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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

There is no 'right' and 'wrong' side of history. There are complicated shades of grey coloured by propaganda. And if there was a right side of history, the US has a very credible claim to it. They've pushed science and the arts forward, promoted freedom as a cultural aspiration rather than rule by a monarch and generally acted as a credible supporting force for the greatest improvement of living standards the world has ever seen in Asia.

There was a lot of cruelty, bloodshed and lies. But there has not yet been anyone in history who avoided that while being large. The US could certainly have been much worse.

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> promoted freedom as a cultural aspiration rather than rule by a monarch

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

Iran '53 and Guatemala '54 are some of my favourites, as is Timor.

Both Iran and Guatemala were operations undertaken by the CIA with absolutely no knowledge by the American public.

You do understand this right? At no point were the American public consulted by the intelligence agencies when they did these operations.

It's rather childish to retcon history by implying that declassified operations that were deeply unethical were endorsed by the American public at the time. These operations were ultra-classified in the American public had no idea about them for decades. Do you think that's fair to make the assertion that the American public do not promote freedom as a cultural aspiration based on this?

Meanwhile millions of people have lost their freedom in the last year when the CCP officially retook Hong Kong and violated the treaty with the British. They are literally being deprived of their democratic rights. Less than 10% of the Chinese public have any form of voice in their government (via CCP membership). Hong Kong is vastly less free than it was a year ago. But sure attack the US for crimes committed 70 years ago, while ignoring what's happening as we speak.

> At no point were the American public consulted by the intelligence agencies when they did these operations.

That's exactly the problem! Once the federal government started conducting secret projects during the world wars, it stopped being accountable to the public. And it used that latitude to commit war crimes, assassinate foreign leaders, and experiment on American citizens. All in the name of lower commodity prices and fat profit margins for well connected companies.

The CIA should have been disbanded after what came out in federal hearings in the 70s. We have known since the 90s that the joint chiefs of staff endorsed killing Americans in a terrorist attack to justify invading Cuba.

Americans as a whole are good people, or at least no worse than anyone else. But our government is a bloodthirsty imperial machine whose claims of any sort of moral high ground are laughable.

But nobody said they were endorsed by the American public. The discussion is if the American actions were for a force of good, just because Americans were lied to by propaganda doesn't wipe away the actions. What do you think the people in the USSR thought (and knew about?)?

Moreover, many of the US operations were not really secret, people either ignored them, or favoured them. Also you say crimes 70 years ago? The US implemented the largest mass surveillance system in the world very recently, strong-arming many allies and infiltrating the internet infrastructure of other allies as well as likely violating their own constitution in the process. Also note that the US has by far the largest proportion of their population incarcerated (although the unknown numbers on China's internment camps adding some uncertainty).

Now nobody is saying China is better. The issue is that very often people (typical Americans) portrait the US as the main force of "good" in the world, but as soon as somebody points to all the atrocious things the US (the state not the people) have done, they get accused of anti-americanism, or people bring up "but China"

>"You do understand this right? At no point were the American public consulted by the intelligence agencies when they did these operations."

German public was not informed of the gas chambers, and Soviet public didnt endorse the gulag. So thet don't count then?

The German public were responsible for what they knew of and had control of, just like the Soviet public. These were authoritarian regimes.

Nobody is responsible for what they don't know about and are unable to learn about. In what world should they be?

Well, there are cases where you are legally responsible, like sex with minors and money laundering, because otherwise noone would ever face punishment

Whether this applies here depends on what you mean by 'responsible' in thos context, is it morally responsible?

I'm a big fan of the enlightenment principle that human beings are responsible for the things which they can control. As opposed to the belief that we are all extensions of our collective tribe, and are therefore collectively responsible for our tribe's crimes, as well as those of our ancestors.

I am not morally responsible for actions I don't commit, or actions that others commit that I had no way of stopping.

This belief appears to go against a current cultural zeitgeist of regressing to tribalism and collective/ancestral guilt. The labelling is different, but the implications are the same.

So are you responsible for things you could have known, but deliberately chose not to look into (or not believe)?

The fact that we had no knowledge was intentional and does not diminish the impact of the operations.

Let's compare Hong Kong and Guatemala, right now, and pick one to live in.

And Iraq invasion of 2001, that replaced a stable (albeit dictatorial) regime by a civil war, and enabled ISIS to become a state.

Even ignoring the warlords, it's in constant revolt due to corruption now.

You say:

> There is no 'right' and 'wrong' side of history.

But then you conclude:

> There was a lot of cruelty, bloodshed and lies. [...] The US could certainly have been much worse.

So you do accept there's a gradient of right and wrong.

> The US could certainly have been much worse.

But also a lot better!

> But there has not yet been anyone in history who avoided that while being large.

What we've seen is next level. This is due to the increase in mobility and world trade, sure. But it has been abused heavily, and seemingly to every extend possible. I dont know how it could have been worse without being a straight up dictatorship. (having only two parties come very close to being a dictatorship if you ask me; only one party better than the China the US like to bash so much lately).

> They've pushed science and the arts forward, promoted freedom as a cultural aspiration rather than rule by a monarch and generally acted as a credible supporting force for the greatest improvement of living standards the world has ever seen in Asia.

Tell that to the Vietnamese and North Koreans. Indonesia and Philippines also have a bit of a US hangover.

Science is fucked nowadays. Very "proprietary", as by the US-push patent law.

I think there is right and wrong. Read some Jesus and you know that ideas of what it good behavior and what is bad is not at all new. I'm not religious, but just to show that it is not merely the last decades that we know we should be nice to people and now do any horrible act for a bit of profit.

There is a gradient of right and wrong. Most (realistically all) successful countries are on the wrong side of it.

I mean, look at the path the Europeans took to get to the modern era. Short periods of it, like the last 2000 years, have involved questionable acts.

I believe the point is that we have to acknowledge this rather than sugar-coat US history.

US history is extensively documented. Nobody is claiming that there aren't long lists of terrible things done (and still doing, I might add). The factual nature of those claims isn't really open to challenge. It is often pointed out in real time as the decisions are made.

If 'acknowledge' literally means acknowledge then I doubt you'll struggle getting what you want. If 'acknowledge' means 'and then we have to follow my political recipe for what to do next' then it might be a struggle.

Bro you live in the Netherlands.

I have numerous Dutch friends who are not as young and foolish, and your perspective is not the mainstream one in that country.

Your nation was under occupation by the Nazis until the United States came in with the UK and made it otherwise.

Obviously that doesn't mean the United States isn't imperfect and of course it has tremendous flaws and has yet to live up to its true ideals in its founding documents. That being said there aren't American soldiers walking around outside your door right now.

Ask yourself if anyone in the EU will stand up for your nation?

Angela Merkel sat on her hands and did absolutely nothing when a Dutch jet liner was blown up by Russian weaponry in Eastern Ukraine. Hundreds of your fellow citizens died and nobody in Europe did a single thing. Sure, sanctions were procured and many other nasty letters but not a single Russian military asset was arrested or brought to justice. Hundreds of your countrymen are dead and nobody was ever held accountable for it. It was a war crime and there is no trial.

I look forward to the United States continuing to recede from its superpower status so that the world can finally realize what they were taking for granted. About half of the United States population spent the last 5 years talking about how terrible their government was. That makes the US unique compared to the other superpowers in the world which are authoritarian at their core.

I should hope that India will eventually step up and develop into a democratic superpower but until then you have no other options other than a toothless, useless Germany dominated EU. The EU couldn't even handle vaccines properly, so I'm sure they'll do very well in protecting your citizens from the realities of authoritarian superpowers.

While i don't agree with the whole US Bad sentiment, shooting down a civil airliner isn't something that never happened to the US military. And i don't think anyone went to jail for it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

So confused.

"Universal truth is not measured in mass appeal." -- Immortal Technique

I don't know what's confusing about it.

After WW2, Stalin immediately began claiming as much of western Europe as possible. Historical documents reveal he wanted the Warsaw Pact to extend over all of Europe.

The only thing that prevented this was the US/UK forces immediately after WW2. The Berlin Airlift wasn't supported by the French government, because they viewed Berlin as a lost cause.

The Netherlands would have ended up like East Germany if not for the evil capitalist empire you clearly despise, despite the fact that it's technology is how you make a living. As a United States taxpayer, I strongly dislike the size of the US military, and wish we would scale it back dramatically, and let Europe handle (and pay for) their own defense. If I was you, I would want this as well.

In the meantime, realize that you benefit tremendously from the evil empire you openly resent, not unlike a spoiled teenager who complains about her rich father from her bedroom in the mansion.

Cannot complain about your evil overlords if they give you prosperity, right?

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