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In no case of Western intervention have regular citizens fared better. Afghanistan. Iran. Iraq. Palestine. Syria is being "governed" by a ~~CIA~~ Al Nursa operative and Syrians are rioting, despite a brutal crackdown and Israeli mass destruction.
Women are better off under the Taliban than under US occupation?
https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/afghanistan-1960-bill-podlich-photography-112__880.jpg
Before US - Taliban alliance
This photo is from the late 60s, so 25 years before the Taliban was created.
Because US intervention began with the Taliban. 🙄
If you want to only look at the US intervention in Afghanistan holistically, then sure, you can make an argument that overall it has been negative, especially given the disastrous pull-out.
But to me a "case of Western intervention" is not the complete history of one country's interactions with another - it can be divided into separate cases. US funding of the mujahideen was one case, and the US overthrow of the Taliban was another case. Not disconnected cases. But maybe this explains a point of view that you hadn't considered when you wrote your original comment.
The other issue here is that when you responded on US intervention in West Germany you seemed only to really focus on Operation Paperclip. But viewed from further out, that didn't really impact the BRD significantly in comparison to the huge effort put towards rebuilding.
It strikes me though that probably you didn't mean quite so absolute a statement, which to me seems outlandishly, unrealistically strong. There's no way you've done the level of historical research necessary to really conclude that with any great confidence, right? Surely you've seen a lot of instances of harmful interventions and concluded, "they're all, or at least mostly, harmful"? Maybe that'd be a statement a lot of people could agree with.
I think you have to look at overall outcomes not what it was like under the occupation. In Afghanistan things were probably slightly better in the larger population centers during the occupation for the average person and especially for women. In the rural settings things were worse from the constant skirmishes. And as we saw basically everything was reversed as soon as the troops left.
probably slightly better
US intervention created the Taliban
Yeah I know Afghanistan was really at the forefront of womens' rights before the American showed up
It was under the Soviets, not so much under the U.S. backed Mujahedeen/Taliban.
You manufactured the world you condemn.
'The world' is a bit more complex than you'd want
The Soviets didn't get to power democratically in Afghanistand, but through a coup. After the coup, in true Soviet fashion, the 'People's Party' started a wave of massive executions and disappearances, making the new government... not very popular. Most of the support for the mujahedeen actually came from Pakistan, with much more limited support from China and the US. But the latter became the best known because they supplied the manpads that finally broke the occupation force.
By this I mean to illustrate my above post in that the strong undercurrent of islamism wasn't conjured up out of thin air by the US, it was already there.
Sure a socialist revolution could have ultimately ended in better conditions for women, but in the same sense, the US occupation and transition to democracy could have provided this.
And, dare I say even on Lemmy: womens' rights are currently a lot better off in the countries coming out of the NATO side of the Cold War than in those that came out of the USSR.
That is no more true now than it was then.
Afghanistan was a brutal monarchy before a popular revolution. The PDPA was democratic communist government. That's when the West started arming Islamist, and why the Soviet Union invaded. They were objectively more democratic than a Monarchy or Islamist rule.
Now today, America arms over 80% of all dictatorships, including THE WORST FOR WOMENS RIGHTS.
Stop trying to paint imperialism and war as feminist. You already have shown you don't understand history or the modern day, maybe you don't know what's best for women on the other side of the world either.
It was about oil then, it's about oil now, and has fuck all to do with women.
Oil production in Afghanistan is very, very low. You'll have to look into the history of the Cold War to understand why the US supported the Mujahedeen. Neither they nor Pakistan (who, as said were the main supporters) seem to have been interested in Afghani oil.
You seem to want to make this into some USA = BAD argument while I'm mere pointing out that there was always a huge islamic antifeminist undercurrent. There's so many violently mysoginist men that they were able to throw out both the communists and the US, lol
Also, how do you see the PDPA as a democratic government? They just took power in a coup
Well, the D in their name for one. How do you create a democracy in a dictatorships without a "coup", as you put it? Bro. I was taught from a young age that the Soviet occupation was to secure access to the Middle East oil fields. That's true for them and not our occupation?
They call it the graveyard of empires for a reason. It's never not been strategic.
You don't make much sense with this top down backwards justification.
Well that settles it
At least it's aspirational. It was a warlord before.
Kind of, yes 😅. Only it was in the Seventies, when the US showed up and supported the radical Islamists.
Libya too.
Libya had better conditions under Qadaffi
Yup. Uncomparably better.
Maybe there's a lesson here for all of Lemmy's accelerationists
Maybe the better lesson is for those pinning their hopes on the latest, greatest liberal.
Japan and West Germany?
Maybe Vietnam?
Though that's a war that never should have started
No. Vietnam is most assuredly better off with communism. A lot of sexpats enjoy the low cost of living and services available.
Japan, who gets yen bailouts at US worker expense every other year; West Germans just helped the USA hide Nazis via Operation Paperclip.
Are either of those worse than the non-US-intervention alternative? How would it have been better for ordinary Japanese citizens for the totalitarian imperial government to be left in charge (and without US aid)? How would it have been better for ordinary German citizens to be hit with a second Treaty of Versailles instead of the Marshall Plan?
Without US-intervention, Imperial Japan was a regional superpower.
No, I mean after the US beat them in the war, would ordinary Japanese citizens have been better off if the US hadn't helped the country rebuild?
Japan, of all countries, categorically doesn't get to be lumped in with "intervention" given that they famously attacked the US, not the other way around.
The Marshall Plan was horrible for those under it's subjugation. Versailles was also USA rubbish.
Japan wouldn't have been needlessly nuked and the white man's burden doctrine seriously needs to be, since it's ever only a wealth and resource extraction policy.
LOLWUT? Are you seriously going to try to pretend average Germans weren't better off after WWII than they were after WWI (because treating them the same as after WWI would've been the other option)?
I can't parse this sentence. Did you omit a word?
No, I said it correctly.
From: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-united-states-of-war/paper (I'm sure you can search it up, if you CBA):
"In geopolitical terms," writes historian Alfred McCoy, the United States "became history's most powerful empire because it was the first, after a millennium of incessant struggle, to control 'both ends of Eurasia,' " with bases from the British Isles through Southeast Asia to Japan. To guard the empire, the U.S. military had 2.6 million active duty troops; 2,650 ships and 7,195 Navy combat aircraft; 15,000 Air Force fighters, bombers, and transport aircraft; and nuclear weapons ready for launch from the air, the land, and the sea.9 The growing nuclear weapons arsenal of the Soviet Union played some role in the base proliferation: more U.S. bases meant more targets and dispersed forces. The growing fear of a nuclear-armed Soviet Union likewise played an important role in governments agreeing to a U.S. presence. "Viewed from one perspective, this was an act of [U.S.] benevolence," writes foreign bases expert Amy Holmes. The United States was providing protection. On the other hand, other nations were ceding a significant degree of sovereignty to the United States (while also turning themselves into targets for Soviet missiles).10
In Portugal "the supersensitive question of Portuguese sovereignty was constantly being raised before our negotiators," reported Col. Lawrence C. Coddington, Air Force Deputy Assistant for Air Bases. "Every point of issue revolved around the question of sovereignty and were [sic] resolved only after lengthy discussions on many proposed drafts." Coddington acknowledged that "the agreement as written does not meet the ultimate in Air Force desires." But, he continued, "it must be kept in mind that the Air Force cannot hope to achieve its desired ultimate in operating rights in small foreign countries purely because of that country's jealousy over its sovereignty."11
The sensitivity of the Portuguese government about its loss of sovereignty was common among countries hosting U.S. bases. The rapid requests for the Yankees to leave after World War II revealed this. Even with growing fears of a clash between East and West, base negotiations were often difficult. Generally, they revolved around the degree to which U.S. forces would enjoy "extraterritoriality"—that is, the extent to which U.S. forces would be free from local laws, free from local prosecution for committing any crimes, and free to conduct military operations without restraint or consultation with the host nation. In other words, negotiations focused on how much effective sovereignty the U.S. military would have on foreign soil and thus how much sovereignty a host country would give up. Even with the United States' closest allies, such as Great Britain, sovereignty would long remain a "focus of tension," especially when it came to crimes committed by troops.
There's supposed to be a verb after that.
Also, I have no idea what the fuck you're trying to prove with those three paragraphs, since they don't even mention ordinary Japanese citizens once. Remember, the argument you're trying to prove is that ordinary Japanese citizens would not have fared worse if the US hadn't helped Japan rebuild and transition to democracy after WWII.
Shared verb. The topic you took issue with was the Marshall Plan. Are you high?
Oh, so you were trying to address the part about Germany, not Japan. I assumed the latter because I didn't expect you to go back to item one after starting to respond to item 2.
It also didn't help that your three paragraphs didn't have anything to say about ordinary German citizens either.
No I'm addressing the Marshall project, en toto.
So that's non-responsive to the actual argument I made, then.
🤓
You didn't respond at all to the challenge that US interference in West Germany was overall positive, via comparison to the post-WWI circumstances, which would likely have been replayed.
I'm glad an attempted genocide of communists, Jews, LGBTQ, Roma and others were averted, while also noting that only a few Nazis were stopped, and the bulk funneled into the USA, UK, Canada, Argentina, and other states. Germany is not in great shape and finds itself kissing the bigger boot for fear of retaliation.
What you seem to be saying is that you don't really like the outcome, because Nazi affiliation shouldn't have been ignored in Operation Paperclip. That's fair enough, and I think there are a lot of people who would agree. But that's not really what this is about - nobody is objecting to the idea that US intervention could have been better - they (and I include myself) - are objecting to the idea that it was negative. That you reply in this way, which avoids the fundamental question of whether it was overall positive or negative, implies to me either that you realise there's a problem with your original statement, or that you think any intervention that isn't perfect is in fact negative.
"Inference is hard. I quit!" 🤓
You certainly seem to have quit the discussion. What a waste of my time.
Japan's economy is collapsing precisely due to American intervention. The US decided that Japan was doing too well, and so made it destroy its own economy.
West Germany would have never existed if it wasn't for the US. It was a decision made strictly with the goal of dividing and weakening Europe.
IS there another Japan on the planet I am not aware of?
Yes in general (the initial bombings pushed Iran towards hardline IRGC governance), but also:
Wait really? Source?
https://t.me/syriajusticearchive/9877