Comments by "Stephen Jenkins" (@stephenjenkins7971) on "Mobutu Sese Seko: Corruption and Murder in the Heart of Africa" video.

  1.  @Bludgeoned2DEATH2  Ah yes, because you can name a single regime that was backed by the Soviets that can be called "peaceful". Being anti-Marxist is like being anti-fascist; which is to say that its common sense.
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  2. He was already believed to be Marxist aligned, so while your rhetoric makes sense for the micro level, it doesn't make sense at all in the macro level. Generally; the West would not want to align with him in this time period.
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  3.  @Bludgeoned2DEATH2  That's what Marxists always say before they start oppressing people worse than the capitalists do; and conveniently ignore all the other peoples who were oppressed and then became strong outside of Marxist thought. Or ignores the Marxist nations that themselves were oppressed by...other Marxist nations. Either way, you're dumbing down the situation for your politics. The Soviets cared in the same way the Americans cared about Mobutu; they were a useful pawn. At least the Americans had some standards and didn't send tanks against their closest allies when they disagreed -the Warsaw Pact members recall very vividly what Soviet friendship was like.
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  4. They're nowhere near even the same concept. The fact you even made the comparison tells everyone how out of touch you are, Jesus.
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  5. The CIA never made a report like that, wtf. Everything it did in this time period was for screwing the Soviets, nothing more.
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  6.  @kwaynr1301  The world would undeniably be worse off, generally; the world massively benefitted overall from American interventionism due to the absurd amount of money spent on aid and trying to keep the peace in hotspots across the planet. You're very naive to think that the world would suddenly be better by removing one of its few stabilizing influences.
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  7. Also, generally OP is dead wrong. Mobutu was de an example of "Our son of a b*tch", but that only applied for the Cold War. As we speak, a US ally has been accused of attempting genocide in Ethiopia leading to US condemnations despite being a US ally. The US had backed off from Saudi Arabia after its war in Yemen, though has been forced to slink back due to the oil shortage caused by the Russian-Ukraine War. Generally the US tries to condemn actions its own allies does that are "too far" unless its too geopolitically costly now; which is why it helped toppled all of those dictatorships as soon as the Cold War ended. Of course, when it does, those same people cry that the US is being a hypocrite, so no matter what the US will get hated, even if it tries to take a moral stance.
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  8.  @kwaynr1301  Not at all, I'm just not a fascist or a tankie. I never once said that the US waged war to keep the peace everywhere, but that it tried to keep the peace in hotspots. For example; its only through US influence that more of Palestine hasn't been swallowed up or enveloped entirely by now; as nobody would want or be able to stop Israel due to prior mistrust of its Arab neighbors. The US is very much involved with maintaining the peace between India and Pakistan, and worked with much of Latin America Post-Cold War in their internal/external issues. Sorry to break it to you; but no country is motivated by altruism, but that doesn't mean that countries are motivated by power or money. That is extremely naïve; people generally don't think that way -they tend to have a framework of ideology to make sense of their beliefs. George Bush, the second one, for example believed firmly in the Liberal International Peace theory -honestly believing that if every country was a democracy that peace would become essentially permanent -which took part in his decision in the Iraq/Afghan War. Of course power and money took a part, but just saying "its all power/money" is naïve. If that were the case, then countries wouldn't fight so hard for independence from larger entities. Also, you reveal your ignorance. The US spends $744 Billion on welfare, and $721 Billion on military -and don't think I didn't notice you trying to use a specific metric like "welfare" to try and make a dishonest point. When a better comparison would be social spending; which the US spends $2 Trillion on. US invaded Kuwait specifically for liberal values; the US could have simply maintain its alliance with Saddam Hussein instead of turning on him for invading Kuwait. I can name another in the form of Yugoslavia, which the US initially aligned with against the breakaway states by arguing in favor of uniting under the Serb dominated majority instead of self-determination. It turned against it once proof of the Bosnian Genocide happened. And now, as we speak, the US is took a stand against Ethiopia, another ally for its actions in the Tigray War. The US has taken moral stances when taking the immoral one would have been advantageous, but nobody acknowledges them because its either not eye catching or goes against their beliefs. It isn't like I talk much about it either, but it lets unironic tankies like Chomsky spread their garbage without pushback. Eh, I began from the start saying that the US is not a saint or altruistic; it's a country -it can't be altruistic by design. But if you're going at this with "what did the US do that was good", then you can't talk about the US invading Nicaragua because that wasn't done in the name of good or evil -that was done for self-interest. The selfish reasons you noted before; and that by itself is not evil. Evil would be what the US did to the Natives in the Trail of Tears partially due to racial hatred. So if we're using your metric, we have to talk about actions the US did for evil reasons. No, a better metric would be "what did the US do that had good/evil outcomes"? Then your example of Congo would make more sense. Here's the "good outcome"; South Korea, Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Indonesia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Kuwait, Egypt, Morocco, Panama, Grenada, Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Israel, Jordan, and Pakistan. It should be noted that I'm roughly using "WW2 and after" actions and not really talking about general aid/coups stuff unless they were uniquely good/terrible. That gets more complicated and is a much longer list. As for times the US invaded with a bad outcome? That's; Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Nicaragua, Cuba, Brazil, Costa Rica, Argentina, Bolivia, Congo, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala. So that's 23 good to 14 evil overall from US policies. And that's from the top of my head, the list is prolly longer on both ends. And this list also doesn't go into specifics, like how Vietnam is generally considered a US ally now, or how Pakistan's relationship to the US soured. Seriously, you seem like one of those people that only ever look up the bad the US has done, never reflecting on the good -and that's as toxic as being a Fox News watcher and waving a MAGA flag around. Yeah, I said it, you seem like a reverse version of MAGA boys, at least that's my honest assessment thus far.
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  9.  @kwaynr1301  Sorry for the long comment, but debunking ideas is much harder than asserting them on the internet. :D
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  10.  @Austib_  It does. But the idea that it's unique and/or doesn't have a positive impact on world affairs is pure copium
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  11.  @dianeharris6695  He ain't wrong, I did too. :D
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