The US's "vassals", I suppose, actually means dozens of independent countries with around a billion people. That includes Japan, a thousands-years-old and completely foreign culture with 125 million people that leads the world in many fields of advanced technology. It includes the EU, representing 450 million people and 15% of the world economy in 27 member states, with 8 nuclear missile submarines and 6 aircraft carriers of their own. But in your take, it's like they don't even exist as their own entity. They're just "vassals".
And meanwhile, I don't see you respecting the independence of places like Rwanda, Myanmar, the Balkans, the Levant, the Tarim Basin, Somalia, either— The places where your "odd genocide or two" actually happen. There's no acknowledgement of the thousands of years of history, no discussion of the ethnic tensions and unique cultures, that make their lives in each of those places. Again, it's as if that doesn't even exist. You just reduce it to "western imperialism".
You're just objectifying everyone. I suppose if you think in a fundamentally imperialistic way, if you find the idea of consensual multilateralism to be genuinely confusing, then it makes sense to just blame everything on the most visible power. But nobody likes a real imperialist, even if you pretend that your imperialism is actually anti-imperialist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl...
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/russia-iran-israel-and-china-ran...
"A billion people" and "thousands year old civilization" are also Chinese talking points I've noticed. Hence why I included it in my comment, to both call out the really degrading "vassals" narrative and also point out these dictatorships aren't as special as they like to pretend.
Your truly,
a US & UK citizen, who see's right through people like you
As an ethnic Asian, I don't appreciate you casually using the slur "Chinamen" in a petty attempt to strengthen your rhetoric.
I wonder why you're so fixated on seeing imperialism everywhere. Kindly fuck off with your projection.
I'm not going to ban you right now because it doesn't look like we've warned you before, but please make sure to stay on the right side of the guidelines in the future—especially because this isn't the first time you've broken them. (For example, comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40734213 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38963324 are also unacceptable.)
Whenever I've engaged on this topic (not just this thread), there seems to be an unwritten rule somewhere that absolutely any vile stuff is acceptable, no matter how debunked by journalists, as long as it's on one particular side of this narrative. And any pushback is abused, downvoted, etc.
It seems almost impossible to present an anti-genocide case, on this site.
That can't be right.
One is a personal attack: "we're living in 2 different realities", etc. HN's trigger for this is pretty light, and any time a comment verges onto "you" statements in an unflattering light this tends to be the case. I'm writing this comment carefully considering I pretty much have to use "you" and am considering how it might sound. As dang's explained many, many, many times in the past, how a comment is received is often orders of magnitude harsher than it is written. (I know he's expressed this many times, I can't remember how he phrases it or I'd link instances.)
The other is a nationalistic attack against "America's superior moral compass". Again, the trigger is lightly loaded, reason being that such comments tend to derail discussions.
(Not an HN mod, but I watch dang's mod comments closely and generally understand his reasoning, even where I disagree with it.)
You can make your points more substantively without those swipes. A recent example of my own:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41578060>
I addressed the factual aspects of the comment without taking the bait from others. Directly quoting a credible third-party report.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
No, they aren't. Having allied forces deployed on your soil by mutual agreement is not occupation.
> Once a US base gets established in your territory, you can never get it out.
There are quite a long list of counterexamples; the US has closed lots of overseas bases (both in countries that remain on good terms with the US and in those where the relationship soured.)
> Just ask the Iraqi's.
"Iraqis", and the US closed large numbers of Iraqi bases in the 2020-2021 drawdown and the US and Iraq are currently (last I checked) in discussions on a complete drawdown of US military presence which would close the remaining bases.
Irony is dead ...
Lmao:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_in_Fra...
Phillipines too:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-11-27-mn-209-st...
They are going back currently, as they're invited to. You know, because that's how consent works, when you don't see everyone else as objects in a conspiracy.
Actually, the US just finished leaving Niger this week:
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/us-military-says-it-com...
Less of the "democracies vs dictatorships". It's more like "western imperialism (essentially US & vassals) vs the rest of the world (who wants out of imperialism, endless sanctions, endless wars, the odd genocide or two)"