I haven’t heard about the disarming stuff. I don’t think that part happened.
Comparing this with Ukraine wanting to join NATO or the EU for the defense of their right to self-determination and to live free of an authoritarian police state is laughable. But such a comment can only come from ignorance of the differences between systems of government with human rights and those with none, or else be sheet wicked propaganda paid for by an authoritarian regime.
The equivocation here is in your comment - one must wonder what your actual motive is.
No one has the heavens mandate to any land. We are only human. Not gods. You don’t get to do whatever you want on the land of your nation state just because of blood and soil arguments like you and your blood is from there.
Western and liberal democracy is not about human rights.
If China never had claims to Taiwan…then the KMT never should’ve gone there either according to your logic. And don’t have rights to that land now unless settler logic is used.
> one must wonder what your actual motive is.
I am an anti-imperialist and [pan-]nationalist. I don’t hide that. That is in contrast to most westerners or Europeans who go based off enlightened centrist and liberal vibes along with western, white, settler, and European chauvinism and supremacy.
Yet you get to invade your sovereign, self-governing and peaceful neighbors if you're Russia or China, and have such grand imperialist adventures all while claiming to be anti-imperialist? How convenient. And oh, Russia's annexation of Crimea isn't about blood and soil? That was sure the pitch made to its own population.
You say you're a pan-nationalist, but then what's wrong with Ukraine choosing to ally with Europe? Is pan-nationalism only valid when the alliance is under Kremlin despotism? Whatever Putinism is, it certainly isn't about human rights either. [Perhaps you meant you are pan-Slavic? In that case, Kiev may as well be your capital]. And if you're so cynical as to believe that no system is any better than any other system when it comes to human rights, who are you or the despots and tyrants you side with to declare who should do what? What system are you offering the citizens of Taiwan or Ukraine that they would want? Your entire argument seems to boil down to a circle of hypocrisy: The people of some country have no inherent right to be there, so even if a larger belligerent power has no right either, there's nothing wrong with annihilating whatever freedom the local people have.
By your statements, you are actually justifying settler-colonialism. Should the Han take over Tibet and dispose of Tibetans? Sure, in your opinion, since no one has claim to land. (Strange how the new settlers lay claim to the land though, isn't it?) What right do native American people have to their land? None, according to you. So then what's this imperialism of America you're yapping about? It would be easier to say: It's not as if America has done anything China or Russia isn't currently doing. But that would be playing into your trap of equivocation. As a Tibetan freedom fighter friend of mine once said, when I suggested that America was sliding toward authoritarianism: never ever compare America to how much worse things are in a dictatorship like China. To do so is an insult to everyone fighting for their freedom from these thugs around the world.
If Ukraine had wanted to join Putin's Russia, they had ample opportunity. If Taiwan wanted to join China, they could do so tomorrow by a majority vote. And if your only argument is that the West is no better and just as hypocritical - apart from the fact that I believe you to be arguing in bad faith - then what difference is it to you which sphere of influence they end up in?
> So then what's this imperialism of America you're yapping about?
Same here. You saw me say a general principle and then assumed a bunch of logic. As if what I said isn’t a basic general philosophy that many societies and cultures have had (none that you like ofc).
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I think the political knowledge gap between us is too wide so it will just keep resulting in the same issues of you projecting your [white and liberal] supremacist ego on to others.
Like thinking pan nationalism can mean the global north too. A bananas thing to say while accusing others of being bad faith or hypocritical.
Those are all closely related topics in geopolitics.
...so we can freely do as we please. Of course we've been preying on our neighbors. We've been invading and deposing all across the Americas to force alignment with our interests for well over a century now. We even have terrorist training camps hosted on our soil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f...
What, do you think that our invading Grenada, or Panama, is somehow in their interests? It's a flagrant violation of international law and sovereignty. To imagine that this is somehow an abnormal deviation from our "protection" of our neighbors is... well, I honestly didn't realize anyone thought that way anymore.
Furthermore, we didn't enforce this doctrine when France invaded (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Saint_Pierre_and_Mi...), nor in the Falklands war.
Look I can understand not thinking america is "evil" or entirely machiavellian, but it seems just as absurd to take any noble intentions we claim to have at face value. The monroe doctrine is as good an example of this as any.
92% of Panamans supported the invasion to despose Noreiga and actually would have preferred the US do it earlier back during his second coup.
Truth be speaking, I would where you are getting your history, if not just from skewed leftist internet Podcasters. Not mentioning the larger context of the Cold War and the opinions of the people on the ground does look more like lying by omission.
That's not an opinion that most will agree with, certainly from the USSR and the USA's own perspectives. I do wonder the kind of grades one would get if they wrote that down in a history class in any nation. And the more you understand history, both US and the USSR's actions do make perfect sense given their local contexts that most would be making the same decisions in the same position.
>I want someone to invade and liberate us doesn't mean it's not a violation of international law and sovereignty.
I tend to think more about what is the best course of action that benefits the people on the ground and the long term. The idea of sancrosanctity of "sovereignity" is better understood as a social construct to justify oppressive power structures, as it's reflection in reality is highly contentious. The same with International Law, you are taking a literalist position when International Law is better understood as gentlemen's agreements, which is irrelevant in the context of the ontological conflict between two sides that supercedes the notion of law in the first place.
Fascism was popular in the US. Henry Ford shared his thoughts by publishing The International Jew [1]. Hitler was a fan. Ford was mentioned by name in Mein Kampf. We had the Business Plot [2] in 1933. There was a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939. The German American Bund was present until 1941.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Stalin had initially sought an anti-German alliance with Britain and France but was rebuffed, leading to the deal with Hitler.
The US had ~400,000 casulaties in the European campaign and none really until D-Day in 1944. The USSR lost somewhere between 26 and 30 million people in WW2, something only really revealed by a 1959 census. Had Germany defeated the USSR and taken MOscow in 1941-1942, we would live in a very different world.
The result of World War 2 was that Hitler lost but the fascists won. Under the guise of fighting Communism (eg the Truamn Doctrine, leading to the Korean and Vietnam wars). NATO was an imperial project. Charles De Gaulle (in the 1960s) went so far as to say Western Europe was in danger of becoming a US protectorate.
We all know about Operation Paper Clip (I hope) but less known is how Nazis found their way into NATO. Adolf Heusinger went from Hitler's Chief of the German High Command to Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. And he wasn't the only one [3].
So when that commenter called the Cold War "retarded", I suspect they're referring to how the US took up Nazi Germany's fight against Communism.
The whole Red Scare was terrible for average American citizens. It was used to dismantle the labor movement and unions and ultimately led to Nixon, Reagan and Clinton and the destruction of real wages and living conditions.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_Jew
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
[3]: https://www.historynet.com/these-nato-generals-had-unusual-b...
Starting at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine#Roosevelt_Coro... and further.
Well, that's a matter of perspective isn't it? Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico, Chile, El Salvador, Venezuela, the list goes on. There's a Wikipedia page dedicated to all the US backed coups since 1945 [1] it happens so often.
We've had a post-WW2 history of deposing democratically elected countries (in the Americas and elsewhere) to suit the interests of Western corporations. Who exactly are we protecting?
> ... it was a policy aimed at keeping wars between European colonial powers away from the newly independent countries in the Americas
Where is Moscow?
> ... people in the Americas shouldn't have to die in wars just because one European king insulted another.
Ok, but what about American belligerence? Pinochet and Noriega spring to mind.
Aso, I reject the contention that colonial wars were the product of European kings insulting one another. The interests were and always have been material. Even the Crusades (which were sold on Christian conflict with Islam) were fundamentally materialist in origin.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
It's more that Cuba requested nukes first, the USSR opportunistically took, then they to resolve the crisis they took that opportunity to remove Turkish missiles. It wasn't really a tit for tat on part of the USSR's intentions, Cuba was the primary agent here.
Not that it really mattered later on once ICBMs are developed.
> Your missiles are located in Britain, are located in Italy, and are aimed against us. Your missiles are located in Turkey.
> You are disturbed over Cuba. You say that this disturbs you because it is 90 miles by sea from the coast of the United States of America. But Turkey adjoins us; our sentries patrol back and forth and see each other. Do you consider, then, that you have the right to demand security for your own country and the removal of the weapons you call offensive, but do not accord the same right to us? You have placed destructive missile weapons, which you call offensive, in Turkey, literally next to us. How then can recognition of our equal military capacities be reconciled with such unequal relations between our great states? This is irreconcilable.
According to General Boris Surikov [2]:
> 'Khrushchev and his Defence Minister, Rodion Malinovsky, were at Khrushchev's estate on the Black Sea. They went for a walk and Malinovsky pointed in the direction of Turkey and said: 'That's where the American rockets are pointing at us. They need only 10 minutes to reach our cities, but our rockets need 25 minutes to reach America.' Khrushchev thought for a while and then said: 'Why don't we instal our rockets in Cuba and point them at the Americans? Then we'll need only 10 minutes, too.'
This article goes on to quote the Soviet Ambassador to Cuba, Alexander Alexeyev, who was a direct witness and a go-between between Khrushchev and Castro:
> 'On 14 May 1962 I was called to a meeting of the Defence Council at the Kremlin. Khrushchev said, in effect: 'Comrades, I think it would be a good idea to instal rockets in Cuba. Do it clandestinely. I don't want it known in the US until November (after the mid-term Congressional elections). Alexander Alexeyev, how will Fidel react when we present him with our decision?'
[1]: https://microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/oct27/doc4.html
[2]: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-cuban-missile-crisi...
That dosen't refute anything from his own words as a justification as opposed to his primary goal to provide Cuba with defence here to deter a US invasion. As others have pointed out, the USSR was annoyed by these placements in Italy and Turkey earlier, but they did not declare war or start a crisis over it beforehand. It's more that Turkey was a bargaining chip here.
>>Our aim has been and is to help Cuba, and no one can dispute the humanity of our motives, which are oriented toward enabling Cuba to live peacefully and develop in the way its people desire.
You need to place here in context that the Jupiter missiles in Turkey were already obselete but the US had the overwhelming advantage in a nuclear strike with their Atlas ICBMs in USA at the time, relying more on a fleet of intercontinental bombers that could targeted by NORAD.
Removing nukes for Turkey did little to change the strategic calculus, but it did heavily deprive the USSR of an opportunity to change that calculus with Cuban nukes at the time, which was a major factor in Kruschev's later removal from power.