Comment by anonym29
1 day ago
Was dropping two atomic bombs on civilian populations good? Was the US's role in the Korean war good? Was the US's intervention in the Chinese civil war good? Was the US's massacre of Puerto Rican freedom fighters, nationalists, and independence-seeking rebels during the Jayuya uprising good? Was the US's invasion of Vietnam good? Was the US's covert military operations in Laos using the paramilitary arm of the CIA good? Was the US's overthrow of the legitimately elected leader of Iran to install a US puppet good? Was the US's actions to destabilize a laundry list of Latin American countries to seize control of raw materials and commodity production and place it under American corporations good? Was the US's invasion of the Dominican Republic to quell mass democratic uprisings against a military coup that seized control from a democratically elected leader good? Were the US secret bombing campaigns against Laos and Cambodia good? Was the US invasion of Grenada good? Were the US's attacks against Iranian-owned offshore oil drilling platforms good? Was the US occupation of Panama good? Was the US invasion of Iraq good? Was the US bombing of Serbia good? Was the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan good? How about the drone strikes against civilian weddings - good? How about illegal humans-rights-violating extrajudicial rendition, detention, and torture programs, good?
Is this all "peace"? Is intentional mass murder of civilians "good" when we do it? Is Trump the first president to abuse US military capabilities in the last 80 years, or are you being selective and partisan in your recollection of one of the world's most prolific purveyors of incomprehensible violence against civilians, interference in the democratic processes of other nations, and violators of human rights in the last century?
We're getting far off track from the important point here though, which is that the US should not invade Venezuela, just as Russia should not have invaded Ukraine (the latter being a point of comparison for the former, not the subject of the conversation).
The answer to your question "are these last 80 years really peaceful?" is yes, in context. Look at the horror of the world wars, or the preceding ~1000 years of barbarity and wide-scale religious wars. The US does not always use its power wisely, but the alternative is to cede that power to someone else: nature abhors a power vacuum.
Modern anti-vaccine nuts have spent so long living without measles that they've forgotten the good that vaccines do and take their good health for granted. Anti-US-power nuts have lived in a world largely without large-scale conflicts, held in place by our NATO allies and the credible threat of force, and you've forgotten what a world without that stabilizing effect looks like. Spoiler: it looks like the 30 year war but with nukes.
I'm not "Anti-US-power", I'm anti-genocide, anti-terrorism, anti-war-crime, anti-torture, anti-invading-sovereign-nations, and pro-democracy. It's not my fault that the US has systemically made deliberate attacks against civilians, war crimes, rampant human rights abuses, invasions of sovereign nations, and overthrowing of democratically elected leaders the basis for US foreign policy and military doctrine for the last century or so.
When you ask me to look at the horror of the world wars, does that include the horror of the only country to ever use atomic weapons in conflict deliberately dropping them on cities they knew were full of civilians? If that's what the American version of "peace" looks like, I'm not interested in the American version of "peace". The Soviet Union never deliberately nuked New York. China never deliberately nuked Taipei. North Korea never deliberately nuked Seoul. Iran never deliberately nuked Jerusalem.
You propose a hypothetical future where you guess that a world without US "stability" involves nuclear weapons, while ignoring the fact that the world with US "stability" already involved them. History speaks louder than hypothesis.
There has never been a time in history devoid of crime, torture, genocide, and authoritarianism. But the last 80 years have seen those things at a low ebb in favor of democracy and peace.
Please tell me what the last 80 years would have looked like with an isolationist US, weak or no NATO, and an unimpeded ascent of dictatorial regimes. Answer: even more of all those things you purport to hate.
The US is the worst superpower, except for all the other ones. The choice is not between good and evil, it's between evil and less evil. (Just like presidential elections.) Don't be naive and empower the greater evil just because you're displeased with the lesser.
I'm not saying you should stop pressuring the US to act morally, but asking it to leave a power vacuum is dangerous.
Edit: typo
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