| Plezbo said: You flat out said that America was far and wide the worst Human Rights violator on the face of the Earth. This is CATAGORICALLY false. I am not blind to atrocities that the US has been involved in, I acknowledge them and try to learn from them. Getting involved in the Afghan-Soviet War was not a mistake, not helping with the reconstruction was the mistake. The countries that you speak of would have fallen to the Soviet Union, and perhaps, that evil empire would still be around, which would be awful. One of the best things to happen in the 90's was the fall of the Soviet Union, and the extinguishment of Communism. The world is better off leaving that failed social experiment behind. Our mistakes in these conflicts was siding with whoever was against the Communists, not picking our allies better, but at the time we were under the threat of Nuclear Annihilation, both us, and the Soviets were in constant fear that the other would launch a surprise attack and the world would be reduced to rubble. It is easy to sit back and wax rhetorical now, but put yourself in the context of the times, the threat of Soviet expansion was real, and their intentions were to set up shop in the Western hemisphere for easier access to the US. A large base in South America would have meant Soviet troops had land to travel to the US, not two Oceans. America did what it had to at the time, looking back, do I regret that extremes were taken? Absolutely, but America is not always wrong, your blind hatred of our country informs all of your opinions. |
Well it depends on how you define human rights violators and how far back you want to go. If talking about the number of own people killed than the USSR wins hands down as Stalin was responsible for the deaths of many millions. If talking about how many 'foreigners' were killed then the US wins hands down as it has been in a lot more wars. If we take allies into account then US proxies also have killed many millions more then Soviet ones.
As for the Cold War, looking back on it it just seemed like a tactic agreement between the two superpowers were you had the junior superpower (USSR) that was in control of Eastern Europe (and Afghanistan in the 80's) and the primary superpower (US) that wanted to control (and I use that term loosely) most of the other parts of the world. It got to the point where if the USSR ever made any in roads anywhere no matter how small, the US would go ballistic especially if it was in the Western Hemisphere. Also it got to the point where if there was any 'problem' with a country such as it was becoming too independant of US influence than it would be described as a potential Soviet client and thus needed to be attacked whether directly or through other more covert means. So in effect the 'Russians are coming' became a great propaganda tool to use for foreign policy purposes. Once that excuse died suddenly in 1991 the Russians were simply replaced with Islamic militants, technologically sophisticated dictators and the Chinese. The Russians are back on the menu though.
