I don’t know if it would be fair to blame the USA for a war between the British and the French that happened worldwide, including North America, before our country even existed.
I had no clue what the “7 Years War” was, but I would think that most people would consider that the “French and Indian War” as it is more commonly known in North America.
I think I would classify that more as Britain and France’s problem, and not the bad of a country founded decades after the end of that conflict.
I found this article instructive in suggesting that America’s role in fortifying democracy worldwide, at a time when there were almost no democracies, shouldn’t be downplayed.
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/from-san-marino-with-love/
On the other hand, let’s face it, England was already on a pretty good trajectory at that point (at least as far as its internal government was concerned… in the meantime it was administering the largest empire in world history).
True they were much closer to democracy than theocracy at that point in history, but that was only if you lived in Britain, and not say. in India.
I think the ‘its complicated’ is a fine summation of any answer to these things. Let’s look forward a short while after the founding of the US, to a perhaps even more radical democratic regime formed by a former colony throwing off the yoke of their masters (in more ways than one)
Haiti
Was the Haitian revolution good? Was the French government, both the Republic and Napoleonic forms, good? Was the struggle for freedom and elimination of slavery and equality before the law the regime pushed worth the eventual radical turn that stripped white residents of power and property (granted a result of a set of very complicated interactions that, while you might saybwas wrong, it is also hard to say was undeserved)?
How about the US role in the conflict? Could perhaps things have gone differently had the US not abandoned a sister Republic in their time of need when called upon? The US, in order to appease slave owners not wanting to encourage slave liberation domestically, not only did not help, but participated in political and economic shunning that helped ruin the economy and prevent ever recovering. The fact we did not recognize them formally until 1862, and occupied and annexed them in 1915 for 20 years?
By all rights Haiti should have been a political ally. They were in many ways inspired by the US, but US actions and inactions played a role, we helped ensure the worst outcomes in many ways.
History is a complicated thing. Of the three factors I describe US, France, and Haiti in that conflict, I’m not sure any can be called good. Maybe the Haitians early in their struggle, but by the end the break down into radical racial lines pushes them into understandable, but not exactly good, lines.
Again, I feel like the truth is substantially more complex than our founding myths indicate. As Enidigm elaborates…a lot of it was just about money (i.e. taxation).
Obligatory:
Yep, the Brits got rid of it peacefully, and before us (1833.)
In terms of “good things after 1970” much of the development of the Internet was done with good intentions (it started out as a defense project, but didn’t stay that way when it could have.) Of course, the jury is still out on whether the results have matched the intentions …
Lol. I linked that in the NK thread, as this discussion made me think of that.
I mean the skulls are a dead give-away of evil!
http://www.specialforces.com/newsletter/2007_07/index_files/image020.jpg
uhhh…
hmm…
*starts loosening collar… yikes.
Unironic use of Punisher logo? Yeah…
The US is just… a nation, like any other. It has regimes that affect the world positively and regimes that affect it negatively. It’s certainly had a lot of success, going from nothing to global superpower in just a couple of centuries (I’m not sure at what point it actually gained “superpower” status – I can see arguments for pretty much anytime between the Civil War and WW2) and staying there. But I don’t necessarily think success equates to goodness.
Like all nations, though, we rise and fall. We’ve been rising and rising forever, but I think we’re heading for a fall. Trump is abandoning our allies, looting the country, and doing some real harm to American ideals. I think everyone else is starting to see us as a bad actor on the world stage. I think we’re going to spend some time playing second fiddle to Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, etc while they set the world’s geopolitical agenda.
uh i mean america fuck yeah
Yeah, the good guys that bombed innocent civilians just for the hell of it with incendiary and nuclear devices. Go good guys!
There were a lot of reasons, not all of them benevolent sure, but just for the hell of it was absolutely not one of them.
Was Dresden horrific? Yes. We’re there tactical reasons for it? Also yes (and it was for the same reasons as the London Blitz from the other side)
Was Hiroshima horrific? Also yes. But so would a direct invasion of the home islands.
Was one of those reasons also to more quickly end the war to prevent Soviet participation and a German style partitioning of Japan to help solidify the anti Soviet position post war? Also yes. And given how that broadly worked out for Japan I’m not sure that the speedy end to the war wasn’t ultimately better for them in the long run.
You know what the kicker is? Guess when Chinese people were allowed back in. 1965 (even thought the law was repealed in 1943, it didn’t really change till '65 or '68 because of quotas). Which is really just a minute or two ago.
As for the question overall it’s complicated like others say.
I do think there’s a lot of … distasteful geopolitical decisions made that the American people are mostly ignorant of. Let’s focus on more recent things because nobody wants to talk about colonial period, land grabs, and population cleansing.
70’s and 80’s: Has the USA been a force for net good or net evil in Latin America? United Fruit (Chiquita) legacy in Central America, Iran-Contra, supporting right wing death squads, not a good record.
Project Condor is a big black mark - supporting right-winged “strongmen” now infamous for throwing thousands of “communists” off airplanes and helicopters, children taken, others disappeared. The countries involved were Brazil, Chile and Argentina. There were even a couple of presidential assassinations of democratically-elected leaders (Chile.)
Middle East. Well, the good is all about securing oil supplies and trade passage in Suez. The bad is… Iran is a big one, they have good reason to dislike the USA government’s actions.
I think the public ignores geopolitical considerations and real politik. They don’t think in terms like that. They see images on TV, they feel good or bad.
As for bombing Japan, that was clearly a display of nuclear power to scare off the Soviets, and to secure the islands before the Soviets could. The “reduced casualties” seem like bullshit tacked on later on as an excuse.
Yup.
I suppose the better question is whether we’re on the more benevolent side of things right now, and I’d answer with a big, fat “meh.” The nation isn’t its governmental administration, after all. There’s a lot of good that people are doing across the 50 states which benefits mankind. On the flipside, we have countless profiteers looking to lie, cheat, and steal their way into power and prosperity (including Lord Cheeto and his clan). In balance, I think right now we’re meh.
I didn’t say we were perfect…
(I agree, by the way, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Tokyo and Dresden were war crimes. I don’t have a base of knowledge from which to critique the entire strategic bombing campaign, but always willing to hear new info on it.)
They were absolutely war crimes from any general definition, as far as I know (IANAL, but deliberate targeting of civilian centers seems to line up). Whether these actions saved more lives in balance is actually a different question (ends justifying the means, and what not).
Sure, and the ethicality is certainly up for question.
It’s the calling them ‘just for the hell of it’ I take issue with.
Yeah, agreed.
I thinking using nuclear weapons on Japan was the right thing to do. Because the weapons were so small and primitive compared to the nuclear weapons that came later, but they were damaging enough to show the world first-hand the horrors of nuclear war.
I think if we had not used them on Japan, if we had not seen the horrors of nuclear war, there’s a significant chance that a larger nuclear exchange would have occurred in the 50s between the US and the USSR using much more powerful weapons and causing much greater loss of life.