China and Taiwan: international relations and what it means for the United States

[Protagoras]

42 minutes ago, BTFD said:

What was it about Scottish football site Pie & Bovril that attracted you to sign up and specifically post about relations between China and their territory Chinese Taipei?

Between this and the Chinese university spamming, I'm curious about the meta tags that Div's using.

I wanted to see the perspective of people that don’t necessarily agree with American interests

[doulikefish]

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 hour ago, BTFD said:

What was it about Scottish football site Pie & Bovril that attracted you to sign up and specifically post about relations between China and their territory Chinese Taipei?

Between this and the Chinese university spamming, I'm curious about the meta tags that Div's using.

“St Mirren” is obviously Mandarin for “big juicy knockers” if said in a certain way.

[BFTD]

2 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

“St Mirren” is obviously Mandarin for “big juicy knockers” if said in a certain way.

According to Peter Molyneux, the first time he went to Japan for work, everyone was supressing sniggers when he was introduced because phonetically his name means "Wooden Tit" in Japanese.

I believe the St Mirren one more TBH.

[carpetmonster]

5 minutes ago, BTFD said:

According to Peter Molyneux, the first time he went to Japan for work, everyone was supressing sniggers when he was introduced because phonetically his name means "Wooden Tit" in Japanese.

I believe the St Mirren one more TBH.

Apparently his mum Bernice inspired Brian Wilson for the opening track on Pet Sounds. 

[BFTD]

3 minutes ago, carpetmonster said:

Apparently his mum Bernice inspired Brian Wilson for the opening track on Pet Sounds. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Protagoras said:

In my opinion the USA has only intervened in areas that it thought that it could help people have better lives. They haven’t attempted to take land out of greed, they have tried to protect other, weaker groups of people. That doesn’t mean we have always made the right decisions but at least we are trying to help

An interesting view. Do you concede that, in the late 1960s, the USA carpet bombed Laos and Cambodia, simply because the government at the time disagreed with their political ideology?

 

[vikingTON]

1 minute ago, Ken Ickie said:

An interesting view. Do you concede that, in the late 1960s, the USA carpet bombed Laos and Cambodia, simply because the government at the time disagreed with their political ideology?

 

That's far too generous.

The US government illegally bombed Cambodia in defiance of an explicit democratic decision not to expand the war, because Cambodia's policy of neutrality was unacceptable. There was no governing ideology to be hostile against.

[ClydeTon]

5 hours ago, Protagoras said:

In my opinion the USA has only intervened in areas that it thought that it could help people have better lives. They haven’t attempted to take land out of greed, they have tried to protect other, weaker groups of people. That doesn’t mean we have always made the right decisions but at least we are trying to help

Really...

Korean War - Whilst Korea was attacked first, the US didn't really have any reason to be there. It was part of a UN move to curb the spread of communism into Korea, and ultimately hinder China and the USSR's influence in Asia; remember the UN at this point was effectively the Western Allies of WWII.

Vietnam War - Protecting their own arses, in line with Truman Doctrine/Domino theory. The Vietnamese people HATED the South Vietnamese government for how they treated them, the Viet-Cong was as much of an anti-government/civil liberation movement as it was a communist one. Hint: If "helping the people", don't drop napalm on them.

Laotian Civil War - similar to Vietnam. Effectively a second theatre.

Permesta Rebellion (Indonesia) - Funding a rebellion in an effort to undermine the Indonesian Government (because of the Truman/Domino theory, Indonesia should have been next to fall) - the rebellion was rooted in feelings that Jakarta wasn't giving out money fairly, and also a bit of ethnic/racial tensions. Hardly helping by fueling that.

Lebanon - classic "help the government crush communist rebels"

Bay of Pigs - do I need to explain this one?

Dominican Civil War - rebellion against the government (who were finally democratically elected, at long last), and the US decided to stick their noses in. All fair, right? No; the Inter-American Peace Force decided to occupy the country until the next election...

Korean DMZ Conflict - effectively a dick-measuring contest between the US and North Korea. Didn't really have a chance to help the Korean people in this one, didn't go far enough.

Cambodian Civil War - See Vietnam War and Laotian Civil War.

Lebanon Intervention - intervened as a Multi-National taskforce, to make sure other foreign nations left Lebanon and to help restore the Lebanese Government's control, to end the civil war. Regardless of the government's ideology, peace within the country is an improvement. One point to America out of... Ten!

Invasion of Grenada - Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States asked Reagan's America to invade the communist Grenada, who asked on behalf of the Governor General of Grenada. Reagan cited the '600 U.S. Medical staff on the island' as his main concern - evidently not the Grenadan people. Although, a favour was probably done.

Poor start to the season but 1.5 points now on the board...

1986 Bombing of Libya - no.

Tanker War - sticking their nose in Iraq's war with Iran.

Invasion of Panama - toppling the (De Facto) dictator of Panama, who was wanted for racketeering and drug trafficking. Fair game. +1.

Gulf War - whilst U.N. mandated and rooted in a response to Iraqi aggression in Kuwait, it was part of a 42-nation coalition. +.5.

Somalia - the US joined the UN in Somalia to restore order, ending the civil war, after a famine. Whilst the Somalians were in a horrific position due to the fighting... they lost, leaving them worse off again.

Croatia & Bosnia - the US, in Yugoslavia, doing the good thing? LOL.

Haiti Intervention - restoring an ousted Libertarian President of Haiti.  Solid case that this is either political point scoring, or actually doing the right thing. +0.5.

Kosovo / Bombing of Yugoslavia - No.

Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq - f**k off. None of these were for the best interests of the people(s). Oil and control were what the US were there for.

Second Somali intervention - fighting ISIS, good. +1. Take a half point for the attacks on the Pirates, too.

Libya - no, just no.

Uganda - fighting Christian Extremists? Nowadays that would be the Americans themselves! Take a point.

(Should be clear, 1 point is available for being the "good guys", a half point for not being the "bad guys" but also not being "good guys")

Niger, Iraq (2014-2021), Syria, Libya. - fighting ISIS/AQ. Fair enough, +4.

 

So, the grand, total score for American interventions in the last 75 years is... 9.5 / 30.5.

 

TLDR:

Take this...

Quote

In my opinion the USA has only intervened in areas that it thought that it could help people have better lives

...to f**k.

 

[Fullerene]

13 hours ago, ClydeTon said:

So, the grand, total score for American interventions in the last 75 years is... 9.5 / 30.5.

Well I broadly agree with you on all of this, you are being a little unfair going with 75 years instead of 100.  The longer period would have included the Second World War and maybe that deserves another 5 points for helping defeat the evil Nazi Regime and another 5 points for helping defeat the equally evil Imperial Japanese regime.

Having said that, it was not done purely out of the goodness of their hearts and their belief in freedom and democracy.  The USA would have had little influence over a Nazi-controlled Europe.  Similarly had Japan been allowed to control all of East Asia, it would have been a serious rival to American hegemony of the planet.

Most military interventions are to extend spheres of influence or at least prevent the sphere shrinking.

[ClydeTon]

42 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Well I broadly agree with you on all of this, you are being a little unfair going with 75 years instead of 100.  The longer period would have included the Second World War and maybe that deserves another 5 points for helping defeat the evil Nazi Regime and another 5 points for helping defeat the equally evil Imperial Japanese regime.

Having said that, it was not done purely out of the goodness of their hearts and their belief in freedom and democracy.  The USA would have had little influence over a Nazi-controlled Europe.  Similarly had Japan been allowed to control all of East Asia, it would have been a serious rival to American hegemony of the planet.

Most military interventions are to extend spheres of influence or at least prevent the sphere shrinking.

Yes, WWII is probably +10 on my metric. I opted for the last 75 as that was the timeframe initially raised by another poster.

Although, the different geopolitical context following WWII makes it valuable to view it seperately, to an extent.

[Protagoras]

Once again I am not saying that everything the USA has done in the last 75-100 years has been correct but I am saying that we have tried to make the right decision. It is quite easy to look back on something and condemn it as wrong but it is much harder in the moment of the decision. Also, in regards to the point that we have fought many wars to prevent the spread of communism think about what our motive would be for this. Like why would we want to go to war over that unless we thought it was a really bad idea.

[Protagoras]

The main reason Americans are against communism is not because it is a bad idea, it’s because it gives way to much power to the government and in most cases has ended in a dictatorship. And since usually a dictatorship does not end well for the people under the rule of the dictator it is therefore beneficial to prevent the spread of communism. This is the logic behind stopping communism from spreading.

[Protagoras]

And yes at the same time if the ideology that America follows becomes more popular, America will gain more power. But the USA chose to be a capitalist republic because we thought that that was the best choice. So if we are trying to spread that ideology we ARE actively trying to make other people’s lives better.

[Protagoras]

Every ideology has its flaws. We chose the one that we believe has the least.

[Suspect Device]

Why

[Suspect Device]

the

Edited September 17, 2023 by Suspect Device

[Suspect Device]

multiple

[Suspect Device]

posts?

[welshbairn]

8 hours ago, Protagoras said:

The main reason Americans are against communism is not because it is a bad idea, it’s because it gives way to much power to the government and in most cases has ended in a dictatorship. And since usually a dictatorship does not end well for the people under the rule of the dictator it is therefore beneficial to prevent the spread of communism. This is the logic behind stopping communism from spreading.

Most of American military interventions have been made to prop up or install dictators and to protect American companies interests, like United Fruits and various oil companies.