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Comment by mantas | Hacker News Reader

A lot of those money went to pushing US cultural wars themes worldwide. And many parts of the world don’t exactly share modern US (or democrats party voters) values. Then US soft power is closer to waging cultural war.

Not exactly USAID, but similar topic. In my country US ambassador openly pushed for law that more than half of population is against for cultural reasons. That feels more like attempt of soft colonialism than soft power tbh.

Another example I recently noticed. When looking for kids cartoons online, I realized I try to stay away from recent US content. Why? Too much of a chance of blatant cultural propaganda. Meanwhile asian, even Chinese, stuff feels fine in the back of my mind. I guess PLC is pushing its own propaganda too, but I don’t even notice among the dragons and all that jazz.

IMO US soft power went south a good decade ago.

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Well the difference between pushing for something and forcing is exactly the difference between soft power/influence and colonialism. Sure people may have different values but people can change and even in your country some people may find refreshing or even life saving to know that different perspectives exist. As you said maybe half of the population is against it... Maybe the other half is ok with it ?

Soft power is usually influence when followers fall in line without a push. And at least in these parts of the world it worked pretty well till mid-00s or somewhere around the '08 crisis?

When ambassador is trying to openly meddle with democratic processes in hosting country... It's a wee more than soft power and influence. Especially when both pro- and against- sides read it as „pass those laws contraversial even in US itself or else we won't defend you from muscovites“.

Regarding different perspectives existing, anybody consuming at least a tiny bit of media (western or not), knows that different perspectives exist. No need for ambassador to say anything. Showing off your lifestyle in media in a positive light is the best way to promote it, not push it down the people throat. It worked well for decades and the trend is clear. But for some reason in the past decade or so some people decided to ditch worked well.

In that specific case, ~ 1/4 supported the law, over 1/2 were against, remaining didn't care. Ultimately the law did not pass in parliament. The smaller party that pushed the law the most is no longer in parliament. A major party that co-pushed the law lost later election, with some members of the party attributing that to overall cultural wars narrative, the party leader resigned and the new leader of that party is much more conservative.

And yes, it might be an unpopular viewpoint....but neocolonialism is necessary.

Perhaps not the right choice of word but I mean the term 'neocolonialism' here in the sense of introducing peoples to our ways of life: democracy, capitalism, human rights.

The long and short of it is that, you can only get with the web of conflicting interests, pure monetary dealings, etc so far. You don't make any lasting alliance with a peoples and a system fundamentally opposed to you. If you isolate away, they will continue falling into the trap of systems like China and Russia who are quite happy to take your place and have completely opposite ideals to you. Eventually you will be left more and more alone on the world stage with no true allies if you let them keep doing it, and one day you will be finished off by soft or hard means when those entities, who kept expanding their outreach, became powerful enough.

Tldr; Defensive fire. Its not that you want to engage in neocolonialism, but you will have to do so as long as your enemies engage in neocolonialism. The logic is no different than that behind maintaining a traditional military power really.

The problem is that neocolonialism, just like colonialism, works best if master culture is tame and at least somewhat compatible with slave cultures. Current US/west culture is quite contraversial to say the least in many parts of the world. At the same time, this culture does not seem to tolerate allies who don't sign off on the full package. This „take it or fuck off“ attitude is not helpful IMO.

I'm not surprised that China is doing so well in „global south“. US/west needs not only to return to colonialism game, but update their offer as well.

My opinion regarding this is very simple. I like honesty. If a person or culture does not believe in human rights, then it has to right to complain if we decide to kill, oppress and torture them and raze them to create civilization there. Because what argument do they have for not being tortured if they don't believe in human rights?

And Afghanistan is prime pickings right now because they have little allies currently. A motivated and well planned operation can eliminate them right now. I see the Taliban as an issue much longer term than merely using them as temporary pawns. I believe in the complete elimination of Taliban, the Iranian regime and similar groups.

The current problem with human rights is it was turned into ever-moving target. It’s a pretty shitty situation to be forced to believe in something people on another continent keep coming up with. With old school religions, at least they move slowly and there are literally centuries to adapt. Now what was obscure crazy stuff in some far away corner of the world a decade ago is claimed to be must-have human rights.

Good luck trying to civilize Afghanistan again. Chinese would looooove West trying again. Nothing better than yet another proxy war.

I don't have massive goals, if we can even get them to the point of equality of man under the law we would have civilized them to the point of being much better than most non-Western countries.

> Because what argument do they have against being tortured if they don't believe in human rights?

Obviously, it's against the most basic principles that the humanist worldview of human rights is based on. I mean, you clearly don't believe in them sincerely, maybe you lie to yourself but you don't. You are the type of self-righteous goon that would happily disappear people in the Stasi or Pinochet's DINA.

> Afghanistan is prime pickings.

That's delusional. You cannot forcibly "reform" a culture in the short term (i.e., decades) that is not simply just near-total genocide. The Taliban cannot be weakened by overwhelming force. When invaders with absurd justifications (first Soviet, later American) commit "collateral damage," they create a sprawling network of causality that strengthens them. Kill the mother, justify the Taliban in the eyes of the son, and so on until the 7th generation.

The US never understood Afghanistan; they didn't want to either. You cannot outplan something that you don't inherently wish to understand, and Bin Laden knew that. Unlike the US, he comprehended both Afghanistan and America. It would have been so simple to send some spooks to snatch him after a couple of months, but that was never going to happen. Osama Bin Laden baited the United States of America, and it fell for it line, hook, and sinker. You lost trillions, thousands of lives, and more importantly, the last sliver of soul your country had.

The terrorists won on October 7, 2001.

I truly believe in human rights. Therefore I believe that someone who believes in human rights should be treated like one. And someone who doesn't believe in human rights, should be treated likewise. Again tell me, if X is someone that does not believe human rights exist what argument do they have to tell you to stop torturing them? If they say their humanity, you can clearly answer they don't believe in it.

And regarding "genocide" argument. To take a really extreme example. Look at how many nazis we killed in WW2 to civilize them. If needed I feel even a 95% figure is probably worth it if we can make men out of Afghanistan.

What is your human rights definition you „believe“ in?

The golden rule, or rather the modification if you believe in human rights I will treat you as such, if you don't believe in human rights...I will also treat you as such. Its only fair to give people what they want.

As I have said previously, we need a two pronged approach. Keep killing off the hardliners, while flying those with seeds of civilization to western countries for training and acculturation and fly them back in when their relative count compared to the extremists is high enough they can completely and permanently change the culture of the place.

>And many parts of the world don’t exactly share modern US (or democrats party voters) values.

Oh, I'm sure "the rest of the world" is cheering on the US to invade Panama, Greenland, Mexico, and Canada, which are all things that are actually on the table with the fascist right-wing agenda that currently control all branches of US government. "The rest of the world" is right now wishing Harris had won the election, not to mention half the US.

Coming from „the rest of the world“, I don't see a major difference between any US administrations in the past 15 years or so. It's the same nasty attitude pushing sleazy interests. I don't see a big difference between Obama being friendly to Putin after Georgia war and glancing over Crimea occupation and Trump doing what he is doing now. If US would have been a good cop back then, we wouldn't have a shit ton of issues today.

As for US internal matters... I don't give a damn. You guys do you. But some long-running stuff in US looks horrible. E.g. if my country had elections-without-mandatory-voter-ID, I would not trust those elections at all. Your supreme court and surrounding drama looks like a shitshow for decades. And allowing big business money in politics smells like legalized corruption. All in all, your issues does not seem to be related to Trump or Haris or any other specific person.

>Coming from „the rest of the world“, I don't see a major difference between any US administrations in the past 15 years or so.

Then you really aren't paying attention. The next 4 years will prove to you how bad things can get with right-wing fascists in control of the largest military in the world, hell-bent on making "America First". This is far, far away from the left-wing Democrats agenda. You're going to feel the difference, I have no doubt.

All "both sides are the same" arguments are completely invalid, you simply are not paying attention to US politics if you think that, or you have a crooked agenda to push.

>Obama being friendly to Putin after Georgia war

lol, no, Obama was never "friendly" to Putin. As much as you'd like to shit on all of the US, we're not all bad and your attempt to drag down Obama in the same sentence as trump proves you have no clue about the character of these two people.

>All in all, your issues does not seem to be related to Trump or Haris or any other specific person.

All the corruption and cruelty you imagine in your head as being "The US", are coming from one side - the right-wing fascist side. You don't have to believe me, you can look to other countries where similar fascists inhabit top office, like Russia, Hungary, and many more. There are many examples worldwide, it isn't limited to the US. Problems happen when cruel people are elected. It doesn't matter where. And no, Obama is not cruel, but trump is proving every day how cruel a human can be. Maybe if you pay attention you'll be able to spot the difference.

Just look up what Obama administration did with raising Putin regime. Also the legendary withdrawal of defense installations from Poland. Mister fucking Nobel peace prize winner.

Yes, I don’t care that much about US internal politics. But looks like you have a blind spot for foreign politics.

I’m pretty sure a lot of BS I don’t like about US is specifically coming from the left wing. But if you don’t want to hear outside perspective, feel free to live in your bubble.

>Just look up what Obama administration did with raising Putin regime.

Have have no doubt your sources are going to be vastly different than mine.

>Also the legendary withdrawal of defense installations from Poland.

The issue was more complex than you seem to think it is, that much is clear.

> Mister fucking Nobel peace prize winner.

You act like Obama asked for the Nobel Prize - he did not. He had nothing to do with who decided or why they decided to give out the award.

I never said Obama was perfect, but he's far better than the current cruel right-wing fascist asshole.

>I’m pretty sure a lot of BS I don’t like about US is specifically coming from the left wing.

Then you're on the side of the right-wing fascists, it's just that simple.

>But if you don’t want to hear outside perspective, feel free to live in your bubble.

I get to hear plenty of other perspectives, most of them are just "both sides are the same" bogus uninformed and pointless arguments.

Afghanistan (as an example) should have been civilized, whatever effort necessary for it. If a peoples or country doesn't support human rights, capitalism, etc then what justification does it have to tell you to stop if you oppress and torture them? Human rights? Pish they don't believe that crap.

Is the disagreement because you somehow believe the Taliban are "civilized" or does one have disagreement about the fact that a person claiming not to believe in human rights is in no position to argue against being tortured?

Afghanistan is called grave of the empires for a reason :)

The USA wasn't trying to fight a war there. As I note in my argument of non-believers in human rights having no right to oppose their own oppression....I don't really have any issues eliminating 90% or even higher of these elements until sanity emerges. If I were in charge I'd be flying in those with seeds of civilized thought into Western countries for training and acculturation, and destroy the hardliners meanwhile. And when the hardliners are sufficiently decimated, fly back them in as consultants or if they prefer as citizens back in Afg and so on.

USSR tried that for a decade. Then US. But reality is such conversion would take few generations at least. Good luck convincing tax payers that 50 years occupational forces are worth it.

I am saying that the previous approaches were too soft and light handed. The Taliban hasn't ever faced an opponent that wants their annihilation at an existential level.

These countries were simply fighting a war of economic or other interests. I hate Taliban at a very core level itself and want their complete annihilation. A war conducted by those with a strong intrinsic motivation like this would be much different from those previous engagements.

I think you underestimate how complex society is. And how that complexity connects the hardliners, the moderates and the collaborators.

Take a look at Nazis approach in eastern europe in 1941. USSR was not exactly beloved in western territories. Be it Baltic states, modern western Belarus or modern western Ukraine. Even deeper in pre-1939-USSR many people weren't exactly happy with the leadership. Nazis had a perfect situation to make use of this sentiment to push forwards towards main goal of annihilating Stalin regime. Yet they decided that'd be too soft and light handed on the locals. That was not exactly great to turn locals against you.

And the local sentiments was in big part due to Soviet not-light-handed approach in 1939-41. When even many proponents changed their minds after seeing too many trains leaving for Siberia. All they had left were full-on collaborators who managed top switch back-and-forth between Soviets and Nazis several times :) I doubt such sleazy partners is what you want to build the new better superafghan...

The difference is that Europeans there were at least partially civilized so there was some raw material to work with.

The Taliban have nothing of civilization in them. They actively resist and hate civilization. There is no reforming them.

You also underestimate the amount of hatred a local person of sane mind would have against the Taliban. The most rabid haters of any shitty system are often those who escaped it personally. If you can supply and support such people they would be much more violent and extreme in suppressing the Taliban than any external Western person could be. If we are taking the example of Nazis, just look at the attitude of Jews who survived and began assassinating Nazis after the war vs American etc liberators who just chose to "forget" everything after the war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_hunter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakam

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