Who cares about all the people he'll hurt along the way amiright? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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Liberalism isn't just as defined by USA.
I can't say yet the ends justify the means. That depends whether what rises from the ashes is better or worse for the entire planet.
You can only say "ends justify the means" if you can achieve the ends, otherwise you loose. The whole point of the saying is that the reaching the goal is the only important thing, how you get there does not matter. We'll have to wait and see if the destination will be reached.
Actually, the whole point of the saying is that the ends do not justify the means. Not in that way, at least. Machiavelli was a much cooler person than people give him credit.
The prince who reaches his ends does not become justified in the moral sense of being proven right or just. They are not a 'good' person because they achieved their ends, even if the ends were noble.
They become justified in the sense of being absolved by society and not being held to account for their crimes.
In other words, "The ends justify the means" does not mean "the end was worthy of the means."
It means whoever wins in the end will not be held accountable for the means they used to get there.
What he says is true though.
Morality is not a law of nature.
I'm not sure how what you said contradicts what I wrote.
Yes, thanks for rephrasing.
I don't know whether it'll be better or worse, but either way it'll be weaker. Assuming Trump has his way, it'll be a long time—if ever—before America can throw its way around the world like it does today. The web of alliances (read: army of accomplices) it uses to bully the Global South into submission is irreparably broken.
Holy shit.
You wanna fucking remind me what significantly weaker imperialist countries like Russia do around the world?
The USA's vast diplomatic power is the least fucking objectionable thing about our foreign policy, and that's what's being dismantled. You think the fucking massive intelligence apparatus and the world's largest military is going to fucking vanish into thin air? Our most horrific imperialist actions have been done unilaterally, or near-unilaterally. We didn't need fucking Poland to help us invade Iraq. We didn't need the Aussies to help us bomb Vietnam. You think the US becoming a pariah state is going to help further US policy on that front?
Fucking insanity.
Jesus fucking Christ.
What's Russian imperialism's death toll in the last two decades? How many people live under Russian-supported dictatorships? How many genocides has Russia funded? As shown by Russia, significantly weaker imperialist powers cause significantly less harm, just as I said.
The US's vast diplomatic and economic power helps gain global buy-in and coerce support for those objectionable things about your foreign policy.
They'd have been a lot less unilateral if Europe had raised a stink about yet another refugee crisis happening in their backyard. The diplomatic power you're talking about is exactly why America can trash the world and nobody that matters says a damn thing about it.
Literal millions. Holy fucking shit, do you not remember the Chechnyan wars? Syria? The war in fucking Ukraine?
Sudan, Syria until a few months ago, the Donbass, Belarus, Venezuela, CAR, Mali, Burkino Faso, parts of Chad...
Let's see, we've got Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine. So that's three at minimum.
How many has the US funded in the past 30 years? Israel's?
"An imperialist country a third of the size and much poorer does less harm than an imperialist country three times its size and significantly wealthier"
Wow, very insightful.
Yes, of course, that's why we roped in Europe to support our invasion of Iraq.
... really?
You fucking think that in the post-9/11 fury we would have given two shits if Europe (checks notes) objected slightly louder than they already did? And now you're looking at a fascist regime which explicitly opposes outside economic influence and saying "Wow! Now those other democratic states will have so much more leverage against US imperialist policy!"
Fuck's sake.
"and nobody that matters says a damn thing about it."
Jesus fucking Christ.
Yeah that's a few hundred thousand tops, not at all millions. Also, since you brought up Ukraine: Russia has been in post-2014 Ukraine (so excluding territory they occupied in 2014) for three years and counting, while America steamrolled the Iraqi government in less than three weeks. It's actually possible to resist weaker imperialist countries, but there's nothing a country can do when the US knocks on their door except acquiesce or perish.
Fair enough.
Given Europe's reaction to refugee crises in the Middle East (including, you know, calling them crises) I'd expect a bit more than objecting slightly louder. As MAGAt are about to find out, the relationship between Europe and America goes both ways. If Europe had threatened to impose economic punishments on America, or hell even just stop buying US weapons like they're doing right now, even Bush would've had to think twice.
Russia in the still-ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War:
Ukraine:
And that's only for the ones they've been directly involved in, as mentioned, there are plenty of brutal civil wars and dictatorships Russia maintains support for a la the US and Israel.
Okay, so now that we've cut ties with Europe, how would that reduction in diplomatic power, which we have established as the only meaningful reduction in 'imperial' capabilities resulting from going full fascist, have reduced our war-waging capabilities in Iraq?
Go ahead. I'm very interested in seeing this analysis of how a hollowed-out pariah state up against the foremost military power in the world is comparable to a rotted military a third of its size up against a country materially backed by the entirety of the West.
Bush would've had to think twice because, despite being an imperialist fuckwad, he wasn't an out and out fascist with total control over his own party, likewise compromised of fascists.
You're going beyond the 20 year cutoff but either way that's still less than half the US total in the same time period.
Iraq was a hollowed out pariah state in part because of Europe following the American position. Also like I said, a strong European response would've lowered the scale of the war, if not outright avoided it. And since we're talking about Iraq,
-Wikipedia
That's a quarter to half a million deaths in one country caused solely by American diplomatic and economic clout.
Trump has total control over his party, but he still has people he needs to appease—including the military-industrial complex. I can't tell you what will result from the inevitable conflict between Trump and the oligarchy, but it's not going to be good for Trump's regime.
... how the fuck so
Casualties for the entirety of the 'War On Terror', including seriously wounded (and including part of the period, likewise, 'beyond the 20 year cutoff'), usually hover around 1.5 million.
If we're counting indirect deaths, then we have a lot of 'fun' things we can add to Russia's list.
... yes, because Iraq definitely wasn't a hollowed-out pariah state following the Iran-Iraq War, and certainly not following their widely condemned invasion which led to the First Gulf War. If it wasn't for America, Iraq would've been enjoying the full fruits of international cooperation just like it did before.
How the fuck so? By your own admission, it was over in three weeks. If Europe had completely embargo'd the US, it still wouldn't have changed opinions inside of three weeks.
First you're in support of sanctions on aggressive hypermilitarized genocidal states, now in opposition because of the human cost of sanctions.
Great. Glad we're dealing with such a principled and consistent stance.
Fucking lol.
Absolutely not, but the sanctions were excessively brutal considering that "The original stated purposes of the sanctions were to compel Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, to pay reparations, and to disclose and eliminate any weapons of mass destruction (WMD)".
The only mention in the article of hunger as a goal comes from the US ("Those in the U.S. who supported sanctions believed that low agricultural production in Iraq (coupled with sanctions) would lead to "a hungry population", and "a hungry population was an unruly one"), who is also the Western country that cares the most about the Middle East in the first place. Now that I think about it "solely due to US diplomatic and economic clout" was an exaggeration, but America still bears a lot of responsibility for the humanitarian effects of these sanctions.
Public opinion wouldn't have needed to change, because just the threat of sanctions would've been enough to prevent Bush from lying to start the war in the first place.
I support sanctions only to the extent they can achieve the desired effect without causing large amounts of harm to unrelated people. The Iraq sanctions had multiple UN officials resigning specifically because they weren't that. There was no need to kill half a million children to prevent Iraq from rearming itself. This isn't exactly a controversial position.
I mean he literally backed down today (or was it yesterday in America?), so clearly he's not unafraid of the economic effects of his policies. Or this is all just a front for insider trading. Probably the latter.
Your own fucking source:
Would you like to remind me what 937,000 is lower than? Perhaps a number like... 1.5 million?
As I said, if you want to discuss indirect deaths, that's going to lead to significantly increased numbers for Russia as well.
Again, from your own fucking cited source:
Clearly it is, as your own fucking source notes that it's controversial, both in terms of child mortality and in terms of efficacy.
The latter. If Trump was 'afraid' of the economic effects of his policies, the entire tariff conversation would look nothing like... well, what it does.
By how much?
Wait what? Nobody's arguing that they weren't effective, but that they were too much. Also while there's controversy about the scale of child mortality specifically, there's none about the idea that widespread civilian harm was caused. I mean more than half the country lost access to clean drinking water because of that shit.
Also again, the UNSC mostly doesn't do general sanctions anymore specifically because the Iraq sanctions were such a shitshow. If they were only controversial you'd see more like them, but you don't because they were too much for what they were ostensibly trying to do.