The United States has a history of foreign policy that can be some of the worst most inhumane actions you'll see. Manifest destiny, if you want to call it foreign policy, was genocide against indigenous Americans. Invading Mexico and taking land is another example of America's history thirst for land and wealth at the expense of human rights. Recently the United States invaded Iraq and Afghanistan in two failed wars which could not achieve their goals, since there were no goals. The mission accomplished banner will live in infamy as a clear distillation of these failures.

That being said, the United States has done some incredible things that helped humanity. One of my personal favorites is the Berlin Airlift. Working around the clock to save people from being starved by an authoritarian communist regime was nothing short of spectacular. Establishing NATO and helping to mostly keep the peace in Europe is nothing short of a miracle.

Note, these listed events are not conclusive and I would love for more examples to be explored in this thread. Small things or large things.

Many people have a desire to argue about American foreign policy. They want to avoid discussing the topic in other threads so they can focus on the vast complex history of the United States. I say this thread is a dumping ground for those arguments.

I think a good place to start is whether or not United States has been a force for good in the world since the end of WW2. I think that even with the bad things they've done, it's absolutely yes.

Does anyone disagree?

What is your measure of good?

Attempting to argue over definitions is the nut low of internet discourse. It's right next to calling someone Hitler. Do better.

Well I think it matters here. For instance the only metric the USA is good at is killing people. So by that measure, they are the best.

I really don't know. I consider things like expanding freedom or saving lives as part of it. Giving medicine to the sick seems like a pretty objective good, even though it is more complicated than that.

country that just killed 4m Iraqis is good at "saving lives". I think maybe you are stuck at an 18 yr old American education of the ole USA.

Congrats, Vic. After all these years, you finally have your Amerikkka bad thread!

I did some research and they think it’s about 1-1.5million.

Let’s do Syria next

Even when they've done good deeds it's been with the barrel of gunboat diplomacy. If we help you, you have to promise to open up all your markets and ultimately adopt as much of our ethos and way of life on your government and society respectively. To varying degrees across the world and at different times. And there's only one rotten cop in the room and it's the american cop in the room, surprise surprise.

Michael Parenti, in his yellow lectures, talks about how corporations strip wealth from other countries:



Then we have Smedley Butler, a general and at the time the most decorated marine in us history, saying the following:

America likes to steal things because it keeps on getting away with it because it's pointing a loaded gun or nuke or trade term changes or whatever until they get what they want, which is global cultural hegemony.

Which countries have done better?

United States of America has a pretty short history. The Americas were pillaged by most of Europe long before the country existed which set a precedent. There were some horrible European individuals like Hernan Cortes who slaughtered many natives. By the time USA existed good will with the natives was pretty much shot and some horrible atrocities were committed. Genocide occurred in US and Canada with boarding schools for natives that didn't end until very recently.

If you look at all of history through today's lens, all nations have done horrible things. It's odd to group entire countries together, because it's individuals who do terrible things. Many of the inhabitants of the US came as indentured servants or slaves and not everyone agrees on policy. For instance, some Americans would say using nuclear bombs was needed to end the war. Others would claim it's one of the greatest tragedies in human history. Yes the US has done awful things, and so have all other nations for the most part.

How many Americans travel to Mt. Rushmore every year? **** is very complicated.

All of them?

You have a very narrow understanding of history if this is your case for "some of the worst most inhumane actions you'll see."

You should read up on pretty much any history anywhere the last 10,000 or so, and you will see plenty of worse examples. I mean it is fine to try to be better. But this thing progressives do where they just have selective amnesia of pretty much all of human history, and make completely unfounded declarations of the US (or whites/Europeans) being some singular evil doesn't serve any productive purpose IMO.

The most perverse aspect of this is the narrative around slavery. Africa and Middle East were actively involved in slavery for several thousand years. Europe got involved for like the last 350 years, and then Europe unilaterally forces the end of slavery, and actually fights wars to get Africa and the Middle East to stop doing slavery. And now according to progressive revisionist history slavery is something that started in 1500 (or whenever) and is something white people and only white people have to atone for. It is just plain intellectual dishonesty IMO that serves no productive purpose.

One of these days you’ll break character.

Okay.

Progressives, wat? Pulling it straight from thin air.


Literally no clue what you're on about. I'd love to know what history you're referencing that says slavery started in 1500.

Generally speaking progressives fight for reform to reduce inequality which differs from the narrative of American Exceptionalism.

https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/

"The US was the overwhelming choice (24% of respondents) for the country that represents the greatest threat to peace in the world today. This was followed by Pakistan (8%), China (6%), North Korea, Israel and Iran (5%). Respondents in Russia (54%), China (49%) and Bosnia (49%) were the most fearful of the US as a threat."

"The survey methodology:

In each country a national probability sample of around 1000 men and women was interviewed either face to face (34 countries), via telephone (11 countries) or online (20 countries). The field work was conducted during September 2013 – December 2013. In general, the error margin for surveys of this kind is +3-5% at 95% confidence level. The global average has been computed according to the share of the covered adult population of the surveyed countries."

As you can see, these polls were taken in 2013, i.e., before Donald Trump. Somehow, I doubt the numbers have improved since he became POTUS.

We really blew up much of South and Central America. I mean, within many of our lifetimes.

I appreciate the few "good things" we have done, as mentioned in the OP and elsewhere, but they certainly pale in comparison to the litany of horrors we've foisted on the planet.

I hope that one of these days YOU will break character, from your constant corny and pointless snippy one-liner "owns", to your pretending that being a centrist type means that you're above the nasty partisan bickering others enjoy.

Leave politics to actual thinkers and get back on the country club golf course where you belong.

To Dunyain's points:

Personally, I don't think there's anything specific within the US government or general character which indeed makes it "some singular evil". All empires are evil, and some arguably more so than the US (although many of these empires are from ancient history, most before The Enlightenment, hard to compare across such disparate eras). It's not America's fault, per se, it's an inevitability when one nation accomplishes this level of military and economic power relative to all other nations. If there's profit to be made, those in power will do whatever it takes to make it, even to the point of mass exploitation, abuse, and murder.

Easy solution: dissolve all nations! Patriotism is a curse. Let's destroy the profit motive while we're at it. I don't suspect these ideas would be met with any resistance!

I am well read on history and the slave trade and the native american genocide is up there with anything else that's happened. I don't see anything in this post that stands as a reason why I am wrong. I know that slavery has been around forever. I know other countries have committed genocides. The united states doing both does not make them entirely unique. But it does put them in that category of powerful entities that have done both.


Overall I do think the united states has become a power for good in this world. But it would be dishonest of me to ignore the bad parts of our history.

right America is bad not bc of anything inherent. if any other country was global hegemen, they would be similarly bad.

Depends on what you mean by 'inherent' at this point. America appears to have an inherent desire for global control, more capitalism, more enclosure, more exploitation, more of the mindset that life is a game that you win by avoiding exploitation and demonstrating supremacy in whatever way is available to you, promulgating the individualist mindset, permanently operating from a point of view of international inferiority and superiority complexes, exceptionalism, jingoism, fear-based politics, libertarian media control, trammeling its society into classes and manipulating the working, the paranoid style that allows moral panics to recur at will and about whatever the opponent of that thing they need. In the time since it has existed, America has done its best to take over and kill the world - it is without rival the worst empire ever to have existed, the only one beating them just for sheer deaths / year perhaps the nazis. And all the while propagandising both its own citizens and the world into the most egregious case you could ever imagine of false consciousness, presenting this bully-like attitude of taking whatever they want as the moral justness behind a dog-eat-dog world. America the great. The best thing you can say about america is that it was pretty forward-thinking politically when it was founded, the morally dubious circumstances around its founding notwithstanding. Since then its legal system has been captured, large portions of academia appear to have done a decent job of remaining uncaptured but still find themselves facing a highly-funded network of think tanks that influence the centre of the current overton window and thus what is worthy of study, lower levels of education facing relentless pressure to ban books and the subject of idiotic local politicians and fascist mums being loud and angry, its media has been long captured, it's very essence is rot, it's very existence is a loud offence to all things good, it's entire truth just one endless lie.

not to sugar coat it too much.

We are talking about in recent times. Saying humans have always done bad things and looking back 10k years ago for proof is not honest.

Whoever is responsible for the wars in SE asia was evil. Whoever was responsible for the millions of deaths in the middle east is evil.

Would love to see the data on this. please show me accurate data on the slave trade and what common denominator you used to compare it to native american slavery.

As an aside, native american slavery has got to have many less deaths than european soldiers who were essential slave soldiers.

if any other countries killed as many people as we did then they would be similarly bad

I am not comparing native american genocide to slavery. I am saying both of things are historic terrible things that happened. I think it's not productive to try and say what is worse.

slavery is genocide buddy, and youre the one comparing them

"I am well read on history and the slave trade and the native american genocide is up there with anything else that's happened."

this is some weird line of conversation, they're two distinct historical events. I am not going to compare them to each other for you. I am not sure what you're even getting at here.