No it isn’t actually. It is supported by a wealth of factual historic data. The “West” has killed far more people since the end of WW2 than Russia or even the former USSR.
Let’s take one reasonable metric, the number of states bombed by the US since the end of WW2:
China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Belgian Congo 1964
Guatemala 1964
Dominican Republic 1965-66
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Lebanon 1982-84
Grenada 1983-84
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1981-92
Nicaragua 1981-90
Iran 1987-88
Libya 1989
Panama 1989-90
Iraq 1991
Kuwait 1991
Somalia 1992-94
Bosnia 1995
Iran 1998
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia – Serbia 1999
Afghanistan 2001
Libya 2011
Iraq and Syria 2014 –
Somalia 2011 –
Iran 2020 –
If you regard the collective deaths, mutilations, misery and poverty resulting from this as an example of superior morality then of course we’re never going to see eye-to-eye on this Ukraine/NATO issue.
What the US has done in the past is not under discussion. It is the “crimes against humanity” what Russia is doing today in Ukraine that are being discussed.
There is no relative equation applicable in this issue.
So you’re asking to restrict the scope of discussing war, war crimes, geopolitics, justifications and so on, to only the current conflict in Ukraine? and to only the activities of Russia? no other participants or parties?
I really don’t see how we can discuss any situation like this by restricting the scope in that way, to understand any conflict we must include all sorts of actors and history.
You cannot do that, you cannot discuss “Russian crimes against humanity” without defining what a crime against humanity is and by what authority we call something a crime against humanity.
If Russia says X is not a crime against humanity and NATO says it is, then we must include NATO in the scope surely? If some body/organization/country accuses Russia of such crimes then that body must be included in the scope, and the legitimacy of that body must be established and so on.
I agree to not have those restrictions, but that also includes keeping perspective, like Biden isn’t accountable for Nixon. Your restriction of looking at pacts and saying they are the same regardless of the actors should also be lifted.
Then define it. Don’t just say that every country in the world has committed crimes against humanity at one time or another as if that justifies any of them.
Comes a time when humanity is going to have to grow up and become civilized.
Today’s weapons make it possible to end all human life on earth. Putin has already threatened to use nuclear weapons.
Do you want to live under the threat of extinction for the rest of your life?
Stating a fact is not the same thing as approving of it.
And the US already did use nuclear weapons and even offered some to France to use in Vietnam.
No, which is why I think NATO should be dissolved, Europe develop its own defense, and the US should stop poking its nose into other countries business and focus on our domestic needs, spending billions of tax payer dollars to arm other states is not the best use of our national wealth and resources.
I know you don’t. That’s been the flavor of this conversation, hasn’t it? You keep claiming things are simple, that something that happened 60 years ago is relevant to today’s politics, that there is support for your argument everywhere, and it doesn’t seem to matter what anyone else here says
Admittedly, I kind of skimmed this thread from about a week or so ago, but landed on this post.
Isn’t that kind of one of the definitions of Conservative? Hanging on to the past, when things appeared so simple, and a decision was simply black or white.
In both this and your previous reply you forgot to quote me, only you know what you’re talking about. If you are too lazy to follow very basic etiquette by including a quote of what I said, then why should I bother even trying to respond to you.
You have a very curious logic. Why do you think NATO was formed to begin with?
Let me enlighten you.
NATO - the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - is a 30-nation defensive alliance founded shortly after the end of World War Two. It has its headquarters in Brussels but is dominated by the massive military and nuclear missile power of the US.
The US offers the nuclear umbrella but there is no plan for any kind of offensive military domination unless any of its members is attacked by a wannabe expansionist megalomaniac.
NATO does not seek to occupy anything. It is no threat to any nation unless that nations seeks to expand its territories by force as Russia is doing at this very moment.
Do you really think Putin would stop his expansionist behavior if NATO was dissolved?
Where did you learn this military strategy? Disarm the enemy by disarming yourself?
Yes, history has taught us that small unarmed nations are safe from occupation?
Are you insane?
And as far as the US use of nuclear force, that was in response to Japan’s insufferable attack on Pearl Harbor.
It ended the war didn’t it? The single rule of war is that it must cost the aggressor more than the defender.
As long as the aggressor gains from its aggression there will be aggression.
That is the logic of warfare.
You shouldn’t. I wish you would stop posting altogether. Really? I need find the times you’ve used the word “simple”? I already gave you 15 quotes showing your hyperbole. You moved on to something else.
He did the same thing over there, first defining war crimes so broadly that every government is guilty, but then only calling out Western people for hypocrisy, and when it comes to Putin, adding on the warnings that he gave to NATO. So, it’s a war crime, unless you warn the world you are going to commit it? I don’t know.
Even when I agreed, something you could know about me by reading my history, that Western nations are big bullies and have the biggest guns, he doesn’t even respond. I don’t see any desire for dialog, just wants to be told that he’s right.
In fact the war was lost by Japan, but Japan was unable to acknowledge that.
The use of the first atomic bombs saved many lives, Japanese civil ones mainly.
The battle was the bloodiest in the Pacific, with approximately 160,000 military casualties combined: at least 50,000 Allied and 84,166–117,000 Japanese, including drafted Okinawans wearing Japanese uniforms. According to local authorities, at least 149,425 Okinawan people were killed, died by suicide or went missing, roughly half of the estimated pre-war population of about 300,000.
Oh yeah, a couple weeks ago I was caretaking for a 97 year old guy a couple days. He was a Range Finder on some battleship steaming to Japan. They still invaded, but it was a peaceful invasion. He still blesses that damned thing. Me, considering the mess we’ve made over the subsequence generations, built up on that atom bomb, I’m not so sure. But, history is history and we sleep in the bed we make for ourselves.
Then we have fools like Hugo, who seem to feel these conflicts should last for ever or some indefinable madness like that?
I would like to hear a solution. If we put our government and all past Presidents in jail for war crimes, who would replace them? Some peace loving diplomat? It would still be the same corrupt system. And who is running this world body that dictates who gets to be a leader? If we could prosecute the people with the bombs, then there wouldn’t be bombs. That would be great, but how do you make it happen?