America: The Good Guys or the Bad Guys?

Politics and religion
242

Abu Gharaib was the exception, not the rule. And once it became apparent what had happened there, it was shut down, and all those involved were disciplined in various ways. Further, while entirely unacceptable to us, Abu Gharaib was mild compared to torture enacted by Hussein’s own government against its people, which had gone on for decades, and would still be going on today if Hussein were still in power.

That’s fine, if you want to say that “our torture camps were less bad than Hussein’s torture camps”, that seems accurate. It would be cold comfort to the people we did torture to death, or to the people that the Shiite’s tortured with our support, but it’s accurate. But it’s not really an argument for us being the “good guys”.

Upending a Stalinistic system that systematically murdered and oppressed its people is not something I’m ashamed of. If one good thing came out of Iraq, it was the removal of Hussein.
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If evil exists, he absolutely was it.

You might want to sit down for this, but for decades Hussein was our man. We helped raise him up, we supported him, and we gave him aid and intelligence and money, and we averted our eyes from or quietly cheered his massacres. When Hussein looked back on the lowest points of his 20’s, and only saw one set of footprints in the sand, that was where the CIA carried him:

Legacy of Ashes is also an excellent read on this if you get the chance.
The best case scenario here is that we incompetently and brutally put down a monster that we helped create.

Iraq was not a good place in 2002. Certainly, it had suffered from the repercussions of the first Iraqi war, but what should we have done then? Just let Iraq invade and take over Kuwait? Hell, even before that, Iraq was a fucking nightmare if you weren’t a baathist.

The US made a ton of mistakes in Iraq, but I don’t think they were guided by malice…

I think this is a good question and a good thought. You’re right that for the large majority of the people presiding over the invasion did not have Stephen Miller levels of malice and glee at the thought of human suffering. Instead we had various levels of ignorance, incompetence, arrogance, deceit, and venality combined with enormous power. It’s not good, but it was not maximally bad either.

As to what we should have done, if you’d like you can commission a study and I will go back, reload the relevant facts in my brain, and produce a detailed policy recommendation. My generic answer though is that we should tend our own garden as much as possible. We didn’t win the Cold War by rolling tanks through the Fulda Gap, we won it by having a half way decent, stable, and prosperous society that didn’t decide to just roll up and die one day. Ditto with how we “conquered” the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and Ukraine. It didn’t happen immediately, but eventually they had the chance and they bolted towards a West that was wealthier, more stable, and less corrupt. America should recognize that it is utterly incompetent at spy-craft and nation building, and in some ways even at fighting wars, and instead lean into our strengths (money, fantasy, technology). We should strive to produce a healthy and just society at home that will draw other nations to it. We should not pour out trillions of dollars and countless lives into the sand on the other side of the world. Sure, defend the borders. But also recognize that the old saying is completely true, “War is hell”. Each time we decide to start another war, we are poking a hole down into hell and asking Satan to come out. It’s not something we should do at a whim, and it’s not something that ever ends well for anyone involved. It let’s out evil into the world that flows down through the decades in countless major and minor ways. I know a couple of vets from the Iraq war, and even though they weren’t crippled or killed the war still took an enormous psychic toll on them. One of the vets was in my gaming group, and he was only able to get through life with alcohol, pot, D&D, naked pool parties, and three-somes with women who were way too young for him. What was my point? I got distracted. Ah yes. Invest the money in clean energy and self driving cars instead. That would have been a good idea.

243

Absolutely, and supporting strongmen like Hussein in the pursuit of some higher purpose was absolutely a mistake.

But that doesn’t mean that his removal was bad.

A critical aspect of that winning was being the force that prevented the Soviets from just taking over the world.

244

Yes, this is absolutely right. Talking about how we could have managed the illegal aggressive invasion and occupation of Iraq better isn’t even the right question.

It’s hard to believe we’re even talking about the same war. Wasn’t the explicit attitude of the Bush / Cheney / Rumsfeld triumvirate that after we removed Saddam, the Iraqis themselves should sort things out? Didn’t they disregard their own generals on the question of how large a force would be necessary to maintain order? Didn’t Rumsfeld dismiss the criticism of the chaos we’d created by saying that freedom is messy, that shit happens? Didn’t Wolfowitz create the anti-American insurgency by dismissing the entire Iraqi Army?

This is simply not true. Insurgents inside Iraq adopted the Al Qaeda label to create the impression that they were part of a larger organization, not realizing that by so doing, they were simply lending credibility to American official who called them terrorists and used the claimed association to justify the war after the fact. Apparently that sort of thing works.

Members of an anti-occupation insurgency are not terrorists, unless you think George Washington was a terrorist. Blowing up the armed and armored vehicles of the outside invaders who are illegally occupying your country and oppressing you is not terrorism. Fighting against a puppet government installed by a foreign occupier is not terrorism.

One more time: How can it be that directly killing civilians by invading their country aggressively and illegally is, in your mind, an extraordinary example of consideration for civilians? Why wouldn’t not invading and killing them be more considerate?

245

To me, this response avoids the question rather than answering it. If you ask me whether the US has sometimes been a force for good in the world, I will answer — unreservedly — yes. If you ask me if the US has often been a force for ill in the world, I will give the same answer. If you ask me whether the US should be engaged in the world, I will of course say yes.

Neither of those questions speak to whether or not the US, as a state, can be considered ‘good’, i.e. a moral actor. On that question, the answer is clearly no. As a state, the US is motivated largely by self-interest leavened with profound ignorance of other people, not by the desire for good, which goes far to explain its blundering. I suppose it’s true that the US helps to ensure that the trains run on time, but that can not be the measure of the goodness of a regime.

And I think the question matters. One can ask if we’re the good guys, and indeed answer in the negative, without suggesting we should exit the world stage. The purpose of the question and the answer it to make us a better actor on the world stage. E.g. Murdering strangers and their children in far-away countries using flying killer robots is not on balance a moral or even sensible policy. If we were to stop doing that, we would be less bad, and the shipping lanes would surely stay open.

246

This pretty much sums it up.

247

Since 9/11, the U.S. has spent $6 trillion on wars that have caused half a million deaths.

248

We play the good guys when it suits our own financial interests and routinely ignore humanitarian crises when it doesn’t. In D&D parlance, we are mercenaries, not paladins.

249

I’m sorry but this is complete crap. I don’t know what Saddam may or may not have done in the 1950 as a junior military officer and Baath party member. Frankly, I don’t give much weight to an anonymously sourced article from a 2nd rate wire service and journalist. I’ve seen no evidence that Saddam by his actions or words was ever a US man during that time.

But even if did meet with the CIA in the 1950 what really matter did is what Saddam after 1969 when in seized power. From that point forward, if he was anyone’s man, he was the Soviet. The same way that Castro in Cuba, Hafez al-Assad in Syria, and Anglo were. It is actually pretty easy to figure out which superpower influenced a leader during the cold war. If they bought Russian weapons, had Russian military advisors, traveled to Moscow, signed 15-year long trade and military cooperation deals, then they were Russian guys. Saddam Hussein did all those things.

Our guys, like the Shah of Iran, bought American weapons, traveled to Washington DC, and signed deals with Fortune 500 companies to pump oil, and build stuff. It is one of those chicken-egg situations, but a good case can be made that US tolerating the Shah’s autocratic rule (he didn’t start off as an SOB) was a direct result of the military buildup of Saddam.

During the 1980s, (the Iraq war was 1980-88) Iraq was by far the largest purchase of weapons in the world.
The US was 9th in supply weapons to Iraq (primarily unarmed helicopters) right behind Italy, and we sold a fraction of the weapons that Russia, China, and France sold. US assistance to Saddam, during the Iran-Iraq war consisted of supply 24-48 hour old satellite photos for the last year of the war. It ended as soon as we confirmed that Iraq was still using chemical weapons.

As the bigger question, I don’t think I have anything new to add that I didn’t say the last time the thread got necroed.

250

Good, Bad…we’re the guy with the gun.

251

I don’t think anyone could argue that the US, or any nation, is perfect. That’s why simply selecting flaws is pointless.

Instead, if we are talking about good and bad guys, it’s useful to consider who our adversaries are.

And compared to the US’s major adversaries, the US is definitely the good guy.

Specifically, when compared against those who the US keeps in check, like the Soviets for decades, and the Chinese, the world has better hope that the US wins out.

Because it’s not comparable in terms of the atrocities committed by those countries. Stalin murdered, at the absolute minimum, like 3 million of his own people. Probably closer to ten, with some estimates in the tens of millions. This doesn’t even count the 5 million deaths from famine caused by society policies.

Likewise, the Chinese have murdered tens of millions of their own people.

Probably the biggest difference between the US and those guys is that we are allowed to actually have this discussion, and our opinion affects the actions of our country.

252

I think you have your timelines twisted a bit here.

Firstly, the US and Iran had severed all diplomatic contact, courtesy of the 1979 Iran revolution, and the subsequent Iran Hostage crisis. Iran was no longer a friend of the USA - and had naturally turned to China and North Korea. Secondly, Saddam was no big friend of the Soviets by this time - a Soviet-supported coup d’etat attempted in 1978 had soured the relationship - though he continued to purchase weapons from them (and the Soviets continued selling them - of course - trying to maintain their leverage). Even so, Iraq turned more and more to the West, and re-established relations with the US in the mid-1980s - despite the US having clear evidence that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons.

As the link above suggests, that’s not at all true - quite the opposite, it points out that the US continued providing intelligence to the Iraqis, well knowing that this would result in attacks utilizing chemical weapons. And even if that was not the case, the public record speaks for itself - like when the US lobbied to prevent an Iranian initiative in the UN to condemn Iraqi use of chemical weapons - or when the Reagan-Bush White house successfully lobbied congress (and threatened to veto) the Prevention of Genocide Act (1988) intended to stop the continued loaning of money and oil imports to Iraq.

Saying Saddam was the man of the US for decades is certainly an overreach, I’ll agree with that - but there is no question that the US helped keep him in power and assisted him during the critical (and dirtiest) part of the war.