Comments by "Stephen Jenkins" (@stephenjenkins7971) on "When North Korea tried to hijack the US dollar" video.
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@AeneasGemini I know the 'why', I just don't care for it as a decent reasoning to dominate over the region.
Eastern Europe would always be an enemy to the US if it abandons them; leading to an ever-present danger to the US if Russia ever turns against the US in the future. Your premise is based on the idea that Russia will ever be a consistent ally, which is just never the case for authoritarian states. If Russia was an actual democracy, then at least the topic of stable allies can come; but that's not the case. Nor is it ever a good idea to destroy your reputation for a foreign power to begin with -it'll be almost impossible for the US to maintain its alliances with anyone if it just gives up Eastern Europe since that throws its credibility to the dirt.
Even assuming that the US can get Russia as an ally, it really isn't worth it. Russia itself is hardly a stable political entity with its government revolving around Putin, meaning that it will remain stable only so far that Putin remains in power. If he dies, then it's anyone's guess as to what happens. There's also its economy and military prowess which are hardly so impressive as to throw away the US' credibility for.
Having CCP investments is not "being in Chinese influence". It's the beginnings of it, but hardly literal, and many of those countries are beginning to reject it.
Just because China is encroaching on Russian interest doesn't mean that the US should backstab its allies for Russia to get it on its side. The cards are with the US when it comes to Eastern Europe, and Chinese ambitions aren't getting weaker -it's up to Russia to choose to abandon its ambitions in the west or focus on the east. I want no more territorial takeovers in the 21st century.
American and Russian interests only intersect with China, little else. And seeing as the US got China on its side via investments and tariff-free trade built the CCP up in the first place to give it these delusions of grandeur, I'm not so eager to help Russia and possibly build up another future rival when it can simply be nipped in the bud by not letting them get domination over Eastern Europe. The US' East Asian allies are more than enough to keep China under wraps without breaking US power for Russia. This is not the 19th century where Russia was considered the US' greatest ally in Europe -things have changed a lot.
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@ArawnOfAnnwn First of all, your bias is clear as day when the citation you provided came from Salon whom is a big Left-wing site that criticizes the US for its mere existence. Evidenced by the cite this post itself utilized being from AlterNet.org which itself is hyper left-wing and has extremely mixed reporting. Though to be fair to Salon, that's their right. That doesn't make them the most accurate on such topics though. Salon is first and foremost uber-progressive/critical when it comes to the US, but super tolerant when it comes to foreign dictators. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/alternet/
https://www.adfontesmedia.com/alternet-bias-and-reliability/
Most reports on the Iraq War put the number at 300,000 deaths, of which 33% was caused by the Coalition, I believe. Either way, deaths from a conflict that were not initiated on purpose is hardly comparable to an intentional attempt at erasing a people from existence.
As for China? The term genocide is used to describe a concerted government attempt to erase a people from existence, it doesn't need gas chambers; it just needs mass surveillance, re-education camps, brutal suppression of culture, etc. It's literally like what occurred to the Native Americans in the modern day. And this was an opinion shared by numerous human rights organizations.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/19/break-their-lineage-break-their-roots/chinas-crimes-against-humanity-targeting
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-repression-uyghurs-xinjiang
https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/china/report-china/
Inb4 you say these are "Anti-Chinese" or something; these international organizations are based in the West, but do not receive Western government support and are often as critical to Western nations, if not more so due to the nature of free media. A sharp contrast to a site like Salon that ignores what goes on outside of the US' borders routinely to complain about micro-aggressions.
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@ArawnOfAnnwn Except that's my point. he biased media you chose to cite and/or believe chose to use the source with the highest count for the Iraq War deaths specifically because that's their political agenda. The Lancet Report has been heavily criticized precisely because of this as it exceeds the UN and Iraqi government's reports on the matter.
The Native American population didn't actually regress much Post-1776. Most of the Native American deaths occurred during the European conquests. But hey, if you wanna talk about mass murders over 200 years ago, I can bring up China's if you want? But nah, best on focus on Post-WW2 history which is usually considered contemporary history.
Well, if we're talking about China and comparing all of its acts to the US, then China still has between 15-55 million at a minimum and mostly cited as 30 million. Fact is that China has only recently regained its ability to act outside from its borders, so even comparing the two states is iffy -but criticizing domestic oppressive action is hardly comparable to the Iraq War anyway. It's not like I'm bringing up the CCP invasion of North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, or Tibet.
Taiwan is thriving because it traded with the West and was protected by it, much like South Korea was. Cuba is not thriving because it followed a failed ideology and became an enemy to the most powerful country on the planet that can get away with things that most cannot. China didn't invade Taiwan because it couldn't, not because it was particularly peaceful. It's contemporary history kinda makes that obvious.
Well, the US' excuse was that it just fought a major war against the fascists and htey proved to not leave the US well enough alone; so intervening abroad was a better idea than just letting oppressive states take over numerous countries and resources to use against the US in the future. So backing anyone against the USSR was the idea. But at the same time, it's not like the US didn't secure and save lives at the same time; it saved South Korea, Japan, Western Europe, and parts of East Asia and Africa from colonialism too. So the US' record is mixed, while China's is...just bad, tbh.
True. A fair criticism of the US is its large prison population. That really doesn't change the fact that China is committing genocide though; having a large prison population is really not comparable to genocide by any sane human's metric.
China has uplifted a fraction of its own population. China lifting its own people out of poverty is what is expected of a country, and its size is not impressive since it occurred in a massive country to begin with; per capita, China just did what the other Asian Tigers did -it industrialized. Has China saved billions of lives across the planet through economic aid and planning? The US had. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/people-helped-by-us-foreign-aid/
Has China secured democratic practices from Fascism and Marxist oppression? The US had. Has China led the world during the most explosive growth of human prosperity and freedom in human history? The US had. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2017/11/30/why-the-world-is-getting-better-why-hardly-anyone-knows-it/?sh=6ee8fa2c7826
Does China secure almost all of the world's democracies from foreign encroachment? The US does.
Put frankly, no, China has a much, much shittier record in comparison to the US. The US just doesn't advertise it nearly as well as China does, and it shows. That being said, speaking of poverty, you realize that the US' poverty figure is hardly indicative of something bad, right? Because poverty level rises if one extra person with $1,000,000,000 exists in the US. Here are some facts about US poverty. Mind you, I agree it should be a lot better, but it's hardly quite as bad as you imply. https://www.thetimesnews.com/story/opinion/columns/2020/07/29/williams-us-poor-better-off-than-most/41733237/
First of all, we have little proof that the US even aided Israel to garner WMD's. In fact, all evidence points to Israel getting that information from France if anything, and the "West" is hardly united in foreign policy whatsoever. Look up the Suez Missile Crisis for funsies when you have the chance. Anyway, what you're referring to is a policy of the IMF which is paid for by the developed nations; it's not meant to twist a country's arm, it's meant to help a country get back on its feet before it defaults on its loans and destroys it's own economic credibility. If the IMF did not impose such rules, then foreign nations using it can and will utilize it ad nauseum for their own benefit. These aren't loans meant to improve infrastructure or help the local economy like China has promised. So no, this isn't a hypocrisy; one is a last-second save with hefty fines, the other is a silky promise that steals resources at the end in the fine print.
You realize it's hardly just Africa, right? Also, to be blunt, the guy you cited literally works for CGTN -a CCP propaganda news outlet. You may as well cite someone from RT News or VOA News as proof of your claims. Jesus, dude. Check your claims, you prove how completely bias you are. Now here's some less biased sources compared to the mouthpiece from a CCP propaganda news network: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/china-power-belt-and-road-caribbean-jamaica-1.5374967
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2019/0423/1045064-ethiopia-china/
"As a result, Ethiopians are cautious of future loans from China, as lenders tend to also acquire collateral of resource and possibly some sort of land, said Dr Niall Duggan, lecturer in the Department of Government and Politics at UCC.
Mr Duggan said that the government is now aware that this could put some Ethiopian land into the ownership of Chinese banks."
You wanna talk about a native African talking about China's relationship with China? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb1xcCUaZZU
Here's one. Mind you, unlike you, I don't believe that this lady speaks for all Africans; she speaks for Africans who share her opinion -because I ain't racist enough to think that they have a hive mind just because they're from Africa. I hope you have that ability too, since you sorta implied that earlier when you cited that guy making the speech to the University of Chicago.
Oh, here's another for good measure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01kZPU65Wnk
"You people" Yeah, that's definitely the issue here. Us Americans love hearing that we're heroes. It's not like we have an entire industry telling us how trash we are and how we're a plague, and entire propaganda news outlets dedicated to making the US look like the biggest hypocrite on the planet. FYI, the US media is quite varied, so this "state-fed propaganda" is not a comparison to the likes of, say, Turkey. Turkey is filled to the brim with Erdogan-backed propaganda that it was only after the Lira crashed multiple times that pushback against his policies began. Americans are quite divided on foreign policy and our own internal image; but we can agree on a few things.
Like the CCP being a trashy genocidal regime that needs to be contained to protect our democratic East Asian allies. We can agree on that. So can most of the world, I have talked to. I haven't really been to Central/East Asia, or Africa yet; but everyone else I have spoken to was pretty unanimous. Venezuelans are pretty sore about how China and Russia are stealing their resources, for example.
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@ArawnOfAnnwn US foreign policy has gone through a lot of shifts, actually. Being "aggressive" is a good general term for it, but how that "aggression" takes form is radically different from the Cold War, for example.
Well, like I cited before, the US' good acts kinda seriously outstrips its bad by billions of lives. And China's bad kinda outstrips its good...by millions of lives. At least externally.
A global poll which was obvious no matter how you looked at it. Only one country on Earth even has the capacity to be a threat to global peace, and that's the US. China sure as hell doesn't, nor does Russia. In fact, I'm surprised that poll isn't 100% on the US since that's really the only logical answer at all.
And no, I talked with English speakers in natives in Germany, France, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, the UAE. And Spanish speakers in Colombia, Peru, and Costa Rica since I'm of Hispanic origin. I have a buddy in Venezuela, and used to have another, but I haven't heard from him in a while so...yeah. As for East Asia, I've got buddies in SK and Japan whom I talk to, but they're Americans living there, and I get info from them. So not bad, I think. Prolly more than you. And yeah, most fear US power; it's terrifying to think that a single country can destroy another with such ease. But they also tend to do the "US bad...BUT..." and then mention another greater threat they perceive regionally or in the future. Usually with "Russia" or "China".
I really don't care if you're an Indian. I don't dislike China either; I just perceive it as a very negative thing for the world if its continues as its current political state.
You only get Sweden as the leader of foreign aid via per capita. And frankly, saving lives outside of your country per capita is nicer, but its the results that matter; not the attempt. Saving more lives is better for those who are actually being saved.
Yeah, no. Compared to Sweden, which hides behind the US' geopolitical order in the first place, it indeed is better humanitarian-speaking. But China is pretty much rock-bottom in consideration, while the US is actually quite high up the list. India is...yeah, let's not even talk about India.
Well, duh. India is not a US ally. Japan is. South Korea is. Poland is. India is a Russian ally, not a US one. So why the hell would the US stick its neck out for India? It's not like we trust Indians at all, but I won't begrudge your mistrust of the US either -it's natural. We're not allies even if heads of states assert it.
"Opportunistic and hypocritical as ever" Every big country is. Including India. I fail to see why that's necessarily a bad thing; as long as the end results are for the better. Countries aren't people. But if they were, as my citations noted before, the US has saved billions already and has done much to protect the democracies of the West -I don't mind being a hypocrite if it means doing that. I have plenty of criticisms of the US, but yours are just weird contrarian stuff in an effort to seem smart when in actuality it seems more like classic Indian Anti-Western sentiment than anything else.
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@ArawnOfAnnwn I never said I don't have bias. I do. But I try to keep a lid on it, and if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. My opinion has been shifted before. That being said, do yourself a favor and look up the definition of "genocide" in the UN. It isn't just about deaths.
The deaths of wars means a lot. But that doesn't mean war shouldn't happen. I'm pragmatic, if it takes 1 million Americans to die to end a regime that has killed billions, I wouldn't mind. If the US kills 100,000 people but also saves 1 million lives, then the US is still on the right track but should be doing better. I apply that to every nation, not just the US.
Okay, so we're sticking with the 2000's then? I was always using the contemporary time period since, you know, the countries are still relatively led by similar leadership. The CCP still rules China, the US government still has a similar mindset as it did Post-WW2. If anything, it's strange that you'd specifically only mention the last...what, 20 years? Especially when you bring up overthrowing democracies which really was like half a century ago. I was just trying to keep a standard here. But ignoring everything pre-2000 seems to me to be a copout. The people who lived in the 1950's and 1960's are still around, so that's not exactly ancient history.
The US' Iraq War, in that the active conflict between the US and Iraq's governments, ended within months. But the Iraq War consists of the actual conflict and the resulting occupation and reconstruction of the country of Iraq where instability inevitably occurs. This is a uniquely American way of looking at things since in China's conflicts, it does not at all consider the deaths caused because of China's actions. For example, China's war with Vietnam was in defense and direct support of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge -and that support was critical to maintain the Khmer Rouge at all. So its not hard to pin the 2 million deaths on China in that instance, for example; almost exclusively civilians too.
My point being that you don't need to fight a conflict far away from home to cause immense human suffering. As for the US being trigger-happy, it's a little difficult to take that seriously when you omit that the USSR's conflict with the US was hardly the standard. The Cold War was fiercely fought and if the US didn't fight, it would've lost and the world would have been subjugated by Marxist ideology. Maybe it would've recovered in time, but I consider that to be a relatively good thing much like the fall of the Nazi Party. As for the modern era, you're pretty ignorant if you think the US is so trigger-happy. The US' conflicts occur far from home to be sure, but it occurs close to US allies whom it has made throughout the past century.
And a lot of it Post-Cold War were hardly unjustified. Yugoslavia was committing genocide, and the US stepped in after many years of negotiation between the sides. Iraq invaded Kuwait, and it led to a US response to kick Iraq out. The latest rounds of wars were in direct response to 9/11 which was orchestrated by Al Qaeda which was protected by the Taliban -and the US' War on Terror occurred specifically due to a fear that a small group could gain access to nuclear or chemical weapons and attack the US despite being relatively safe from a literal invasion from other countries. In short, the US is not even trigger-happy, it's just reacting to external pressure like it always has as well as honoring its many alliance systems. India has always been isolated with only really needing Russia, so it has never dealt with such responsibilities, and China too in its own way has been isolated as well.
The only other nations that have the ability to act abroad and aren't limited by Constitutional limitations (think Japan) have in fact intervened abroad for their geopolitical interests. So no, the US is not even unique in this. I know you have this utterly simplistic view of things, but you need to get a better perspective of how the world works.
Okay, you obviously don't know how to use the word "terrorist". A terrorist is not some random racist nutjob shooting up a synagogue. A terrorist is someone who is a part of a political fringe that uses violence to push forward an agenda. So someone doing a mass killing for shits and giggles isn't a "terrorist", regardless of their skin tone. And the white people you mentioned almost uniformly did it due to mental illness or due to racist/sexist beliefs; but they didn't try to advance any political ideology. Meanwhile, terrorists bombings inspired by groups like Al Qaeda or ISIS specifically do so with a political motivation to do something like "stop supporting Israel" or "leave Saudi Arabia" or "accept extremist Islam" etc, etc. And don't try to co-opt this by saying "colored people". Blacks almost never get called terrorists by US government sources; the only group that has had that label thrown at them are Middle Easterners and the occasional European. Blacks and Hispanics and East Asians dodge it almost entirely.
Your point of labels is stupid, I'm sorry. But the entire point is a work of mind twisting. Like, you may as well argue that its "labelling" if people concern themselves over China's invasion of India's territory because "some people died, but more people die by Indian hands within the country all the time!". My point being that yeah, "people being imprisoned" is bad, but the specifics in why, how, and for what reason is what MAKES it so terrible. So no, there is literally no comparison between US prison systems and the genocide to the Uyghurs. Like, imagine if the US let go of its entire prison system today, and then imprisoned all of its Muslims for "re-education"; that's likely be far smaller than the current population, but it'd also be targeted and genocidal. One is clearly infinitely worse than the other, but you're so damn bigoted that you can't recognize it, sheesh. How hard is it to NOT want to be targeted for re-education???
Okay? Nothing of what you said disproves what I said about the US' aid helping saves billions of lives though. And nothing you provided points to US loans ruining nations either. In fact, almost all of the nations that received US aid (NOT aid from IMF, which like I told you, is an emergency fund, NOT meant to help investment!) have been doing well for themselves. And I already agreed with you that relative to GDP size, the US isn't the biggest; I already explained to you that more lives saves is better than less in absolute terms in this case, and while that speaks better for the likes of Sweden for trying harder, that doesn't diminish the US saving lives.
I'm sorry, what? Are you saying that a website advocating for something automatically makes it untrustworthy? Does globalcitizen.org have a literal vested interest in keeping US Aid going, or is it just their opinion that it's good for the world so they wish to maintain it? Because nothing I saw indicated that they rely on US foreign aid at all; and if they're approaching this opinion from a moral place, then them being bias, while to be wary of, doesn't mean that they're wrong either. If you had evidence pointing against them, then I'd understand, but you don't, so it's obvious you just don't want to believe them anyway. So instead, how about I provide more links backing my beliefs! https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-global-progress/international-aid-saves-700-million-lives-but-gains-at-risk-report-idUSKCN1MO0W9
^ This one is for the past 25 years alone!
https://www.care.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/US-Foreign-Assistance-Issue-Brief-2019-SCREEN.pdf
^A brief from CARE about the ill effects of lower US foreign assistance
https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/what-every-american-should-know-about-us-foreign-aid/
^A Brookings.edu study on Foreign Aid, and they're usually pretty good
So yeah, how about you provide citation that disproves my notion? Because multiple sources agree with me, and it's not like they're paid for by the US government to have this opinion. :I
Well, if the US in the last 25 years alone saved 700 million lives, then yes, that completely overshadows pretty much every US war in its entire existence. And that's not comparing the grand total of over 2 billion, I believe. You keep trying to "gotcha!" me, but it really isn't working. Might wanna work on that hate boner though, you're making a lot of assumptions about me that is more telling of yourself than anything else. 😅
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