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Re:Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor i... by philwelch on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @12:40AM (#25578930)
That doesn’t really scale. Minerals are where they are in the earth’s crust, and at some point we need to go to DR Congo if we want enough cobalt to go around. Especially if we want stuff like electric cars.

And that’s just one example of one mineral. There is the notion of the “resource curse” —countries rich in natural resources often stay poor because why develop a modern economy when you can just become a warlord and force children to mine diamonds or cobalt for you? The flip side of this is the part where we in the developed world don’t like to think too much about where these basic resources come from.

Re:Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor i... by fedreserved on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @03:13AM (#25579678)
Where's the cia when you need them to topple a dictator who oppresses with slave labor
Re:Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor i... by pydry on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @06:32AM (#25580810)
Out toppling a democratically elected government that threatened US investors' profit margins.

I'm pretty sure they're stirring up trouble in xinjiang also. Pitting ethnic minorities in hard to defend mountainous border regions against central government is a standard divide and conquer empire tactic. The British Empire used it a lot in Asia, for instance.

Re:Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor i... by baybal2 on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @05:49AM (#25580591)
You usually cannot "topple" a rogue regime, unlike a civil government.

Dictators almost always have secret police, and domestic espionage agencies in every corner.

This is why I do not subscribe to notion that Western spies are trying to stage revolutions in repressive regimes for a simple reason that they can not.

Re:Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor i... by pietrovismara on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @06:31AM (#25580803)
Oh but they did. Time and time again. Given the pattern there's no reason to think western powers are not meddling with foreign affairs today.
Re:Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor i... by pydry on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @06:34AM (#25580820)
They failed in Venezuela recently but that didn't stop them from trying. There was a democratic Senator who ascribed the failure to Trump's incompetence.

Most of Latin America had had a US backed coup at some point in its history. Many very successful. Pinochet, etc.

Re:Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor i... by baybal2 on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @06:54AM (#25580914)
And this is a very good example of what I said.

US only ever managed to use staged coups to unseat civil governments, and failed miserably with tougher targets like real totalitarian regimes.

The only notable exception I think was Noriega, who was a joke of a dictator, and possibly even put in power with American help in the first place.

Re:Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor i... by CountSessine on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @12:43PM (#25583818)
Except that the spooks failed even when it came to unseating Noriega because they had to call in the military to stage an invasion.

The only two cases that I’m aware of where the US clandestinely toppled a foreign government were Chile and Iran - and apparently even the Iranian operation was mostly driven by the British secret service. And by all accounts, Chile was more of a nudge than a push.

Re:Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor i... by philwelch on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @01:12PM (#25584246)
That’s door number 2. I’m not opposed to going through door number 2.