Americans sure do get upset about dead civilians...when they're white

*inhales*

Okay. First thing’s first. Neo-conservatism is dumb. Liberals have always been against it. Personally, one of my foundational political experiences was marching in a massive protest in D.C. against the Iraq War.

That said, before we start in with trying to morally equate the U.S. to Russia:

1. Afghanistan — The Taliban really did host Al-Qaeda and refused to give them up after 9/11. (And really does continue to treat women in a barbaric, medieval fashion)
2. Iraq — Saddam Hussein really did invade Kuwait, rejected U.N. weapons inspectors, and otherwise stomped on minorities in Iraq for decades.
3. Libya — Gaddafi really did threaten to exterminate his own citizens like “cockroaches.”

In every case, the U.S. first secured U.N. approval and assembled a coalition of international allies, and we found local partners on the ground who had been genuinely wronged by the dictators we were toppling.

Note: I’m *not* saying America is innocent, at all, or that these wars were always well-prosecuted — but there was *some* moral basis to each of these wars, a good deal of diplomatic legwork that went into them, and consequentially there is more to current U.S. attitudes on the Ukraine War than just “hypocrisy.”

Consider:

Ukraine is a functioning democracy that posed no genuine threat, either to Russia or to its own people. Putin’s war against Ukraine is founded on historically absurd and self-serving claims. Putin’s using the war as a pretext to dismantle what few human rights still exist in Russia, and all the while he’s holding the rest of the world hostage to his criminality with explicit threats to escalate to nuclear weapons.

Neo-conservatism was one thing — Putinism is a whole different beast

Upvoted for calling neo-conservatism dumb, although I personally would have used much harsher language

Three down, twenty to go.

His meme references some conflicts that date all the way back to the 1950s — I chose three of the most recent and significant to highlight. Whole books could be written about these conflicts, but it’s apparent I’ve already given him more information than he can handle.

Overall, I’m not here to excuse America. But I don’t think it’s the case (as his meme presumes) that Americans have never thought about or questioned U.S. use of force abroad — matter of fact, massive political protests and resistance led by American liberals are what helped end the Vietnam War.

I'm here because it's problematic to call out a hypocrite for past crimes at the moment the hypocrite is doing the right thing in the present.

You make a very good point. The next time as a country the U.S. starts bombing we should raise Hell if it's not 100% necessary. Also the next time we turn a blind eye to an invasion or genocide.

I agree.

Let me know if you get around to copy-and-pasting anything that's relevant to my post, thanks.

Copy-pasta? I wouldn’t know where to find such a thing, even if I needed it. I banged that out in 5 minutes while taking a shit. Lol.

I expect a reply such as yours from a politics troll, not someone who participates in our forum.

Your reflexive anti-Americanism is fine, I guess — there’s certainly a tradition of that on the Left, and this aims to be a left-leaning forum — I approved your meme, but your out-of-hand dismissal of a serious discussion about points that you raised yourself is a more serious concern which has been noted.

When you’re ready to grow up, I’ll be here.

You're going to have to clean that up, you know. I'm not calling the repair person again.

Vladislav Surkov was known to openly fund all sides in elections so that voters would have no idea who to vote for.

Awesome dodge, shaking off Dr.Slouchy's informed post with a shrug and nothing but your grossly misinformed and way off meme to back your leaded gas fueled ignorance.

Eight of those but-what-about countries listed are 'White' for starters. So are the majority of the Latin countries' populations as well.

In case you ain't heard, we just spent only a mere TWENTY years in Afghanistan rebuilding that country and protecting them from themselves, same with Iraq - both not only 'White,' btw, but former parts of the very homeland of 'White' identity itself.
The center of that would be Iran (AKA Aran - Land of the Aryan) and they kind of don't want us meddling there anymore as we've done a weeeee bit too much already in the last 100+ yrs, which is why they don't like us a lot. They also keep meddling with their neighbors themselves and just attacked us yet again, should we give them that ticket to paradise they keep asking for while they kick us in the shin looking for attention? Trump almost did. Thrice. Came close to nuking them a year ago even.

Once upon a time we went to war with Iraq to get them out of Kuwait, that being 1991 and obviously before your time.

We also had a degree of something stablizing Libya after their revolution, but Trump pulled that backing out.

Cambodia & Laos also fall under the Vietnam War, and if you are that unaware what the protests were to that and the Hippie movement it sired (which is why war footage is no longer broadcasted on tv like it was then), then you need to hitch a ride back from the farside of Pluto pronto.

We did some messing around with Grenada, Panama, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, Reagan's support for the Contras in that last one as an alleged rescue being in the news then (he even started the Crack Epidemic to finance it!), and Cuba had Russia to take care of it plus the Bay of Pigs thingy sunk kinda badly. Cowboy Ronny had us in Lebanon too till they blew the barracks up and he then cut out.

Somalia, Black Hawk down anyone? We gave them what they wanted, and that was us out. Like with Sudan, sometimes you have to let people sort out the internal problems they started themselves by themselves, you can always ask Afghanistan why.

Bosnia? Add Kosovo, and Croatia to a lesser degree. ⚠️SPOILER ALERT⚠️ We rescued them from Serbia back in the 90s after UN Pisskeepers dutifully watched and took tallies of the atrocities to let us know it was happening.

How's that for tears no else but us ever sheds?

Ah yes, America "Saved Iraq and Afghanistan from themselves" by murdering over half a million civilians.

You spend too much time online if you've actually convinced yourself of that. Get out in the real world some time.

Try paying attention:

"In case you ain't heard, we just spent only a mere TWENTY years in Afghanistan rebuilding that country and protecting them from themselves, same with Iraq"

We stuck around for two decades to prevent them from doing so.

I take it you're blissfully unaware that Afghans have been in a state of civil war since 1979 or that the Kurds and Shiite (majority) and Marsh Arabs in Iraq weren't exactly voting it Top 10 places to live - unless breathing mustard gas is your sort of condiment?

Off to bed, I'll be back in a few to remind you of conflicts in countries we REALLY didn't care about (Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Ossetia) located in - yup, you guessed it, the Caucasus Mountains themselves as well as Eastern, etc, Europe, where Romas are still on everyone's shit list as well as the Irish in occupied Northern Ireland.

So you think that bombing and murdering half a million civilians is somehow saving a country? Once you sober up I'd love to see you attempt to expand on that thought.

You’re missing a foundational point in Modda’s reply. Hundreds of thousands died in Iraq, yes, but *not because they were bombed by the U.S.* The vast majority was Sunnis and Shias killing each other in a sectarian civil war.

Brush back up on the facts:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

Note even that article isn’t far-reaching enough, because it starts in 2003 and omits the context of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal actions throughout the 90s, and the Persian Gulf War which kicked him out of his attempt to invade Kuwait, or the bloody Iran-Iraq war that preceded that.

Saddam Hussein *still* could have avoided being invaded by complying with any number of U.N. resolutions — but he decided to thumb his nose at them. He made a miscalculation that the resolutions were worthless and the U.S. and allies weren’t prepared to enforce them, but he was wrong.

Allied troops really were “greeted as liberators,” until the Sunni-Shia partisans f**ked everything up.

Not saying the Iraq War was a wise decision— clearly, it wasn’t. I’m saying your understanding of it misses a whole lot.

Tl;dr — Saddam Hussein really was a bad guy. And as a result, Iraq was broken long before U.S. and allied troops arrived in 2003. America and its allies failed to fix Iraq, but that doesn’t mean American troops were the primary cause of the country’s political dysfunction.

Sticking to actual facts nulls the need for silly bias-framed opinions and thus bypasses the inane lame arguments that come with them to further drive home the utter ridiculousness of fanfic sired by desperate agendas,,,

Besides, Iraq claims TWO million killed, the lower figure you present is a 'minimizing' (if you will) figure presented by the invaders.

You're so eager to make this a screaming contest that you didn't even bother looking at the countries and the accompanying conflicts I presented.

Take Georgia (look up that one on the map for funziez). The EU & NATO carrot was dangled for it and Russia used South Ossetia as beleaguered territory complete with Russian citizens in need of an assist as a pretext to invade it because it would have been leaning against Russia's door. Sound familiar? No? That's because none of us gave a crap for REAL real. Sure, it was news when it broke out in 2008, but number of refugees teaming our shores or the EUs? Number of bleeding hearts crying in their defense and rolling out the evacuation wagon or having food and blanket drives for the cold mountain winters?

That's what I call a cherry - a carefully placed point that would be in support of YOUR point if you weren't so giddy about being an ornery contrarian. Totally zoomed past your head as expected because instead of paying attention, you were too busy trying to reconfigure what I DIDN'T say in order to justify your hair pulling fest and the point you so delightfully failed at making.
The cream 'neath that Maraschino is that despite being Caucasia Central, the Europe-is-White crowd claim they aren't Caucasian despite the fact that they invented the darn thing ages before Europa was birthed. That's an actual argument people on this very site have hurled at me in the past and more than once. Anyways, that attitude actually would fit into your argument as well - 'White' folks dismissed and in effect declared not worthy of sympathy because location declares their proximity to the Middle East somehow means they ain't. Of course it isn't that simple (remember my reference to Ireland), butcha coulda utilized it like that if you were paying attention.

See, you ain't really trying to convince or rally anyone, you just want to stomp and make a big tin can banging ruckus, even at someone who can write your faux argument better for you than you can in the hallowed halls of your fetid ignorance.

Thanks for playing!

USA has happily bombed majority white countries too.

I see this meme has received a mountain of feedback.
I'm upvoting not because it's thorough in the analysis but because it highlights a point about certain things.
I think we should remember that humor and satire are always built upon a kernel of truth then exaggerated. This fits the mold.

A healthy discussion about the nuance is fine. However, as a meme this makes the point without putting a fine edge on it.

So... we shouldn't try to stop Russia? We gotta come up with a moral code that doesn't allow present atrocities because past atrocities.

Wait, what did the US do in Indonesia?

Intentionally bombed civilian targets in 1958. As you can see, I'm dealing with quite a bit of stupid here (Not that I'm saying your question was stupid) so if you need more than that you'll have to look into it on your own.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Indonesia

:D

Bro you forgot Serbia and Chile

I would say that Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and some others were justified, but the American response to all of them was far too large to justify the lives lost and ruined both in the US and in the countries being bombed

The meme had absolutely nothing to do with justification and everything to do with the fact that Americans don't care about dead civilians when they're the ones killing them.

And I agree with that

Be careful. Anxiety over Ukraine is making the moderate liberals testy.

All roads lead to Rome.