Foundations Of Geopolitics

[Kartoffel]

I don't think it is Whataboutism to compare the actions of one government to another as long as it's done in an honest manner. As Churchill said democracy is the worst form of government except for all of the others. So yes the US has committed several illegal wars and overthrown democratically elected governments but there is no comparison to the crimes that were committed and are still committed to this day by these other totalitarian regimes. It also has to be viewed in the context of the cold war where the Soviets were actively subverting governments and using elections as a means to install a Communist government. To put it in context, Argentina and Chile killed in the tens of thousands of people during their dirty wars while Cambodia, North Korea, China etc have killed in the tens of millions of people. And this is not ancient history. China's cultural revolution only ended in 1976 and killed almost 50 million people.

And yes we have killed a lot of people in the Middle East but nothing compared to what the Soviets did when over two million Afghans were killed in the 80s. Moreover the human rights violations and continued political persecutions in those countries is still going on. Try living your life as a gay person in Russian or a Christian in China and you would try to be on the first flight to the US.

cfgfdggf

And yes the US is controlled by a ruling elite but that is true for all countries. I would also argue that they are all controlled by the same ruling elite that controlled Europe for the last two thousand years but that is another story. With that said a ruling elite working in a democratic government is constrained in what they can do. They still need to maintain the illusion of democracy and cant do what ever they want. They cant set up Gulags and cant have mass round ups of political dissidents. They cant invade a country, steal all their food and let the people starve like the Soviets did in the Ukraine. They also cant invade a country and annex their territory like the Russians just did in Crimea or the Chinese did in Tibet. We stopped doing that over a 100 years ago.

Russian and China left to do their own devices have zero respect for International law and would even more aggressively expand their empires if the US were not around. Russia is working to claw back their former puppet states of the Soviet Union and rebuild there empire while China is currently building an island in the South China sea to claim international water that isn't theirs. If the US doesn't stop their expansion who will? Without the US the Japanese and Europeans would be forced to rearm and you would have WW II all over again. Just look at what happened to and is still happening in Tibet if you want an example of what the Chinese are capable of.

You say Russians and Chinese have Zero respect for International law. What exactely is that based on? And how do the U.S. show more respect than that? You want to tell me that peacefully annexing Crimea, a region with 90% Russian population, from a neighboring country that just descended into chaos, adopted a fascist, oligarchical government, after a U.S. sponsored coup is worse than destroying the middle east and leaving it to ISIS? As far as I remember there were no Article VII resolutions for the wars in Iraq, and no WoMD. Worse than violating the national sovereignty of dozens of countries everytime a terrorist and his village are obliterated by a drone strike? I am talking about this century now, not when Stalin starved the Ukraine before WWII.
China and Russia have strong interest in maintaining regional hegemony, but their attempts at domination are limited while the U.S. has been building a military net around the whole world within the last decades. You said that he U.S. stopped annexing terretories 100 years ago, completing their quest for total regional hegemony. Yet you blaim China and Russia just because they haven't finished as early? Kind of absurd. Noone claims them to be flagships for democracy or individual freedom, but saying that they are evil villans that want to completely subjugate the world is delusional Mccarthyism. You should stopp listening to people like John McCain too much.

By the way, can you provide a source for the 2 million people Soviets supposedly killed in Afghanistan? No comment on the radical Mujahedeen that commited countless atrocities, killed thousands of secular people? You know the guys that were created and sponsored by the U.S. to fight the Russians? The guys that would later come back to haunt you and bring you back for a few more wars killing hundreds of thousands? And how come so many Afghans still like the Russians and the time of Soviet "occupation"?

"“Almost all poor Afghan people would never say anything bad about Russians. But the government people are with the West, as well as those Afghan elites who are now living abroad: those who are buying real estate in London and Dubai, while selling their own country…those who are paid to ‘create public opinion.’”

“Before and during the Soviet era, there were Soviet doctors here, and also Soviet teachers. Now show me one doctor or teacher from the USA or UK based in the Afghan countryside! Russians were everywhere, and I still even remember some names: Lyudmila Nikolayevna… Show me one Western doctor or nurse based here now. Before, Russian doctors and nurses were working all over the country, and their salaries were so low… They spent half on their own living expenses, and the other half they distributed amongst our poor… Now look what the Americans and Europeans are doing: they all came here to make money!”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/03/afghanistans-lies-myths-and-legends/

 

[x-ray peat]

You say Russians and Chinese have Zero respect for International law. What exactely is that based on? If you think that And how do the U.S. show more respect than that?

reread my lost post. I've listed several instances of annexations by violence and gross criminal violations of human rights. The US doesn't consistently violate its own citizens basic human rights or annex territory that isn't theirs. The main beneficiary of the Iraq war is China who has swooped in to secure most of the oil contracts.

You want to tell me that peacefully annexing Crimea, a region with 90% Russian population, from a neighboring country that just descended into chaos, adopted a fascist, oligarchical government, after a U.S. sponsored coup is worse than destroying the middle east and leaving it to ISIS? As far as I remember there were no Article VII resolutions for the wars in Iraq, and no WoMD. Worse than violating the national sovereignty of dozens of countries everytime a terrorist and his village are obliterated by a drone strike? I am talking about this century now, not when Stalin starved the Ukraine before WWII.

First off the invasion and annexation of the Crimea was not peaceful in any sense Russia Kills: Chronology of Russian war crimes in Ukraine but I find it interesting that you keep changing the relevant time frame to fit your argument. First it was the last hundred years, then it was post WW II, and now it is only the last 17 years. I will take your arguments more seriously when you try and explain the over 100 million people killed at the hands of these regimes and the ongoing violations of human rights they perpetrate everyday. Again ask any immigrant from China or Russia and you will see that there is no comparison as to which is the preferable political system.

China and Russia have strong interest in maintaining regional hegemony, but their attempts at domination are limited while the U.S. has been building a military net around the whole world within the last decades.

not true. International communism envisioned the conquest of the entire world and there is no evidence that these countries have ever reigned that in. The link given by the OP alone shows Russian interests still extend far beyond their own immediate territory and include Europe and China. Moreover they both seek super-power status which by definition encompasses the entire world.

You said that he U.S. stopped annexing terretories 100 years ago, completing their quest for total regional hegemony. Yet you blaim China and Russia just because they haven't finished as early? Kind of absurd.

The world has changed quite a bit in the last 100 years ago when it was mostly made up of European colonies. Today annexation by force is considered an international crime whereas 100 years ago it was business as usual. Furthermore our conquests were colonies taken mostly from the Spanish Monarchy. What is absurd is to try to justify today's actions by the morality of a 100 years ago.

Noone claims them to be flagships for democracy or individual freedom, but saying that they are evil villans that want to completely subjugate the world is delusional Mccarthyism. You should stopp listening to people like John McCain too much.

By the way, can you provide a source for the 2 million people Soviets supposedly killed in Afghanistan? No comment on the radical Mujahedeen that commited countless atrocities, killed thousands of secular people? You know the guys that were created and sponsored by the U.S. to fight the Russians? The guys that would later come back to haunt you and bring you back for a few more wars killing hundreds of thousands? And how come so many Afghans still like the Russians and the time of Soviet "occupation"?

"“Almost all poor Afghan people would never say anything bad about Russians. But the government people are with the West, as well as those Afghan elites who are now living abroad: those who are buying real estate in London and Dubai, while selling their own country…those who are paid to ‘create public opinion.’”

“Before and during the Soviet era, there were Soviet doctors here, and also Soviet teachers. Now show me one doctor or teacher from the USA or UK based in the Afghan countryside! Russians were everywhere, and I still even remember some names: Lyudmila Nikolayevna… Show me one Western doctor or nurse based here now. Before, Russian doctors and nurses were working all over the country, and their salaries were so low… They spent half on their own living expenses, and the other half they distributed amongst our poor… Now look what the Americans and Europeans are doing: they all came here to make money!”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/03/afghanistans-lies-myths-and-legends/

I think you have been reading too much Counterpunch and their anti-American writers like the Russian propagandist who wrote the article you cite.
His last article and book where written in celebration of the Russian Revolution; An event that led to the killing of 50 million people and plunged all of Eastern Europe into darkness. I doubt this guy is a credible source on anything having to do with Russia.
But here is the source you asked for. I don't recall him mentioning the millions killed in the Soviet war of conquest.
"The Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups known as the mujahideen fought against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government, mostly in the country's rural countryside. The mujahideen groups were backed by the United States and Pakistan, making it a Cold War proxy war. Between 562,000[27] and 2,000,000 civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees,[28][29][31][32] mostly to Pakistan and Iran." Soviet–Afghan War - Wikipedia

 

[x-ray peat]

I think this may be a useful video to give some historical context to the thread

 

[Kartoffel]

reread my lost post. I've listed several instances of annexations by violence and gross criminal violations of human rights. The US doesn't consistently violate its own citizens basic human rights or annex territory that isn't theirs. The main beneficiary of the Iraq war is China who has swooped in to secure most of the oil contracts.
First off the invasion and annexation of the Crimea was not peaceful in any sense Russia Kills: Chronology of Russian war crimes in Ukraine but I find it interesting that you keep changing the relevant time frame to fit your argument. First it was the last hundred years, then it was post WW II, and now it is only the last 17 years. I will take your arguments more seriously when you try and explain the over 100 million people killed at the hands of these regimes and the ongoing violations of human rights they perpetrate everyday. Again ask any immigrant from China or Russia and you will see that there is no comparison as to which is the preferable political system.

not true. International communism envisioned the conquest of the entire world and there is no evidence that these countries have ever reigned that in. The link given by the OP alone shows Russian interests still extend far beyond their own immediate territory and include Europe and China. Moreover they both seek super-power status which by definition encompasses the entire world.
The world has changed quite a bit in the last 100 years ago when it was mostly made up of European colonies. Today annexation by force is considered an international crime whereas 100 years ago it was business as usual. Furthermore our conquests were colonies taken mostly from the Spanish Monarchy. What is absurd is to try to justify today's actions by the morality of a 100 years ago.

I think you have been reading too much Counterpunch and their anti-American writers like the Russian propagandist who wrote the article you cite.
His last article and book where written in celebration of the Russian Revolution; An event that led to the killing of 50 million people and plunged all of Eastern Europe into darkness. I doubt this guy is a credible source on anything having to do with Russia.
But here is the source you asked for. I don't recall him mentioning the millions killed in the Soviet war of conquest.
"The Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups known as the mujahideen fought against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government, mostly in the country's rural countryside. The mujahideen groups were backed by the United States and Pakistan, making it a Cold War proxy war. Between 562,000[27] and 2,000,000 civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees,[28][29][31][32] mostly to Pakistan and Iran." Soviet–Afghan War - Wikipedia

As I said, 100 years was a stupid timeframe for my argument, that's why corrected myself and chose 1945 or post-WWII.
- You don't have to explain to me that both China's and Russia's domestic history is written in blood. The same goes for the U.S. But we are talking about global peace and their role in
international relations, and we are talking about Russia and not the Soviet Union under Stalin.
- Even if China is a beneficiary of the Iraq war, they are not the ones that started and fought the war, so that's completely irrelevant.

- russiakills.com - excellent source. Completely factual and unbiased I assume, and I was talking specifically about the annexation of Crimea, not the Ukraine conflict as a whole. What
Russia did in the Ukraine is what the U.S. has been doing for the last decades. Support certain rebel groups and send in your own men in disguise.
- According to my own personal moral standards, the formal annexation of a territory, supported by 98% of the people that live there, is superior to invading a country like Iraq, killing
tens of thousands in the process, and then annexing it in everything but name. Yes, annexation is a crime, so is starting illegal wars under false pretext against sovereign nations.
- Oh great, a wikipedia article. Almost as good as russiakills.com Wikis source for the two million number are based on the difference in two different population surveys. Let's just assume
that this method is something else than completely unreliable in a country like Afghanistan, there is nothing in there about any number of people that were supposedly killed by the Soviets. Even if the estimated difference is accurate, it doesn't say anything about what caused the decline. Do you know how many people were killed directly by the Mujahideen?

- What daily violations of human rights do you want me to talk about and how do they relate to international relations? Did I claim that personal freedom and individual rights are superb
in China and Russia? By the way, there are many gay people who wouldn't wanna move to certain parts of the U.S. either, and if you consider how sexual and ethnic minorities were
treated in your country not too long ago, I would be careful with portraining the U.S. as the standard for individual rights and freedom.

- You talk about the threat of international communism in connection with the two countries. Russia is not a communist country, and Putin is everything but a Communist. China is communist only in name. You can relax, none of those countries will attempt to start a global communist revolution any time soon. It really seems like you haven't realized this yet. Communism is pretty much extinct. The last few islands of communism are rapidly dissolving. Cuba is opening up, and Venezuela will experience a regime change pretty soon. I get that this is hard to except for the average Republican/fox news watcher given that the evil communist has been America's favorite bogeyman ever since the first red scare in 1919, but you have to come to terms with the fact that the commie bastards are not going to overrun the earth in your lifetime anymore.

Edit: I appreciate that you post eductional videos on the subject, but I am not gonna waste half an hour of my life on Jordan Peterson, a guys who goes on and on every day about how the U.S. has been overtaken by evil gender-nazis and cultural-marxists. I can just watch fox news for bs like that, at least they make it entertaining. If you want to get serious on the subject we might discuss some Hannah Arendt. I watched 3 minutes of Peterson's video, and it took him only that long to say something that is completely false and ridiculous in his lecture. He states that every thrid person in the DDR was a state informant, which is just absolutely false, like many of the statistics that he just seems to fabricate out of thin air. The highest number of official and inofficial informants in Eastern Germany was 200,000 in 1978. Given that they had 16 million inhabitants, 1 out of 3 is a pretty large stretch of reality.

 

[michael94]

how is America free and prosperouswith how money is created through treasury bonds, quantiative easing, fractional reserve banking and loaning out money ( with interest ) that literally doesnt exist, ridiculous taxes with little in return, etc. Rofl. Real wealth is siphoned at every turn in this "free"country and the most degenerate parasites like bankers and insurance salesmen have an easier time making money than dairy farmers. Americans are stuck in a cycle of debt slavery because "freedom" cant protect them from their own hubris so the parasites have a field day. Now its so bad that blue collar workers cant even make a decent honest living and only a small percentage of all citizens can "buy" ( its never really yours with property taxes ) a home without a ridiculous mort-age. Loans arent even given out to people that would actually create wealth. Lies are the currency of the modern world. Sell Cell Sele. rinse repeat

As Richard Wagner said, Freedom is not a license, Freedom is the Truth.

 

[x-ray peat]

As I said, 100 years was a stupid timeframe for my argument, that's why corrected myself and chose 1945 or post-WWII.
- You don't have to explain to me that both China's and Russia's domestic history is written in blood. The same goes for the U.S. But we are talking about global peace and their role in
international relations, and we are talking about Russia and not the Soviet Union under Stalin.
- Even if China is a beneficiary of the Iraq war, they are not the ones that started and fought the war, so that's completely irrelevant.

- russiakills.com - excellent source. Completely factual and unbiased I assume, and I was talking specifically about the annexation of Crimea, not the Ukraine conflict as a whole. What
Russia did in the Ukraine is what the U.S. has been doing for the last decades. Support certain rebel groups and send in your own men in disguise.
- According to my own personal moral standards, the formal annexation of a territory, supported by 98% of the people that live there, is superior to invading a country like Iraq, killing
tens of thousands in the process, and then annexing it in everything but name. Yes, annexation is a crime, so is starting illegal wars under false pretext against sovereign nations.
- Oh great, a wikipedia article. Almost as good as russiakills.com Wikis source for the two million number are based on the difference in two different population surveys. Let's just assume
that this method is something else than completely unreliable in a country like Afghanistan, there is nothing in there about any number of people that were supposedly killed by the Soviets. Even if the estimated difference is accurate, it doesn't say anything about what caused the decline. Do you know how many people were killed directly by the Mujahideen?

- What daily violations of human rights do you want me to talk about and how do they relate to international relations? Did I claim that personal freedom and individual rights are superb
in China and Russia? By the way, there are many gay people who wouldn't wanna move to certain parts of the U.S. either, and if you consider how sexual and ethnic minorities were
treated in your country not too long ago, I would be careful with portraining the U.S. as the standard for individual rights and freedom.

- You talk about the threat of international communism in connection with the two countries. Russia is not a communist country, and Putin is everything but a Communist. China is communist only in name. You can relax, none of those countries will attempt to start a global communist revolution any time soon. It really seems like you haven't realized this yet. Communism is pretty much extinct. The last few islands of communism are rapidly dissolving. Cuba is opening up, and Venezuela will experience a regime change pretty soon. I get that this is hard to except for the average Republican/fox news watcher given that the evil communist has been America's favorite bogeyman ever since the first red scare in 1919, but you have to come to terms with the fact that the commie bastards are not going to overrun the earth in your lifetime anymore.

Edit: I appreciate that you post eductional videos on the subject, but I am not gonna waste half an hour of my life on Jordan Peterson, a guys who goes on and on every day about how the U.S. has been overtaken by evil gender-nazis and cultural-marxists. I can just watch fox news for bs like that, at least they make it entertaining. If you want to get serious on the subject we might discuss some Hannah Arendt. I watched 3 minutes of Peterson's video, and it took him only that long to say something that is completely false and ridiculous in his lecture. He states that every thrid person in the DDR was a state informant, which is just absolutely false, like many of the statistics that he just seems to fabricate out of thin air. The highest number of official and inofficial informants in Eastern Germany was 200,000 in 1978. Given that they had 16 million inhabitants, 1 out of 3 is a pretty large stretch of reality.

If you think that life under those totalitarian regimes would be preferable then I am sure they would be happy to have you. North Korea is probably taking applications for new anti-West spokes-models. However I doubt that you would like living there or in Russia or in China. I suspect that you are quite happy living in the relative comforts of your Western free-market democracy, under the protection of the Country you seem to hate so much. No need to say thank you but I am curious as to where you live that you have come to hate the US so much.

As for the dangers these countries pose, Communism was never a reality for any country. It was always the totalitarian dictatorship created in the name of communism that was the West's greatest threat. A dictatorship cannot survive indefinitely while the rest of the world is living in the relative freedom of a representative democracy. Furthermore their economies cannot come close to competing with the productivity, creativity and resilience of a free market economy. This will always lead to conflict and last time I checked these governments are all still totalitarian dictatorships. So yes Russia and China are still the west's greatest threats, not the US.

 

[x-ray peat]

how is America free and prosperouswith how money is created through treasury bonds, quantiative easing, fractional reserve banking and loaning out money ( with interest ) that literally doesnt exist, ridiculous taxes with little in return, etc. Rofl. Real wealth is siphoned at every turn in this "free"country and the most degenerate parasites like bankers and insurance salesmen have an easier time making money than dairy farmers. Americans are stuck in a cycle of debt slavery because "freedom" cant protect them from their own hubris so the parasites have a field day. Now its so bad that blue collar workers cant even make a decent honest living and only a small percentage of all citizens can "buy" ( its never really yours with property taxes ) a home without a ridiculous mort-age. Loans arent even given out to people that would actually create wealth. Lies are the currency of the modern world. Sell Cell Sele. rinse repeat

As Richard Wagner said, Freedom is not a license, Freedom is the Truth.

I bet your parents would say differently. Furthermore what country doesn't use fiat money and fractional reserve lending? In American you are only a slave if you think you are. There are plenty of ways to live as a free man here . The same cannot be said for life in China or Russia and in more and more Western Countries were hate speech laws have greatly curtailed people's freedom to speak and think.

 

[Kartoffel]

If you think that life under those totalitarian regimes would be preferable then I am sure they would be happy to have you. North Korea is probably taking applications for new anti-West spokes-models. However I doubt that you would like living there or in Russia or in China. I suspect that you are quite happy living in the relative comforts of your Western free-market democracy, under the protection of the Country you seem to hate so much. No need to say thank you but I am curious as to where you live that you have come to hate the US so much.

As for the dangers these countries pose, Communism was never a reality for any country. It was always the totalitarian dictatorship created in the name of communism that was the West's greatest threat. A dictatorship cannot survive indefinitely while the rest of the world is living in the relative freedom of a representative democracy. Furthermore their economies cannot come close to competing with the productivity, creativity and resilience of a free market economy. This will always lead to conflict and last time I checked these governments are all still totalitarian dictatorships. So yes Russia and China are still the west's greatest threats, not the US.

So now that you have run out of arguments you resort to the old "If you don't like it here, go to North Korea" argument. It's funny how conservatives like you always follow the same pattern. Again, when did I claim anything of the sort? I never said that life is better in those places, and I made it clear that we are discussing about international peace and stability, not individual freedom in those countries. You are trying to steer the argument in this direction because you are out of arguments. I also do not hate the U.S., I know that the majority of Americans are not to blame for the death and destruction that has been orchestrated by the Elites controlling the country. Your equation of criticism with hate is another lame attempt to avoid facts about the actual discussion.
You are right that there never was anything like Communism as envisioned by Marx and others in any of those countries. Soviet Russia, Mao's China, and Hitler Germany were the same thing, just in different disguises. Your argument isn't logically consistent. You argue that people are not free in China and Russia, and that their economies cannot compete with the U.S. (let's see for how much longer), but what does that have to do with their role in international relations? If civil liberties and economic performance were the factors determining peacefulness than the U.S. couldn't ever possibly have started any of the countless wars they did start. A country can be repressive and brutal, yet remain isolationist and peaceful, and on the other hand a liberal democracy can be extremely agressive and expansionist.
If it makes you feel better to think of the U.S. as the good policeman that protects us from evil China and Russia, I won't deny you that. But I personally don't feel like I am living under the protection of America, and I think that the world will be a safer place without your policing. Especially as an American you should be aware of the dangers of a corrupt and incompetent police force that is too heavily armed.
I live in Germany by the way.

 

[Such_Saturation]

What everyone is forgetting is that no matter how much bad America has done over its history, it has still produced the freest and most prosperous country in the world.

That's just because it's the one that won. What's your point?

 

[x-ray peat]

So now that you have run out of arguments you resort to the old "If you don't like it here, go to North Korea" argument. It's funny how conservatives like you always follow the same pattern. Again, when did I claim anything of the sort? I never said that life is better in those places, and I made it clear that we are discussing about international peace and stability, not individual freedom in those countries. You are trying to steer the argument in this direction because you are out of arguments. I also do not hate the U.S., I know that the majority of Americans are not to blame for the death and destruction that has been orchestrated by the Elites controlling the country. Your equation of criticism with hate is another lame attempt to avoid facts about the actual discussion.
You are right that there never was anything like Communism as envisioned by Marx and others in any of those countries. Soviet Russia, Mao's China, and Hitler Germany were the same thing, just in different disguises. Your argument isn't logically consistent. You argue that people are not free in China and Russia, and that their economies cannot compete with the U.S. (let's see for how much longer), but what does that have to do with their role in international relations? If civil liberties and economic performance were the factors determining peacefulness than the U.S. couldn't ever possibly have started any of the countless wars they did start. A country can be repressive and brutal, yet remain isolationist and peaceful, and on the other hand a liberal democracy can be extremely agressive and expansionist.
If it makes you feel better to think of the U.S. as the good policeman that protects us from evil China and Russia, I won't deny you that. But I personally don't feel like I am living under the protection of America, and I think that the world will be a safer place without your policing. Especially as an American you should be aware of the dangers of a corrupt and incompetent police force that is too heavily armed.
I live in Germany by the way.

What I am claiming is perfectly consistent. You just may not be as careful a reader as you think so let me try to explain it one more time. Totalitarian regimes are expansionist by nature because they can’t survive in any other way. First they need an external enemy to justify their right to rule in a dictatorial fashion. Furthermore, it has been proven over and over that a totalitarian regime cannot compete economically with a free market one. This is what leads to their continuous expansion and the threat to their neighbors. If unchecked the number of nations put under their control would only grow and grow. This is why I asked you if you would like to move to a totalitarian country because without the US or some other western power that is what the whole world would be. It is ironic that you are living in Germany, the poster child for an expansionist dictatorial regime.

This argument btw is not my own but was made by Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell. “Given two countries with equal natural resources, one a dictatorship and the other allowing individual liberty, the one allowing liberty is almost certain to become superior to the other in war technique in no very long time. As we have seen in Germany and Russia, freedom in scientific research is incompatible with dictatorship.” He then gives several other reasons but concludes with "For these various reasons, I do not believe that dictatorship is a lasting form of scientific society— unless (but this proviso is important) it can become world-wide."

The only reason China happens to be doing well for now is that they have liberalized their markets after years of repression but more importantly have been flooded with Western capital and technical know-how. Without our investment they would not be looking so rosy.


It’s not a matter of what makes me feel good or not, we are having a discussion of political beliefs. I just haven’t bought into the current revisionist propaganda that completely inverts the true facts of history. Moreover today it is also fashionable to hate the police but that only holds until you need one. Speak with someone from Poland or the Baltic’s and see if they would like the US to pack up and leave. I for one would much rather have the US not be your policeman but that as we both know isn’t up to me. I just think it’s a bit disingenuous to enjoy the security we provide while complaining that your protector is the threat and your threat is your protector. That is what is not consistent.

 

[x-ray peat]

That's just because it's the one that won. What's your point?

No, many countries have won in the past and still remained repressive and highly unequal in the share of wealth. My point is that before you continue to wish for the demise of the US, you should stop to consider what type of system would take its place.

 

[Kartoffel]

What I am claiming is perfectly consistent. You just may not be as careful a reader as you think so let me try to explain it one more time. Totalitarian regimes are expansionist by nature because they can’t survive in any other way. First they need an external enemy to justify their right to rule in a dictatorial fashion. Furthermore, it has been proven over and over that a totalitarian regime cannot compete economically with a free market one. This is what leads to their continuous expansion and the threat to their neighbors. If unchecked the number of nations put under their control would only grow and grow. This is why I asked you if you would like to move to a totalitarian country because without the US or some other western power that is what the whole world would be. It is ironic that you are living in Germany, the poster child for an expansionist dictatorial regime.

This argument btw is not my own but was made by Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell. “Given two countries with equal natural resources, one a dictatorship and the other allowing individual liberty, the one allowing liberty is almost certain to become superior to the other in war technique in no very long time. As we have seen in Germany and Russia, freedom in scientific research is incompatible with dictatorship.” He then gives several other reasons but concludes with "For these various reasons, I do not believe that dictatorship is a lasting form of scientific society— unless (but this proviso is important) it can become world-wide."

The only reason China happens to be doing well for now is that they have liberalized their markets after years of repression but more importantly have been flooded with Western capital and technical know-how. Without our investment they would not be looking so rosy.


It’s not a matter of what makes me feel good or not, we are having a discussion of political beliefs. I just haven’t bought into the current revisionist propaganda that completely inverts the true facts of history. Moreover today it is also fashionable to hate the police, that only holds until you need one. Speak with someone from Poland or the Baltic’s and see if they would like the US to pack up and leave. I for one would much rather have the US not be your policeman but that as we both know isn’t up to me. I just think it’s a bit disingenous to enjoy the security we provide while complaining that your protector is the threat and your threat is your protector. That is what is not consistent.

All very nice, the stuff you say about totalitarian regimes. But how is any of this relevant for this discussion? In comparison, neither Russia nor China are totalitarian regimes, desperately dependent on expansion. You completely ignore that the U.S. as a democracy has expanded more than Russia, China, or any other country in the world.
It's not Russia that has a military base in almost every country on earth. It wasn't China that subjugated all its' neighbours in Central and South America. The United States havent been so succesful because they are a democracy, they are succesful because of their unique resource availability and the hegemony they established early on over the complete Western hemisphere and the pacific. The U.S. was dependent on continous expanison just as the British Empire or Rome.
You are right about repressive regimes, you are just not able to see that in this regard the United States have never been much superior to the countries you fear so much. All of them are oligarchies that maintain the illusion of liberty and democracy. Do you really believe that U.S. foreign policy has ever been driven by the desire to protect the world from evil regimes? The U.S. never had any problems supporting mass murderes and maniacs, as long as they were pro-America. You had no problems with Saddam as long as he was fighting the Iranians for you, you gave him bilions and high-tech weapons to kill hundreds of thousands. You supported religious extremists in Afghanistan when it suited you, and any fascist dictator in Latin America was always better than some democratically elected guy, who dared to promise his people to use their countries ressource for the benefits of their people instead of U.S. companies. You're not studying history, you reading fairytales in which the U.S. are the knights in shiny white armor coming to rescue the princess.

 

[x-ray peat]

All very nice, the stuff you say about totalitarian regimes. But how is any of this relevant for this discussion? In comparison, neither Russia nor China are totalitarian regimes, desperately dependent on expansion. You completely ignore that the U.S. as a democracy has expanded more than Russia, China, or any other country in the world.
It's not Russia that has a military base in almost every country on earth. It wasn't China that subjugated all its' neighbours in Central and South America. The United States havent been so succesful because they are a democracy, they are succesful because of their unique resource availability and the hegemony they established early on over the complete Western hemisphere and the pacific. The U.S. was dependent on continous expanison just as the British Empire or Rome.
You are right about repressive regimes, you are just not able to see that in this regard the United States have never been much superior to the countries you fear so much. All of them are oligarchies that maintain the illusion of liberty and democracy. Do you really believe that U.S. foreign policy has ever been driven by the desire to protect the world from evil regimes? The U.S. never had any problems supporting mass murderes and maniacs, as long as they were pro-America. You had no problems with Saddam as long as he was fighting the Iranians for you, you gave him bilions and high-tech weapons to kill hundreds of thousands. You supported religious extremists in Afghanistan when it suited you, and any fascist dictator in Latin America was always better than some democratically elected guy, who dared to promise his people to use their countries ressource for the benefits of their people instead of U.S. companies. You're not studying history, you reading fairytales in which the U.S. are the knights in shiny white armor coming to rescue the princess.

Totalitarian regimes have everything to do with this discussion because that is exactly what you would be facing if it were not for the US. Read the OP's link again. Germany is targeted as being part of Russia's sphere of influence with the goal being your Finlandization. The US isnt perfect but the alternative is far far worse.

Moreover in many cases that we propped up a dictator we were doing so to prevent a Marxist takeover which would have been much worse. I am sure the people of Venezuela would have liked us to have overthrown Chavez in favor of just about any dictator who wouldn't have destroyed their country. It is you who are reading fairy tales. No country has clean hands in this world but there is an orders of magnitude difference in the deadliness of the US and the countries you think would be a good alternative.

Here is a more scholarly and reliable work on Afghanistan than the Russian propaganda you previously cited. Putin has committed similar war crimes in Chechnya, the Ukraine and most recently Syria.
Kakar, Mohammed. The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982. University of California Press.
"4. The Story of Genocide in Afghanistan
The claim of the Soviet Union that it dispatched its “limited contingent” to repulse foreign aggression proved groundless after the uprising of February 1980, when its war machine began to kill not only the mujahideen but also defenseless civilians throughout the country. Frustrated by the tough resistance and their inability to suppress it expeditiously, the Soviets embarked on a program of genocide.

Incidents of the mass killing of noncombatant civilians were observed in the summer of 1980, when the mujahideen frustrated the invaders in their program of speedy conquest. Three considerations prompted the invading army to resort to indiscriminate mass killing outside battle zones. Unable to locate the elusive mujahideen, the wrath of the invading army fell on civilians as well, punishing them for their support of the mujahideen. The mujahideen had to be detached from the people. As guerrilla fighters, they could not be a viable force without the support of local populations. Hence, the Soviets felt it necessary to suppress defenseless civilians by killing them indiscriminately, by compelling them to flee abroad, and by destroying their crops and means of irrigation, the basis of their livelihood.[12] The dropping of booby traps from the air, the planting of mines, and the use of chemical substances, though not on a wide scale, were also meant to serve the same purpose. Also, since the Soviets did not increase the number of their troops above around 120,000 at any one time, they undertook military operations in an effort to ensure speedy submission: hence the wide use of aerial weapons, in particular helicopter gunships or the kind of inaccurate weapons that cannot discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. However, although the total number of the victims of genocide was high, it was not high in each separate incident.

A common feature of the Soviet program of total war was retributive mass killing, which was their means of repaying tough resistance. For example, in revenge for the killing by the mujahideen of three Russian soldiers, the commander brother of the fallen captain led his commando unit into the city of Tashqurghan in April 1982 and razed the city, killing at least two hundred of its defenseless civilians.[13] A third consideration in the mass killing was the necessity of silencing the mujahideen before the Afghan issue attracted too much international support. On the one hand, the authorities prevented the entry into Afghanistan of foreign mass media personnel; on the other, it branded the freedom fighters as “bandits” and “robbers,” claiming that they “had sold their body and soul to the American dollars, the Pakistani rupees, and the British pounds.” Soldiers of the invading army branded the mujahideen as dushman (enemy) as well as basmachis (anti-Russian Muslim freedom fighters of Bukhara). This branding was intended to justify the extermination of the mujahideen because as “robbers” they were the disturbers of peace and social order. Another aspect of the genocide was the killing of civilians while praying in mosques, performing wedding or funeral ceremonies, forming sizable groups for any civil purpose, or engaging in the customs and conventions that constitute the Afghan social fabric. It would appear strange to think that the Soviets were unable to comprehend that these were peaceful and civic gatherings. The frequency of such killing made the Afghans believe that the Russians were barbarians (wahshi). The acts of genocide were the work of the Soviets, and as guides or collaborators the Parchamis as well as some Khalqis played the role of accomplices.""

 

[jaguar43]

not sure either but there are a lot of self-hating Americans who got that way from our Socialist/neo-Marxist school system.
.

Ray Peat himself has stated that he was a communist in the 7th grade. He said it in the interview Roddy At 15:14.

 

[x-ray peat]

Ray Peat himself has stated that he was a communist in the 7th grade. He said it in the interview Roddy At 15:14.

You may want to listen to that again.

 

[Kartoffel]

Totalitarian regimes have everything to do with this discussion because that is exactly what you would be facing if it were not for the US. Read the OP's link again. Germany is targeted as being part of Russia's sphere of influence with the goal being your Finlandization. The US isnt perfect but the alternative is far far worse.

Moreover in many cases that we propped up a dictator we were doing so to prevent a Marxist takeover which would have been much worse. I am sure the people of Venezuela would have liked us to have overthrown Chavez in favor of just about any dictator who wouldn't have destroyed their country. It is you who are reading fairy tales. No country has clean hands in this world but there is an orders of magnitude difference in the deadliness of the US and the countries you think would be a good alternative.

Here is a more scholarly and reliable work on Afghanistan than the Russian propaganda you previously cited. Putin has committed similar war crimes in Chechnya, the Ukraine and most recently Syria.
Kakar, Mohammed. The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982. University of California Press.
"4. The Story of Genocide in Afghanistan
The claim of the Soviet Union that it dispatched its “limited contingent” to repulse foreign aggression proved groundless after the uprising of February 1980, when its war machine began to kill not only the mujahideen but also defenseless civilians throughout the country. Frustrated by the tough resistance and their inability to suppress it expeditiously, the Soviets embarked on a program of genocide.

Incidents of the mass killing of noncombatant civilians were observed in the summer of 1980, when the mujahideen frustrated the invaders in their program of speedy conquest. Three considerations prompted the invading army to resort to indiscriminate mass killing outside battle zones. Unable to locate the elusive mujahideen, the wrath of the invading army fell on civilians as well, punishing them for their support of the mujahideen. The mujahideen had to be detached from the people. As guerrilla fighters, they could not be a viable force without the support of local populations. Hence, the Soviets felt it necessary to suppress defenseless civilians by killing them indiscriminately, by compelling them to flee abroad, and by destroying their crops and means of irrigation, the basis of their livelihood.[12] The dropping of booby traps from the air, the planting of mines, and the use of chemical substances, though not on a wide scale, were also meant to serve the same purpose. Also, since the Soviets did not increase the number of their troops above around 120,000 at any one time, they undertook military operations in an effort to ensure speedy submission: hence the wide use of aerial weapons, in particular helicopter gunships or the kind of inaccurate weapons that cannot discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. However, although the total number of the victims of genocide was high, it was not high in each separate incident.

A common feature of the Soviet program of total war was retributive mass killing, which was their means of repaying tough resistance. For example, in revenge for the killing by the mujahideen of three Russian soldiers, the commander brother of the fallen captain led his commando unit into the city of Tashqurghan in April 1982 and razed the city, killing at least two hundred of its defenseless civilians.[13] A third consideration in the mass killing was the necessity of silencing the mujahideen before the Afghan issue attracted too much international support. On the one hand, the authorities prevented the entry into Afghanistan of foreign mass media personnel; on the other, it branded the freedom fighters as “bandits” and “robbers,” claiming that they “had sold their body and soul to the American dollars, the Pakistani rupees, and the British pounds.” Soldiers of the invading army branded the mujahideen as dushman (enemy) as well as basmachis (anti-Russian Muslim freedom fighters of Bukhara). This branding was intended to justify the extermination of the mujahideen because as “robbers” they were the disturbers of peace and social order. Another aspect of the genocide was the killing of civilians while praying in mosques, performing wedding or funeral ceremonies, forming sizable groups for any civil purpose, or engaging in the customs and conventions that constitute the Afghan social fabric. It would appear strange to think that the Soviets were unable to comprehend that these were peaceful and civic gatherings. The frequency of such killing made the Afghans believe that the Russians were barbarians (wahshi). The acts of genocide were the work of the Soviets, and as guides or collaborators the Parchamis as well as some Khalqis played the role of accomplices.""

Totalitarian regimes have everything to do with this discussion because that is exactly what you would be facing if it were not for the US. Read the OP's link again. Germany is targeted as being part of Russia's sphere of influence with the goal being your Finlandization. The US isnt perfect but the alternative is far far worse.

Moreover in many cases that we propped up a dictator we were doing so to prevent a Marxist takeover which would have been much worse. I am sure the people of Venezuela would have liked us to have overthrown Chavez in favor of just about any dictator who wouldn't have destroyed their country. It is you who are reading fairy tales. No country has clean hands in this world but there is an orders of magnitude difference in the deadliness of the US and the countries you think would be a good alternative.

Here is a more scholarly and reliable work on Afghanistan than the Russian propaganda you previously cited. Putin has committed similar war crimes in Chechnya, the Ukraine and most recently Syria.
Kakar, Mohammed. The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982. University of California Press.
"4. The Story of Genocide in Afghanistan
The claim of the Soviet Union that it dispatched its “limited contingent” to repulse foreign aggression proved groundless after the uprising of February 1980, when its war machine began to kill not only the mujahideen but also defenseless civilians throughout the country. Frustrated by the tough resistance and their inability to suppress it expeditiously, the Soviets embarked on a program of genocide.

Incidents of the mass killing of noncombatant civilians were observed in the summer of 1980, when the mujahideen frustrated the invaders in their program of speedy conquest. Three considerations prompted the invading army to resort to indiscriminate mass killing outside battle zones. Unable to locate the elusive mujahideen, the wrath of the invading army fell on civilians as well, punishing them for their support of the mujahideen. The mujahideen had to be detached from the people. As guerrilla fighters, they could not be a viable force without the support of local populations. Hence, the Soviets felt it necessary to suppress defenseless civilians by killing them indiscriminately, by compelling them to flee abroad, and by destroying their crops and means of irrigation, the basis of their livelihood.[12] The dropping of booby traps from the air, the planting of mines, and the use of chemical substances, though not on a wide scale, were also meant to serve the same purpose. Also, since the Soviets did not increase the number of their troops above around 120,000 at any one time, they undertook military operations in an effort to ensure speedy submission: hence the wide use of aerial weapons, in particular helicopter gunships or the kind of inaccurate weapons that cannot discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. However, although the total number of the victims of genocide was high, it was not high in each separate incident.

A common feature of the Soviet program of total war was retributive mass killing, which was their means of repaying tough resistance. For example, in revenge for the killing by the mujahideen of three Russian soldiers, the commander brother of the fallen captain led his commando unit into the city of Tashqurghan in April 1982 and razed the city, killing at least two hundred of its defenseless civilians.[13] A third consideration in the mass killing was the necessity of silencing the mujahideen before the Afghan issue attracted too much international support. On the one hand, the authorities prevented the entry into Afghanistan of foreign mass media personnel; on the other, it branded the freedom fighters as “bandits” and “robbers,” claiming that they “had sold their body and soul to the American dollars, the Pakistani rupees, and the British pounds.” Soldiers of the invading army branded the mujahideen as dushman (enemy) as well as basmachis (anti-Russian Muslim freedom fighters of Bukhara). This branding was intended to justify the extermination of the mujahideen because as “robbers” they were the disturbers of peace and social order. Another aspect of the genocide was the killing of civilians while praying in mosques, performing wedding or funeral ceremonies, forming sizable groups for any civil purpose, or engaging in the customs and conventions that constitute the Afghan social fabric. It would appear strange to think that the Soviets were unable to comprehend that these were peaceful and civic gatherings. The frequency of such killing made the Afghans believe that the Russians were barbarians (wahshi). The acts of genocide were the work of the Soviets, and as guides or collaborators the Parchamis as well as some Khalqis played the role of accomplices.""

Sure, the people in Venezuela wanted you to get rid of Chavez for them so much that they elected him in free and fair elections....four times.
Ah ok, Russia wants to Finlandize us (sigh). I don't even want to know what that is supposed to mean. It doesn't matter what some guy writes in a book. You don't have a shred of evidence that that what this person writes has any causal influence on the current Russian government. Do you think that everything any ex-American politicians wrote in a book is a guiding principle of the current administratuion.

 

[dbh25]

And rightly so. The biggest geopolitical threat is, and has been for the last 100 years, the United States. No other country has started more illegal wars, overthrown more democratically elected governments, destabilized more countries and entire regions, and built a surveillance aparatus that aims for nothing less the global controll of all information.

@Potato/Kartoffel
Are you German?

 

[Kartoffel]

@Potato/Kartoffel
Are you German?

Ja.

 

[dbh25]

Ja.

When you were in school, were you taught world history? Around 1939-1945

 

[x-ray peat]

Sure, the people in Venezuela wanted you to get rid of Chavez for them so much that they elected him in free and fair elections....four times.

You completely missed my point. Socialists/Marxists look at elections as a means to end, and something to discard once they seize power. This is exactly what happened in Venezuela and is what many, though not all, of our interventions during the Cold War were intended to prevent.

Ah ok, Russia wants to Finlandize us (sigh). I don't even want to know what that is supposed to mean. It doesn't matter what some guy writes in a book. You don't have a shred of evidence that that what this person writes has any causal influence on the current Russian government. Do you think that everything any ex-American politicians wrote in a book is a guiding principle of the current administratuion.

It would really help if you were actually to read the OP's link before you try to tear it apart. All the evidence you want is given in the extensively sourced article. You would even have understood what is meant to say Russia's goal is to Finlandize all of Europe.