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Comment by regretsresin

> When you look at all of its peer nations which have committed far more war crimes and crimes against humanity and conclude America is evil.

Any nation that commits war crimes is evil. What is this nonsense like, some amount of war crimes is fine actually as long as we're not in the top 10 war crimes last?

Also, even still, I think the US would make that top ten list. Let's take some examples from your list.

North Korea -- a brutal dictatorship that has killed countless people in North Korea, and inflicted significant suffering on South Korea. Disgusting and reprehensible regime. Truly evil.

The United States -- imperialist nation that has caused incalculable damage to Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Congo, Chile, East Timor, Angola, El Salvador, Grenada, and Nicaragua.

Wait I'm not done.

Libya, Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan.

And you'd think that's it but let's keep going.

They've also hurt Ukraine, Palestine, Hawai'i, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.

Then, you know, there's The United States, where the indigenous people were killed. 95% of their population eradicated in the run up to the Declaration of Independence, and 50% of the remaining population in the 1800s.

Woof.

Need me to continue with more? These are all places where the US military ...

Oh shit, wait. I haven't even started on nuclear warfare and testing. Or testing on minority troops.

Ok. I think I got it out of my system. American Samoa. Sorry had one more. Whew.

Now you see why I don't play the moral relativism game, and simply say any war crimes is an unacceptable number of war crimes. Because if you hold up American military history against any single nation, the sheer quantities just don't stack up. Tens of millions of innocents dead, either through direct or indirect action. And it's continuing. North Korea is evil AND the US military has uncountable war crimes. Both are bad. Trying to compare two countries like this forces you to juxtapose a small but intense evil against a staggeringly large sustained but maybe less acute evil.

So no, you are probably right, I probably am over simplifying. I'm sure Pinochet's victims would love to hear how it was actually ok because the US soldiers who installed him were professional and had good structure.

Read more history. Understand the US place in the world. I'm sure there are many upstanding, kind, loving, wonderful soldiers in the US military. The institution, however... the institution has hundreds of years of imperialist violence.

parent regretsresin 22 hours ago

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