29th Nov '16 8:56:23 PM by CaptainCapsase
edited 29th Nov '16 8:58:55 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
