Comments by "jeppen" (@jesan733) on "Why Japan is Growing into a Naval Military Powerhouse" video.
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@unifieddynasty thanks, but I'm not a neocon and I haven't proven your point. I'm just clever enough to have my priorities straight. We have an ongoing sharpening of the contradictions in the world, after a calm post-cold-war period. America has kindof mismanaged that calm period and its very strong position, considering the fact that the geostrategic situation for democracy have rather deteriorated. The blame could at least to some extent be attributed to neocons' misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
My priority now is to support democracy, and however imperfect, that means supporting the the Western world and its institutions, led by the US. If the US turns inward, wars and authoritarianism will expand and the hope of a democratic world will diminish substantially. Also, this being a "client state" isn't that bad in the western world. Germany and Japan are tied much more loosely to the US, and their relationships are much more beneficial, than e.g. the Belarusian relationship to Russia or the North Korean relationship to China.
In the calm period, it was kindof understandable that a lot of people were very critical of US power, but it fascinates me that so many people in the west can't get over it (and themselves) now when the Russian empire fights a revanschist genocidal war in Europe. It doesn't make sense to not be on the side of democracy.
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@unifieddynasty you repeat my arguments back to me, as if you think I don't know what I've said, and then you engage in some fluffy rhethoric in which you hint that you have some arguments that you for some reason don't present. At the same time, you carefully avoid actually engaging with what I say, e.g. that Germany & Japan are more loosely tied to the US and has more beneficial relationships than Belarus/Russia and NK/China. You like your little labels, like "client state", "hegemon", "neocon" and so on, but obviously have your own sloppy and expansive definitions for them. And no, I'm not interested in you sending a list of countries that you feel are "propped up" by America. If you want to make an argument, try detailing what, exactly, would have been better in e.g. South Korea, Japan and Germany if the US had had a more hands-off approach. You can also come clean and explain whether you think democracies are at all justified in collaborating to fortify against dictatorships, maintain peace and order and also try to flip dictatorships to democracies, or if you think it'd be better if Russia and China spread their models and expanded their empires.
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@unifieddynasty you generate far more falsehoods and nonsense than I have time to contend with, so I'll just have to leave most of it unopposed and focus on the core issues of American influence.
"There is a reason that most countries polled in December 2013 by Gallup called the United States the greatest threat to peace in the world, and why Pew found that viewpoint increased in 2017."
Well, the latter reason is obvious: Trump. The former is not that hard to understand either: A toxic mix of chomskyism (leftist anti-americanism) and the propaganda of dictatorships.
" first defines war as something that nations and groups other than the United States do, and then concludes that war has nearly vanished from the earth."
For all state based conflicts including civil wars, the post-cold-war period has seen the lowest annual battle deaths in recorded human history as a percentage of the global population. We had the Rwandan genocide and now there's an uptick because Russia launched a war, but still.
"the United States military has killed or helped kill some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 86 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders"
The problem is that those numbers are reached by way of leftists running auctions: The one submitting the highest bid wins and his factoid will live rent-free in your heads, no questions asked. For instance, if I ask you to list the 50 foreign leaders that the US has tried to assassinate since WW2, will you come up with anything even remotely plausible? I think not.
"b--bing Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, not to mention the Philippines"
This is a gish gallop (not your only one). If we look at e.g. Libya, should Obama have just given a free pass to Khadaffi's tribe to slaughter the popular uprising during the Arab Spring? In general just give up on the Arab Spring? Because of course the US could leave all the meddling to Russia and China, but would that make the world better?
"The U.S. government provides weapons, military training, and/or military funding to almost every dictatorship and oppressive government on earth."
Yeah, I know. When the US tries to depose dictators, that's bad, and when it's collaborating with the lesser evils, that's also bad, and if it once sent a blanket and some encouraging words to someone, everything that happens in that country thereafter for decades to come is the sole fault of the US, because nobody else has any agency or responsibility. If the US just didn't meddle, we-the-people would promptly usher in an era of freedom, prosperity and democracy. Or do you even value democracy? Be honest.
"Japan, Germany, South Korea all you want, but you clearly do not know their history if you think America defended their freedom and democracy"
Defended and to a significant degree imposed, which worked out well.
"you are obligated to acknowledge that their economies grew because of various factors that overwhelmingly are not due to American intervention"
I think I'm not obligated, actually. Free trade, copying US institutions, the discipline that comes from accepting the terms of trading, the stability provided by US protection, the democratization and the ability to maintain a lower defense spending have all contributed very substantially.
"it is even the case since the 1980s with Japan and now with Germany and South Korea that it is because of direct American intervention that their economies are slowing"
Do dazzle us with your economic insights and explain your reasoning.
"America can be benevolent; but America does not tolerate peer equals."
How could Germany, Japan and South Korea with their low population counts ever become peer equals? And if you're right, why was China given the MFN (Most Favored Nation) status by the US for decades, giving rise to its very near peer equal situation now? Good that you admit that America can be benevolent. Would the citizens of North Korea be worse off or better off if it accepted US hegemony, you think?
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@unifieddynasty perhaps you didn't see my last comment a few days ago, or you don't want to answer. For the previous eventually, let me repeat it here:
"There is a reason that most countries polled in December 2013 by Gallup called the United States the greatest threat to peace in the world, and why Pew found that viewpoint increased in 2017."
Well, the latter reason is obvious: Trump. The former is not that hard to understand either: A toxic mix of chomskyism (leftist anti-americanism) and the propaganda of dictatorships.
"first defines war as something that nations and groups other than the United States do, and then concludes that war has nearly vanished from the earth."
For all state based conflicts including civil wars, the post-cold-war period has seen the lowest annual battle deaths in recorded human history as a percentage of the global population. We had the Rwandan genocide and now there's an uptick because Russia launched a war, but still.
"the United States military has killed or helped kill some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 86 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders"
The problem is that those numbers are reached by way of leftists running auctions: The one submitting the highest bid wins and his factoid will live rent-free in your heads, no questions asked. For instance, if I ask you to list the 50 foreign leaders that the US has tried to assassinate since WW2, will you come up with anything even remotely plausible? I think not.
"b--bing Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, not to mention the Philippines"
This is a gish gallop (not your only one). If we look at e.g. Libya, should Obama have just given a free pass to Khadaffi's tribe to slaughter the popular uprising during the Arab Spring? In general just give up on the Arab Spring? Because of course the US could leave all the meddling to Russia and China, but would that make the world better?
"The U.S. government provides weapons, military training, and/or military funding to almost every dictatorship and oppressive government on earth."
Yeah, I know. When the US tries to depose dictators, that's bad, and when it's collaborating with the lesser evils, that's also bad, and if it once sent a blanket and some encouraging words to someone, everything that happens in that country thereafter for decades to come is the sole fault of the US, because nobody else has any agency or responsibility. If the US just didn't meddle, we-the-people would promptly usher in an era of freedom, prosperity and democracy. Or do you even value democracy? Be honest.
"Japan, Germany, South Korea all you want, but you clearly do not know their history if you think America defended their freedom and democracy"
Defended and to a significant degree imposed, which worked out well.
"you are obligated to acknowledge that their economies grew because of various factors that overwhelmingly are not due to American intervention"
I think I'm not obligated, actually. Free trade, copying US institutions, the discipline that comes from accepting the terms of trading, the stability provided by US protection, the democratization and the ability to maintain a lower defense spending have all contributed very substantially.
"it is even the case since the 1980s with Japan and now with Germany and South Korea that it is because of direct American intervention that their economies are slowing"
Do dazzle us with your economic insights and explain your reasoning.
"America can be benevolent; but America does not tolerate peer equals."
How could Germany, Japan and South Korea with their low population counts ever become peer equals? And if you're right, why was China given the MFN (Most Favored Nation) status by the US for decades, giving rise to its very near peer equal situation now? Good that you admit that America can be benevolent. Would the citizens of North Korea be worse off or better off if it accepted US hegemony, you think?
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@unifieddynasty "I already gave you the exact article that contains full citations. I am repeating reputably cited facts. 😂😂"
If you want to feign being serious and reputable yourself, you should skip the emojis. It just makes you look like a child.
But ok, so you refer to a list with 40 rows that include 50 "foreign leaders" that the US has tried to assassinate, including bin Laden. For some reason it has two entries for Saddam Hussein, one of which includes both his sons. It also includes ridiculous and unproven claims, such as that the US tried to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. Also, it truly defies reason that the CIA would be so bad at assassinations that they essentially do only attempts, rather than actual assassinations. Further, the 7 "assassination attempts" listed after the end of the cold war all seem to be US airstrikes in wars. Incredibly weak, just as the rest of your claims. Again, these numbers are decided by leftist auctions: The most daring claim wins.
"America clearly does not have "dictatorship or democracy" as a criterion."
Post WW2 America isn't a monolithic blob of purpose and policy. 14 administrations have been in the White House since. Which is the most recent CIA assassination attempt of a politician in a democratic country, and who was the target?
"You've got something coming if you think America sends "a blanket and some encouraging words"."
Putinists regularly refer to Nuland handing out cookies among Maidan protesters as one of the major proofs that the US was behind the Revolution of Dignity, a.k.a "nazi coup of 2014".
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@unifieddynasty "Trump literally said America was in Syria/Iraq for the oil."
So to your mind, people believing Trump's lies were the reason global trust in the US plummeted, not his horrible character in general?
"Are you familiar with what Zaibatsus and Chaebols are? Are you familiar with the how unfree the economies of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore are?"
Singapore is number 1 in economic freedom on Heritage's list. Taiwan number 4, South Korea number 15 and Japan number 31. The US is at place 25.
"Oh yes thank you America for introducing the concept of mass international trade to all the places you took over. It's not as if East Asia was a centre of trade and wealth for millennia."
If East Asia had been institutionally better at trade and capitalism, it had ushered in the industrial revolution before the UK and the world would look completely different today. The tech was basically there.
"Those economies were built during their dictatorships."
Nonsense. E.g. South Korea has well over 10x the PPP GDP per capita now compared to 1987.
"Scraping the very bottom of the stolen Iraqi oil barrel."
You're just being immature, talking nonsense and posting emojis.
"American coercion > Plaza Accord > Japanese overcorrection > Lost Decades."
So there was an agreement, the Japanese did dumb things, and then there's coercion and everything is the US' fault.
"American coercion > a certain German pipeline that cannot be written"
NS1 was shut down and decommissioned due to a series of technical issues, allegedly. But in essence Russia chose to stop deliveries for political reasons. They wanted to put maximum pressure on Germany to break ranks.
"American coercion > sanctions on trade with China for American 'national security' > Korean and Taiwanese economy take outsized hits."
AFAIK, these countries have decent growth. It's not as if Korea and Taiwan are friends with China anyway. If they want to ally with China instead of with the US, they can.
"I aim to please."
I wasn't dazzled, to put it mildly.
"Your opinion of 'lesser evils' led to a certain unmentionable incident in 2001"
Well, and to the fall of the iron curtain.
"America's Middle East escapades for the past 5 decades"
I think GWBs mistake in Iraq can be treated separately.
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@unifieddynasty "Just a week ago, America's bloc cheered on a literal WW2 * in the Canadian parliament. 😂😂"*
The same immaturity again. Dude, you really need to do better. Gaffes aren't policy.
"Ever heard of the Monroe Doctrine? Cuban Missile Crisis? Manifest Destiny? Domino Theory? Red Scare? Y----- Peril?"
The world moves and changes increasingly quickly while you ruminate over the 50-ies, at best.
"Your wrong opinion is noted. America helped coup Ukraine."
America sent some encouraging words when Ukraine turned away from Russia in a struggle that culminated in a popular revolution.
"America regularly funds regime change efforts."
Again, flipping dictatorships and countering Russian influence is moral.
"America has been expanding NATO eastward despite their implicit promise not to do so."
The GHWB admin promised the Soviets not to, allegedly, and it didn't. Later, when neither the Soviets nor the GHWB admin existed, countries who wanted assurances to not have to live as slaves under the Russian Empire again were allowed into NATO. This was very, very good and a great success.
"Even the Minsk Accords were done in bad faith as admitted by Merkel."
This is Russian propaganda. If you investigate, you'll find Merkel did no such thing.
"Come on man, don't make me defend Russia with basic facts that I shouldn't even have to state."
I will make you do exactly that. This serves to reinforce my point that you're immersed in Russian propaganda and gullibly swallowing it without even understanding it. Russia easily manipulates the immature and morally stunted.
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@unifieddynasty "My point is that the region was already wealthy through trade without needing to be saved by America."
If they were already wealthy, how come the US dominated them? Japan was basically saved from itself by defeat, as was Germany. Now they're pretty normal countries, non-imperialist but economic powerhouses as US allies. Russia also needs defeat.
"There is something called 'cause and effect'. South Korea's economy now was expressly because of their dictatorship's economic planning in the 1960s-80s, especially pertaining to the rise of chaebols. Ever heard of Samsung and Hyundai and LG?"
So as a libertarian, you're saying that economic success comes from dictatorships' economic planning and oligarchies. Then how come oligarchies such as Ukraine and Russia, even before the war, performed badly economically, whereas alleged (by you) oligarchies such as South Korea, Taiwan and Japan does very well? It has nothing to do with Economic Freedom ranking, apparently, and on top of that, US influence is detrimental. So what's the explanation? It seems to me that you're just starting off with US hate and let every other thought be subservient to that. The fact of the matter, what you don't seem to recognize, is that Economic Freedom is very, very important, and gives rise to such competition, corruption reduction and business practices that heavily promotes broad wealth generation. And the US has clearly helped enforce such structures, and to this day acts as e.g. a corruption police.
"Defending US client statism by saying 'you don't have to pay for your occupiers' is pretty bottom of the barrel. 😂😂"
More immaturity. Dude, the US doesn't occupy NATO countries. They're allies and the allies are allies because they benefit from the relationship.
"So there was US coercion that caused an 'agreement' that was drastically in America's favour and not in the favour of Japan"
Prove there was substantial coercion. Also, why is it drastically in America's favor to not have an overvalued currency? Wouldn't that benefit all? The Japanese could endlessly send electronics to the US and get green paper in return, but why would that be beneficial to Japan, really?
"And Heritage rated Hong Kong's economic freedom as #1 from 1995 to 2020 even at the height of the protests."
So what? What are you arguing against, exactly?
"They are in stagnation lately. TSMC and Samsung are bracing for more American chips sanctions."
I don't see that stagnation in IMFs forecasts.
"No they can't. Not militarily. Their consent has been manufactured by America since the end of WW2."
What could the US do if they just pivoted to China and asked US troops to leave? Nothing. The US had to leave even Iraq.
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@unifieddynasty "A few more decades is nothing when compared to eventuality."
Not with the strategy of the Western world. We've been kicking the can down the road on China, North Korea and Russia, basically hoping that their regimes will eventually fall and that this will happen before their technology reaches such levels that they can basically destroy us and the world. With such a strategy, decades are definitely worth something; they're rather long time frames in which we can live in peace and prosperity and in which our enemies can fall on their own.
"The reality is that world conditions were ideal for China to open up at that time to fulfill the world's demand, first for cheap low quality manufactured goods and then higher up as well."
There's no such particular time.
"These are global, systemic factors, not active American policy."
You can argue whether it's active or passive, but your previous comment was that the US don't allow the rise of peer rivals, but it clearly did.
"America didn't "allow" it. China re-emerged. It was America's intention to use China as a perpetual low-cost factory and as a proxy against the Soviet Union."
There could be no intent on perpituity when China's GDP rose 10% annually for decades. It doesn't require a genius to extrapolate that. America did allow it. At the same time, you're painting America as this bogey-man that e.g. trips Japan over by a mere exchange rate agreement, but you don't think it could have put the brakes on a weak China dependent on access to world markets.
"I support greater international connectivity and solidarity."
Including letting Russia gobble up and genocide Ukraine and other countries in its vicinity.
"I explicitly already stated multiple times that I do not support whatever you think is Russia propaganda, and all of my statements are fact"
You do support Russian propaganda, you just doesn't recognize it as such. You think you're a free thinker and just well informed when you deny Ukrainian agency and says the Revolution of Dignity was merely a CIA-orchestrated coup. You exaggerate US negative influence in everything, deny the agency of others, doesn't recognize the good American influence does in keeping dictatorships and corruption at bay, and you're 110% onboard with the Russian propaganda's whataboutism.
"My sheer immaturity (presumably in the form of laugh emojis) comes from my inability to abstain from laughing at utterly ridiculous apologism of American belligerency."
No, your laughing emojis are usually accompanied by immature remarks.
"They're not lies when Trump decides American policy. And they're not lies when this is what America has been doing in Iraq and for decades beyond."
So your argument is that the US has always been as bad as Trump, but the earlier administrations have hidden it while Trump was so honest that people finally saw the US for what it was? Really?
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@unifieddynasty "*Why are you asking such a basic question? If you're talking 1800s, the answer is: gunboat diplomacy, the Opium wars, and the unequal treaties."*
So why didn't China do that to the US, if China was already wealthy?
"Are you aware that you can have reconstruction without turning them into a client state?"
I remarked that Japan was saved by defeat. The intent of that was to note that the Japanese system and people had a specific view of themselves and their place in the world, as did the Germans, as well as some central institutions, that all contributed to them being not-so-good to their surroundings. When Japan and Germany were defeated, those aspects of their societies changed for the better. Russia however wasn't defeated, neither in WW2 nor when the iron curtain fell. So it didn't reform neither its self image, nor many of its central institutions and now we see the results of that. So Russia needs defeat.
Then you're adamant that NATO members', Japan's, Taiwan's and South Korea's alliances with the US are clientship and somehow detrimental to them, but you haven't really shown it. You've filed a few faulty ideas regarding e.g. Nord Stream. To me it seems the alliances are mutually beneficial and voluntary.
"They would have returned to being "economic powerhouses" regardless of American hegemony."
Would they? Or would they have been nazi, communist or incredibly corrupt monarchies?
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@unifieddynasty "but you need to revisit the prior comments and figure out which one of us labelled me as a libertarian."
I did, and you're right, seems to be a mixup on my part. On re-reading, you seem fairly purely leftist Chomskyite.
"As a quick answer to why Ukraine's economy did poorly, it's because of the policy of "shock therapy" of rapid austerity and privatization and deregulation following the collapse of the USSR promoted by the west"
Noted. As usual, everything is the US fault, if it's not the fault of deregulation. However, state-supported chaebols sets a country up for prosperity. I'll try to remember.
"The highly partisan American thinktank, Heritage Foundation, can make up whatever arbitrary 'economic freedom' ranking they want, but it is irrelevant to the reality. Like I said, their ranking is about the ease of doing business on a given year, not about the political economy of the countries including their history."
There's huge inertia in what they're measuring, so it does include a lot of history implicitly, and it's not only the ease of doing business.
"Some former USSR bloc [client] states did well, and others did not. Some were able to control the corruption; others were not."
Essentially some managed to go to high economic freedom, and some did not. Like Estonia is number 6. In fact, like a coincidence, NATO countries seem to have managed it better.
"Also, there's nothing "alleged" about the dictatorships and oligarchies of South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan following WW2. It is historical fact."
I'm talking about their economical structure now, and I'm arguing that the reason these countries have done well economically is that they're promoting fairly efficient competition. If their economies were dominated by heavily state-favored chaebols, they would do worse.
"No, the US can be and often is a positive influence in the world. US hegemony is detrimental."
Fair enough. Everything can always be improved, and of course the world would be better if the US influence and military might wasn't needed. But it is, and if the US can flip a dictatorship or protect a democracy from a dictatorship, I'm all for it.
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@unifieddynasty "Then I call for a motion to allow all 8 billion people in the world to join the EU and NATO and for the organizations to have the fundamental democratic principle of 'one person one vote'."
That's kindof what I do as well. Or more generally, I think it's incredibly dangerous to kick the can down the road and letting dictatorships remain or even grow their empires. We should make sure that democracies never fail and are never subjugated by dictatorships, and that democracy expands. Once all countries are democracies, militaries will atrophy pretty quickly and cooperation will be increasingly easy and on equal terms. NATO expansion is working in that direction, making sure democracies in that part of the world doesn't fail. What you call US "hegemony" I see as better than nothing, a generally well-meaning push for democracy and better governance. You have a different view, obviously, but for sure we can agree that the US shouldn't do stuff that has bad outcomes. You claim to be principled, so what would you like to see the US do in Ukraine and the Middle East and what do you expect the results to be?
"I referenced the "Non-aligned movement" a while back. The world doesn't need hegemony to have peace and democracy and freedom."
The non-aligned movement excludes western world, pretty much, while it includes most of the dictatorships, including warring ones like Saudi Arabia. Its chairpersons is a parade of authoritarians with the previous one being Venezuelan strongman Maduro who's overseeing and permanenting his country's flip from democracy to socialist dictatorship.
The statement that the world doesn't need hegemony is a bit too abstract for me. I think US power does net good. I think Khadaffi power didn't. I think it made great sense for the US to at least attempt to support the Arab Spring in the hope of flipping a few dictatorships and ending Libya's detrimental influence in Africa. You don't? What would you have wanted Europe and the US to do about the Arab Spring?
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@unifieddynasty "Doesn't change the fact that they were dictatorships when they planned their economic model."
So it seems that the US can influence dictatorships to improve economic freedom.
"The World Bank and IMF were practically the only source of sufficient funding and they capitalized on this by prioritizing the creditor"
Laws generally prioritize creditors getting their money back, because otherwise banks would be less likely to provide finance and would do it at a higher cost, at the detriment of all.
"The conditionality of the loans were drastically in the creditors' favour and led to the dismantling of indigenous capital and sale to the first world. Wealth transfer from the bottom up."
Progressives tend to have these views, but afaik, IMF and WB generally have required debtors to get their acts together and improve free-market conditions in order to improve their long-term economic development. I think that's only natural and good.
"The 2008 Great recession was caused by an utterly corrupt American financial and banking sector"
It was caused by financial instruments improperly understood and government meddling e.g. in the form of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the former a New Deal creation and the latter a later update to the same system.
"America still has yet to set proper regulations for the sector"
It's impressive that you have knowledge deep enough to flunk the Frank Dodd Act that allegedly is over 800 pages and has spurred the creation of 8000 pages of regulation and rules in the impacted government agencies.
"The US "has clearly helped enforce such structures", and America as a "police" is about as effective in their handling of corruption as they are in their handling of systemic racism."
Good to hear, considering systemic racism is pretty much a non-issue in the US. Anyway, I work in a company that has been fined by the US and put under compliance monitorship because of corruption not really involving the US. The resulting overhaul of our company practices and culture goes pretty deep and seems to do its job. One could argue the US has no right to fine us, but OTOH, this self-appointed police is doing effective work.
"Oh yes they are, as aforementioned."
The US is ranked as the 24th least corrupt country in the world by Transparency International, out of 180 countries. It's score is 69 out of 100, whereas e.g. Mexico is ranked 126 with a a score of 31 and Venezuela a rank of 177 and a score of 14. So no, the US isn't very corrupt.
"Didn't I cite the full list several days ago and requested you to read it?"
I want your direct opinion. I trashed a part of your site of lists, the assassinations nonsense, but you didn't bother to defend it. You clearly has some perseverance when it suits you, so it should be easy for you to just list the 3 latest US coups that you oppose.
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