this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 48 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Never on the right side of history.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 35 points 11 months ago (3 children)

We were that one time, and we’ve been milking it ever since.

[–] chaogomu@kbin.social 39 points 11 months ago (8 children)

WW2, we only joined because Japan attacked. Otherwise, there were elements of the US population that were cheering for Hitler.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 29 points 11 months ago (3 children)

We also nuked two cities, for reasons much less honorable or necessary than the one we are told.

[–] Nacktmull@lemm.ee 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Don´t tell that to the average US American though, they really hate hearing this truth.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 11 points 11 months ago

I’m super-fun at parties 😐

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Any respected historian on the subject will tell you that it's way more complicated and nuanced than your average social media user is aware of. If, like Truman, you honestly believed that using atomic bombs on Japan would ultimately result in less loss of life, on a purely mathematical basis it was the only moral decision.

[–] Nacktmull@lemm.ee 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The idea of using the most powerful weapon in existence, a weapon with destructive powers never seen before, that of all weapons can kill the most people in one hit - 140.000 people in Hiroshima alone - to "reduce loss of life" and then telling yourself that it was the moral thing to do, must require some serious mental gymnastics, lmao.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago

You'd think one would have been enough

[–] lukini@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] davel@lemmy.ml 14 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Two reasons, I think:

  • So Japan would unconditionally surrender to the US instead of (conditionally or unconditionally) surrendering to the USSR.
  • As a warning to the USSR to not spread communism further. The Cold War started even before WWII ended.
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[–] masquenox@lemmy.ml 17 points 11 months ago

The US has never opposed fascism - Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were colonialist rivals threatening US hegemony and influence and nothing more.

[–] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

People don't realize that the US used to see fascism as a sort of white utopia. It was really popular up until WW2 when they hard turned on it. Kind of like what happened with communism, actually. It was seen as a revolutionary form of democracy up until the cold war, now people only know it for all the propaganda that came out of the era. (most of which was flat out lies made up on the spot by actual nazis)

It's a lot of the reason why the modern day liberal is so staunchly both-sides when it comes to anything geopolitics.

[–] zerfuffle@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Prior to Pearl Harbour, the US funded the Japanese as the Japanese committed countless war crimes and genocide in China.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 3 points 11 months ago

Well that and the fact that there was a huge Irish-American population that was hostile towards the UK in ways that I think a lot of younger people and non-historians have really lost sight of because it's not really a thing anymore. The idea of taking sides with the British Empire was a very tough pill for a lot of Irish-Americans, most of whom, unlike today, still had direct connections to Ireland. The famine was no longer really in living memory, but the children of the famine survivors were definitely still alive and influential and they absolutely despised the British for understandable reasons.

History is always way more complex and nuanced than some half-baked one-liner trope on social media.

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[–] Nacktmull@lemm.ee 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (15 children)

In ww2 the Russians did most of he dirty work anyway. When the USA joined the war it was already clear the axis had lost.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 12 points 11 months ago

Hollywood war reenactments are a psyop.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 months ago

When the USA joined the war it was already clear the axis had lost.

While I agree that that it was the Soviet and Chinese people that absorbed the greatest part of the Axis' powers warmaking ability (which western historians are apt to ignore), it's not true that the Axis had already lost the war by 1941. It's accurate to say that the US joined the war at a moment when the Axis forces had hopelessly overstretched themselves.

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[–] livus@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

@davel

We were that one time, and we’ve been milking it ever since.

Only until 2006 which is when the UK finally managed to pay the US back the "lend lease" debt it racked up in WWII

Wonder how long it will take for Ukraine to pay back theirs, they're on a Lend Lease from the US right now.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You & I are the only people who seem to know this. Everyone else is busy arguing whether we can “afford” to give Ukraine “free stuff”, when in reality none of it is free, and whatever few Ukrainians are left alive after this war will be paying onerous debt for generations. They’re already auctioning off many public assets to mostly foreign buyers at fire sale prices, up to and including seaports.

[–] livus@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

Yeah it's crazy. Ukraine is a fire sale and the debt will be on the US govt books as an asset.

Makes me realise, a lot of things we read in history books that seem cut and dried, were probably not at all obvious to the people who lived at the time because their perception of facts was probably as skewed as our societies' perceptions are now.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 44 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Imperial America is a death cult.

[–] Maeve@kbin.social 13 points 11 months ago

…In the fields, bodies burning as the war machine keeps turning…

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 24 points 11 months ago

What's particularly notable is that US vetoed the resolution that Russia put out on the basis that it did not condemn Hamas. However, US also vetoed subsequent resolution by Brazil that did condemn Hamas without giving a coherent explanation for the second veto. The only conclusion that can be reasonably drawn here is that US regime wants people to suffer and die. US is intentionally enabling a genocide in Gaza against the will of the rest of the world.

To sum up, fuck the US regime.

[–] fisco@lemmy.ml 23 points 11 months ago

War is big business...

[–] Luccajan@sh.itjust.works 13 points 11 months ago (3 children)
[–] davel@lemmy.ml 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I think mostly because the Allied Powers won WWII and got to make the rules. Often the argument is made that, by giving the nuclear-capable countries veto power, they’re less likely to use those weapons, but that might be more of a rationalization than the actual reason.

[–] Neato@kbin.social 11 points 11 months ago

All it really boils down to is that the UN is toothless when trying to regulate any nuclear-armed country and any country or conflict a nuclear-armed country has an interest in. It absolutely sets certain countries apart in a multi-tiered system of international cooperation.

[–] livus@kbin.social 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

@Luccajan basically the UN is a forum for dialogue and we need the big players to be part of it.

If they don't get veto on the security council they will have a tantrum and leave, which will benefit no one.

The superpowers already flout international law when they really want to, because there is nothing the rest of us can do to stop them, but it would probably be far worse if they weren't even part of the UN.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

basically the UN is a forum for dialogue and we need the big players to be part of it.

Allowing the five biggest arms manufacturers on the planet to decide "security" issues is no different than allowing the five biggest drug cartels in the world to decide "health" issues.

[–] livus@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

@masquenox I agree apart from the bit about allowing. We literally can't physically stop them. They will decide "security" issues whether we want them to or not. That's my point.

It's not just because of their military might. In the 1980s, France carried out a terror attack in my country which killed two people. We actually caught the terrorists but our "allies" the UK, EU and US told us that unless we let them go (we had wanted to give them a trial and imprisonment) we would no longer be able to trade with those countries and faced economic ruin.

If we had no government able to withstand them, it would be better to be in dialogue with the cartels than not - and good to have a space where they could dialogue with each other, too.

Bodies like the UNFP and UNHCR are valuable. Discussion is valuable. Even with the security council it's better that the world at least express what we want, where each other can see it, even if it's inevitably vetoed by US or Russia or China.

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[–] Cephirux@lemmings.world 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Can anyone explain the true reason why US make such decision?

[–] robotopera@sh.itjust.works 10 points 11 months ago

As of October 2023, the United States has 599 active Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases, valued at $23.8 billion, with Israel.

Money. The answer is always money.

[–] blterrible@lemmy.ml 9 points 11 months ago

It would put Israel "on the back foot" in regards to the conflict. Israel would be tied up negotiating for hostage release which is exactly where Hamas wants them. It stops being a question of who is winning a battle and turns it into "how much is Israel willing to sacrifice".

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