What each of us sees as cohesive is naturally going to diverge, but it’s good to offer thesis statements and I did not, so let me do that here:
The US is a despot in how it treats other countries. It was a despot in the 20th century and it is a despot in the 21st century. Its crimes are innumerable and frankly still overwhelming if you just focus on the big ones. Nonetheless, if someone says the US is interested in promoting “democracy,” it is necessary to bring some of the obvious counterexamples to bear.
Lastly, if you aren’t familiar with this history, it’s perfectly fine to just be quiet and either research or do something else, but to make declarations means inviting those declarations to be attacked, and making poorly-informed declarations and then being incredulous about being given information is silly.
This is the first I’ve heard about the OAS. I don’t support the Trump administration and it sounds like they supported what OAS did, so I probably don’t support what OAS did. If that makes you feel better.
Hey, that’s something, but it’s worth mentioning that the Biden administration didn’t exactly offer reparations. Thankfully, the coup regime (under Jeanine Áñez if you want a term to look up) had already crumbled before Biden took office, but based on his other actions he would have supported it just as Trump did if it lasted a few months longer so it could see his Presidency.
If you oppose Trump for reasons other than him being crass, saying bad things, and personally engaging in sex crime (the latter two being real reasons to dislike him, mind you), then it’s consistent to oppose Biden as well.
I’m certainly not an expert on every US foreign policy action or every foreign policy action by every international organization. It’s hard to have informed opinions about things I literally just learned about. I can offer first impressions, but I’m guessing those will change as I get to learn more about it.
As I said before, ignorance is not a sin, but if you aren’t aware of things, don’t make declarations about them. If you don’t have any idea what someone has been up to in the past 20 years, declaring that they have never committed a crime in their life is not a safe practice.
First I’ve heard about this too.
OIF, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, is the official name of the Iraq invasion. It’s easy to remember because it was supposedly first called “Operation Iraqi Liberty” before someone noticed that that spells “OIL,” which is a much better characterization of what the US was after rather than “spreading democracy”.
I was talking about Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US fled Afghanistan and the Taliban won. Mind you, while I don’t like the Taliban, it’s better for them to be in charge than the colonial occupier the US had been trying to act as for 20 fucking years. If there is to be hope for Afghanistan in the dilemma between the Taliban and US, we must agree that the local force that actually has some stake in the country doing well is the better option.
You can see why I didn’t think you meant Iraq and Afghanistan given this. As an aside, it should be noted that the US government broadly does not view the case of Libya as a failure. Hillary Clinton (then Secretary of State, who oversaw the “intervention”) famously said with a cackle “We came, we saw, he died!” referring to Libya’s former head-of-state, Gaddafi, who she watched on video being sodomized to death with a bayonet while begging for mercy.
I can read the history books thanks.
Written by who? And for what institution?* We cannot be uncritical of something speaking well of the US merely because it got published somewhere and happened to be served to you.
*These are rhetorical questions, you might benefit from looking them up, but you don’t need to tell me (and if you mean school textbooks, you probably shouldn’t)
I don’t need to defend ever single thing the US has done wrong or what you think the US has done wrong to enjoy and understand the benefits of democracy.
Essentially, I am trying to draw your attention to what the US overwhelmingly is, despite your attempts to dismiss as mere trivia events that each killed tens or hundreds of thousands and impoverished millions.
You get scraps from this looting, I would never deny that, but for most of the world the US is a cancer and those two facts are connected. It would not have this loot if it was not pillaging it, and you have no say in whether or not it does if you are only following the “democracy” you applaud because both parties are the pro-war party.
US is certainly not perfect but it beats living in a dictatorship that’s for sure. I want the US to support and defend democracies. I don’t feel the moral need to disown my country because it has screwed up, but I’m not above criticizing it either.
These atrocities, committed without interruption or even a valid military engagement since the end of WW2, are not mistakes, they are not “screw ups,” they are the standard functioning of the US and inextricable from what it is. I don’t know what sort of conservative high school history courses you are operating on, but they have not served you well. That makes sense, because they aren’t made to serve you, they are made so that you will serve this machine that we’ve been discussing.