Did you mean that old organisation which defend world from soviet invasion?

I hope this is sarcasm?

The things the USA did supposedly in the name of stopping "red danger" were utterly dispicable, and still have an impact today.

Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. This is the last thing we need here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You are simply wrong on so many levels. NATO is the reason why the iron curtain stayed where it was and why the Russian federation hasn't steam-rolled Western Europe.

If you believe the US is the only actor that benefitted from this development, you're somehow ignoring about 800 million people and over two dozen countries who remained free and independent thanks to NATO.

Please fight the cold war somewhere else. We don't want flamewars here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> You are simply wrong on so many levels. NATO is the reason why the iron curtain stayed where it was and why the Russian federation hasn't steam-rolled Western Europe.

There are no historical artifacts claiming that USSR ever had a serious plan to "steamroll" Western Europe. If anything, they were deathly terrified of NATO incursion into Russia and almost pathologically attached to creating a buffer zone of Warszaw Pact states.

Please do not mix up US cold war propaganda with historic facts, those are not quite the same.

Wait

So you think that "red danger" was fake?

Or "red danger" did (and do) less despicable things?

Nationalistic and ideological flamewar are not welcome here. No more of this, please, on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> So you think that "red danger" was fake

I didn't say that - I think the US reaction to the threat was horrendous.

> Or "red danger" did (and do) less despicable things?

That's whataboutism - you would hope that a country that bills itself as "land of the free" would aim for a little better than that.

This whole thread is based on whataboutism! It’s supposed to be about Chinese influence, and then someone derailed it into talking about American influence, and now the whole thread is 90% comments about America and 10% comments about China.

Note: this also happens in pretty much every other thread about a country that isn’t America. God forbid anyone ever discuss anything else, Americans want to relitigate the same old tired “why my country sucks” debates!

And for what? Is any useful information being conveyed? No, it’s mostly just some kind of social status signalling — Americans of certain insecure social class feel the need to complain about America at every opportunity to distinguish themselves from people of a lower social class because patriotism is coded as a low-class activity.

Yes you’re all very sophisticated and I’m sure you like high speed trains and such. Can we please stop talking about the same thing all the time?

Love,

A non American

The 2 scenarios are not mutually exclusive - the threat from communism could have been averted without overthrowing democracies, arming terrorists etc.

Something like 200k people died in the civil war that ensued in Guatamala after the US-backed coup. And that is but one example. It could be argued that a lot of the violence and instability in Latin America is as a result of US intervetion.

"red danger"? Like when Cuban intervened in Angola and murdered 10's of thousands or dozens of others horrors around the globe?

Hell, just think of how many excessive deaths have been caused around the globe by the USSR's push of socialism, retarding growth by decades everywhere it won.

You'd have to be a hard core ideologue to not look at the 20th century and think the "red danger" wasn't the most evil thing to ever happen to humanity.

Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic or ideological flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

soviets never pushed socialism

Never

That word was a mask for totalitarian ideology

> Hell, just think of how many excessive deaths have been caused around the globe by the USSR's push of socialism, retarding growth by decades everywhere it won.

Hell, just think of the violence, misery and excessive deaths that have occurred across Latin America and the Middle East because of the USA's interventions.

My point is that just because the USSR did worse, doesn't excuse the USA's actions, which still have an impact to this day.

Are you conveniently forgetting the forceful seizure of an entire continent, displacement of native populations, importing millions of human beings to be used as slaves, colonization and plunder of natural resources across the globe, and deliberate destabilization of regions for profit?

You need to check out the rose glasses you're wearing yourself

Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic or ideological flamewar. Also, please be careful not to cross into personal attack, which is a force multiplier on all things bad here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Quite. I think I'll stop responding to this thread because we're not going to see eye-to-eye here. Despite the current US President's love for despots and totalitarianism, that doesn't describe the USA.