Clinton in China: Chinese 'human rights can't interfere'

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Hell of a thing to be saying on record.

It's true, on a national scale human rights receive little attention in this country or any other. It's easy enough to send some money to Africa, but when entire villages are being gang raped and then killed it's just too much effort to float some ships alongside and start dropping marines in to affect a real change in it. Darfur, Somalia. Nobody ever pretended the costs were not major, but clearly the US is not willing to pay them. Like I said, few countries, if any really are. Countries always treat their citizenry as first-class and the rest of the world as less than first-class. Well, unless they are real sh*tholes like NK, where the citizens are nothing more than means to wealth for the very upper echelons.

If the US had finished NK when it had the chance the suffering likely couldn't have been much worse than those people face there every single day. They have so little as it is.

I'm not sure when you think we had the chance to finish NK. We were lucky to end the Korean War in a draw.
Remember, we weren't only fighting Koreans there...we were fighting more Chinese than Koreans...and we got our asses handed to us all the time.

Did we give as good as we got most of the time? Yes, but they had much shorter supply lines and a far larger pool of manpower. We could kill them day and night...and they kept on coming.

The only way we'd have been able to "Finish NK" is if we'd have taken the war nuclear...and the Chinese would have followed suit and nuked us back...

 

[ayabe]

And this morning, she was stressing how crucial it is for China to continue buying US treasury bonds.

Well duh. This was the whole reason she had to go soft with them, they're funding everything related to the stimulus and if we piss them off they'll stop.

Thanks Mrs. Slick.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: BoomerD

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Hell of a thing to be saying on record.

It's true, on a national scale human rights receive little attention in this country or any other. It's easy enough to send some money to Africa, but when entire villages are being gang raped and then killed it's just too much effort to float some ships alongside and start dropping marines in to affect a real change in it. Darfur, Somalia. Nobody ever pretended the costs were not major, but clearly the US is not willing to pay them. Like I said, few countries, if any really are. Countries always treat their citizenry as first-class and the rest of the world as less than first-class. Well, unless they are real sh*tholes like NK, where the citizens are nothing more than means to wealth for the very upper echelons.

If the US had finished NK when it had the chance the suffering likely couldn't have been much worse than those people face there every single day. They have so little as it is.

I'm not sure when you think we had the chance to finish NK. We were lucky to end the Korean War in a draw.
Remember, we weren't only fighting Koreans there...we were fighting more Chinese than Koreans...and we got our asses handed to us all the time.

Did we give as good as we got most of the time? Yes, but they had much shorter supply lines and a far larger pool of manpower. We could kill them day and night...and they kept on coming.

The only way we'd have been able to "Finish NK" is if we'd have taken the war nuclear...and the Chinese would have followed suit and nuked us back...

When I wrote that I meant pre-nuclear. NK is untouchable now, the opportunity is irrevocably lost to the US. Before that, though, NK was (still is but it has nukes) an extremely poor nation with a very large but under-supplied/underfed military, an uneducated populous (I have no idea what literacy rates are, etc. but they are completely shutoff from the world, so they are globally retarded). If their upper levels of leadership were removed, I don't really have an idea what they'd do vs the people of Iraq, however. One would like to think they'd merge with south korea happily but who knows.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider
We never care about human rights except as a justification for war

Wrong.

He's absolutely right actually.

Look at the US history post WW2. Starting with the Nuremberg trials, that was pretty much victor's justice in 90% of the cases. Of those in the trials, only a very select few actually deserved their fate. We didn't even bother trying Japanese war criminals at all.

Moving forward to the 50s/60s/70s, we overthrew several governments, including the democracy of Iran. We installed ruthless dictators, such as the Shah and Pinochet. We helped men like Saddam root out dissidents and execute them. We encouraged Saddam to invade Iran after our bastard in power was overthrown, then sold him chemical weapons when the tide turned on him. Finally, we turned a blind eye to his abuses of his population as long as he kept the war on in Iran.

The US pays only minor lip service to human rights.

If you want to have selective memory then go ahead. It doesn't change the fact that that statement is wrong.

It's interesting that when I pulled up Iraq, you weren't satisfied, then someone pulls out example after example, and you cry selective memory.

So I'll ask this question. When was the last war we waged for purely humanitarian reasons? Wasn't in the Clinton era. Clinton's actions were motivated by the need to have political stability. That people were helped was a happy coincidence. It was in our best interests to have a stable Europe.

Kuwait? Ok, sell that one if you like. We freed them from the tyranny of Saddam. Well, because of oil really.

Ron R? South America anyone?

Sure we give foreign aid. It's the carrot. Nothing wrong with that.

While individuals and organizations want to help and do, as a whole, we act to protect or further our interests like everyone else. It's not a condemnation any more than one could condemn a lion for killing an antelope. It's just the way it is. I'm surprised you are shocked by all this.

 

[Jiggz]

She cannot favor the HR activist because she's on a mission to persuade China to buy our T-bills by the trillions! In short, we are begging China to lend us $$$, so human rights had to be sidelined for now!

 

[GenHoth]

Originally posted by: BoomerD
This country pays lip service to human rights in other countries when it serves our (corporate) interests to do so. Otherwise, we ignore the thousands or millions who are slaughtered or imprisoned because we only really care about the money.

QFT if you disagree then how do you explain the continued inaction in situations around the globe.