Comment by rjzzleep | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rjzzleep | Hacker News Reader

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Past? Libya is in shambles 2 million fled a country of 3 million. The richest country of Africa just a few years ago. The secretary of state bragged about the killing of its leader. He was impaled on a spear! Afghanistan is a place where people see other kids killed in the streets. Syria has had most of its old metropols destroyed by people where the US "accidently" dropped their military equipment on. Iraq is still birthing countless mutilated children due to the use of depleted uranium. Lebanon is in freefall. It's but one example of 20 years of constant war with millions of people thrown into misery.

Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are so weak on protecting their own borders, because the US actively sabotaged their domestic defence.

I'm no friend of China and much less the Soviet Union, but if anything, you can see that the reason why North Korea at the beginning of their war basically steamrolled the South was because the Soviets left them with a functional military and the US did not.

Keep in mind that the US didn't work against China receiving nuclear weapons, but actively sabotaged any nuclear development in Taiwan, both locally and at the UN.

China actually started releasing a human rights report on the US a few years back.

I'm not saying China is right. I'm saying that if you want to be taken seriously by the global south you better get your act together. But I actually fear it's too late. One thing Trump did well was drop the curtain on the whole Charade albeit probably not intentionally. Remember when he said they're leaving Syria, but will still occupy the oil fields?

How many troops did the Americans send into Libya during its revolution? And what American units were responsible for killing Gaddafi?

Why does America always get blamed for the Libya when we (and the rest of the world) were just spectators to a country falling apart due to an internal revolution? America supported the revolution, sure, they even provided some air support, but it was by no means much of a military player in it, it didn’t set it into action. China was only pissed off about this because they had lots of deals with Gaddafi at the time, they didn’t care how unstable the regime was (most authoritarian regimes that aren’t China are incredibly unstable) and got burned for it.

The same with Syria. Again, nothing started by the USA or any other country, internal revolution caused by unstable authoritarian regime, which coincidentally made a lot of business deals with China because everyone else was wary of dealing with them. We’ve seen this before, we will see it again. They’ll happen regardless of whether the USA or Russia get involved.

"NATO flew 26,500 sorties since it took charge of the Libya mission on 31 March 2011."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_...

"The U.S. dropped an average of 72 bombs every day — the equivalent of three an hour — in 2016, according to an analysis of American strikes around the world."[1]

US, UK and France dropped so many bombs on Lybia they ran out and Germany happily restocked them.[2]

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-bombed-iraq-syria-pak...

[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/86...

Yes, air strikes. A sortie could just be a drone, do you really believe those made the revolution successful?

Are you genuinely trying to argue that air strikes had no impact on the war in Libya?

No, just that they didn’t make them successful. Without the rebels, the revolution would have failed, and even with them, it would have failed if they weren’t numerous enough. I don’t think the air strikes did much more than show some support for them, they were useful and made things easier but not material in its success.

I find this back and forth weird. It seems to me that you are saying that the air strikes did not make the revolution successful because it also needed troops on the ground to be successful.

You are also saying that they were not material in its success. I would argue that the revolutionary ground troops would have suffered more losses if Gaddafi had had air support but the revolution didn't. Nevermind the tanks and such destroyed by NATO via air strikes. Potentially enough to make the revolution fail.

Is that not material?

You should read some more about the Libyan war, because you're significantly misinformed.

The airstrikes were absolutely crucial to the rebels victory, and no one with any idea of how the war progressed would try to claim otherwise.

Before the airstrikes qadaffis forces were overrunning the rebels and were well on their way to benghazi off the back of their armored corps and air superiority, it was the airstrikes that put a stop to that.

We'll never know, but at that number of sorties, you figure we destroyed the regime's air power and mechanized units, aka the edge they have over a popular revolt.

> China actually started releasing a human rights report on the US a few years back.

This is exactly my point. Why would I be interested to read anything the CCP has to put out when there is no freedom of the press in China? So long as we allow the CCP to have its equivalencies we will never know of the total harm inflicted and these people will die, erased.

You have also neatly sidestepped my very first question asking where China's own schools are that teach these human abuses?

There's freedom of the press in USA?

That is unironically written on a website hosted in the us were it is fully possible to write information as critical as you want about any American political party or more or less who you want.

That's freedom of expression.

When responding to criticism against China, people who point out that western countries human rights records are also very problematic, or people who point out that western propaganda is at work, are often accused of whataboutism. The reasoning is that misconduct by western countries doesn't make their criticism against China invalid.

If we accept that, then the reverse should also apply: Misconduct by China doesn't make China's criticism against the US invalid.

Indeed, the blatant subtext of whataboutist arguments is that these things are ok, they're fine, they're normal and justifiable or should be, and here's a reason why.

How would you like me to respond? I have not declared any argument whataboutism. I am only interested in sources from governments which guarantees and exercises a free press.

You cannot write a piece of paper in bad faith and declare it legitimate if you are the only source of legitimacy.

You could focus on what China actually accused the US of, and whether that accusation has a point, rather than on the fact that the accusation came from China. Where it comes from doesn't matter: only the content matters.

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