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Trump absolves Kim Jong Un of responsibility for Otto Warmbier’s death

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ivwshane said:
Sad but true. It happened in Iran and Iraq and I'm sure many others.

However, I'm not aware of any president publicly absolving those of such actions.
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Pinochet in Chile comes to mind, Nicaragua on 2 or 3 separate occasions, Honduras twice that I know of, Guatemala at least once, Brazil twice, Panama 3 times (Noriega was 2 of those), Argentina twice, Bolivia once that I can think of there may have been a 2nd, Cuba, Haiti twice, the Dominican Republic twice, Grenada, El Salvador twice, Lybia (yes we were responsible for Ghaddafi coming to power), South Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines after WWII (all were set up as military dictatorships).

There are many others I just didn't want to be here all night thinking about it and if I did this would end up being a horribly long post.
 
woolfe9998 said:
Not if you understood my meaning, which is that Trump is the only POTUS to openly praise foreign dictators and to openly absolve them of crimes. This is a problem separate and apart from the problem you're describing because it signals to the world that the US no longer cares about human rights. What our government does matters, but what a POTUS says also independently matters.
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I think you might want to go back and look at your country's 's history of installing and or supporting these kinds of folks. The biggest difference is that he openly wants to *be* these guys where past administrations always couched their support in fine sounding rhetoric about protecting the 'free world's' (really meaning The United States) geopolitical and/or economic security.
 
I think all US citizens currently in countries that are dictatorships or authoritarian had better take heed, if you are unjustly arrested or detained POTUS will likely not have your back.
 
Victorian Gray said:
I think you might want to go back and look at your country's 's history of installing and or supporting these kinds of folks. The biggest difference is that he openly wants to *be* these guys where past administrations always couched their support in fine sounding rhetoric about protecting the 'free world's' (really meaning The United States) geopolitical and/or economic security.
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all they had to yell was 'communism' and that was that.
 
Victorian Gray said:
Nowhere close to being true. Think about all the murderous dictators around the world that the US helped put in power and/or proudly supported over the past 150 years or so.
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True, and yet there is a difference all the same. One of style rather than substance, perhaps, or of motivation. I don't think any of his predecessors had that very specific love of 'strongmen' that Trump has. For them it was surely more instrumental and about stategic interests and profit (edit - oh, and often racism), and lacked the psychological element of man-crush. Certainly it's not standard procedure to suck up to nominally _communist_ dictators. That seems new. And a bit disorienting even.
 
pmv said:
True, and yet there is a difference all the same. One of style rather than substance, perhaps, or of motivation. I don't think any of his predecessors had that very specific love of 'strongmen' that Trump has. For them it was surely more instrumental and about stategic interests and profit (edit - oh, and often racism), and lacked the psychological element of man-crush. Certainly it's not standard procedure to suck up to nominally _communist_ dictators. That seems new. And a bit disorienting even.
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almost always when they installed a despotic dictator it was for the benefit for us businesses and nothing else.
 
HomerJS said:
I think all US citizens currently in countries that are dictatorships or authoritarian had better take heed, if you are unjustly arrested or detained POTUS will likely not have your back.
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I'm amending this post. Trump supporters feel free to visit these countries. Maybe the less of you we have the country will be the better.
 
DarthKyrie said:
Pinochet in Chile comes to mind, Nicaragua on 2 or 3 separate occasions, Honduras twice that I know of, Guatemala at least once, Brazil twice, Panama 3 times (Noriega was 2 of those), Argentina twice, Bolivia once that I can think of there may have been a 2nd, Cuba, Haiti twice, the Dominican Republic twice, Grenada, El Salvador twice, Lybia (yes we were responsible for Ghaddafi coming to power), South Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines after WWII (all were set up as military dictatorships).

There are many others I just didn't want to be here all night thinking about it and if I did this would end up being a horribly long post.
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US bad behaviour in the Philippines goes back way further than that. I guess it was the first US imperial adventure (along with Cuba). I gather it's kind of where waterboarding was first used by US troops as well (though, as I understand it, it was much worse than its modern form - force the subject to drink huge amounts water and then violently hit their belly till their bladder ruptures).

But I wouldn't suggest any European can take the moral high-ground on the topic.

I was just listening to an account of the Roman occupation of Britain, and it was striking to me how the same tropes occur over-and-over when it comes to imperial occupations and colonialism (and the resistance to it).

Same atrocities by the occupiers (and outbreaks of extreme uncompromising violence in return by the occupied - Boudica's forces massacring entire Roman settlements much like Toussaint's slave revolt slaughtered entire families of slave-owners in Haiti), same awful tactical mistakes and difficulty in learning from experience on both sides, same bitter division between assimilation and fervent resistance among the occupied, same divisions over 'hearts and minds' vs 'get em by the balls' tactics among the occupiers.


It's almost as if the British took what the Romans did to them and decided to do it to much of the rest of the world.

We're all Romans when we get the chance, maybe.
 
pmv said:
US bad behaviour in the Philippines goes back way further than that. I guess it was the first US imperial adventure (along with Cuba). I gather it's kind of where waterboarding was first used by US troops as well (though, as I understand it, it was much worse than its modern form - force the subject to drink huge amounts water and then violently hit their belly till their bladder ruptures).

But I wouldn't suggest any European can take the moral high-ground on the topic.

I was just listening to an account of the Roman occupation of Britain, and it was striking to me how the same tropes occur over-and-over when it comes to imperial occupations and colonialism (and the resistance to it).

Same atrocities by the occupiers (and outbreaks of extreme uncompromising violence in return by the occupied - Boudica's forces massacring entire Roman settlements much like Toussaint's slave revolt slaughtered entire families of slave-owners in Haiti), same awful tactical mistakes and difficulty in learning from experience on both sides, same bitter division between assimilation and fervent resistance among the occupied, same divisions over 'hearts and minds' vs 'get em by the balls' tactics among the occupiers.


It's almost as if the British took what the Romans did to them and decided to do it to much of the rest of the world.

We're all Romans when we get the chance, maybe.
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I was trying not to cause people to strain their brains too much so I was trying to stick with just post-WWII digressions. Technically the honor of first Imperial possession would go to Hawai'i the same year the Spanish-American War began, having Hawai'i helped us win that war.

When you talk about the British I hope you are talking about the German Anglo-Saxons that invaded the homeland of the ancestors and then started calling themselves the English.
Oh, I know all about the English and their tactics. They became experts by practicing on my people, the Irish, the Scottish, the Manx, the people of Normandy and Brittany.
 
DarthKyrie said:
I was trying not to cause people to strain their brains too much so I was trying to stick with just post-WWII digressions. Technically the honor of first Imperial possession would go to Hawai'i the same year the Spanish-American War began, having Hawai'i helped us win that war.

When you talk about the British I hope you are talking about the German Anglo-Saxons that invaded the homeland of the ancestors and then started calling themselves the English.
Oh, I know all about the English and their tactics. They became experts by practicing on my people, the Irish, the Scottish, the Manx, the people of Normandy and Brittany.
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To be honest, I'm actually not at all clear on the nature of the Anglo-Saxon influence. Haven't read much about that era. That is, I don't know to what extent it was an invasion of another group of people vs a cultural transformation of people already here. The little I have heard about it has been highly contradictory.

I also am very wary of attempts by Scots in particular to evade blame for the British Empire. They participated enthusiastically. I don't buy the claim to full victim status by the Scottish. They certainly participated in the slave trade, and Scots received a huge proportion of the 'compensation' paid to former slave-owners when slavery was finally outlawed. And it seems to me a lot of the historic crimes that occurred in Scotland were internal to the Scottish class system.

The Irish, of course, didn't get the chance to become Sith overlords, though there's evidence that at least a few prominent Irish nationalists actively resented being locked out of the chance to profit from empire and the slave trade.

My own ancestry, incidentally, includes colonisers and colonised in about equal proportions. I need to pay myself reparations.


What I do think is that contemporary Brits really ought to face up to how destructive the Empire was to those subject to it and drop all the 'we gave them the railways' crap. It's ridiculous that illusions about it till persist at this point.
 
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pmv said:
To be honest, I'm actually not at all clear on the nature of the Anglo-Saxon influence. Haven't read much about that era. That is, I don't know to what extent it was an invasion of another group of people vs a cultural transformation of people already here. The little I have heard about it has been highly contradictory.

I also am very wary of attempts by Scots in particular to evade blame for the British Empire. They participated enthusiastically. I don't buy the claim to full victim status by the Scottish. They certainly participated in the slave trade, and Scots received a huge proportion of the 'compensation' paid to former slave-owners when slavery was finally outlawed. And it seems to me a lot of the historic crimes that occurred in Scotland were internal to the Scottish class system.

The Irish, of course, didn't get the chance to become Sith overlords, though there's evidence that at least a few prominent Irish nationalists actively resented being locked out of the chance to profit from empire and the slave trade.

My own ancestry, incidentally, includes colonisers and colonised in about equal proportions. I need to pay myself reparations.
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Don't mind me and my rantings about the English, the Scottish and the German Anglo-Saxons, my family is still bitter that a Stuart is not on the throne. But you are correct the Scottish are just as guilty as the English when it comes to the crimes of the British Empire. My family has a lot of blood on its hands from all the wars we have started throughout history, we have slaughtered millions in the name of GREED and our thirst for POWER, I am related to the Royalty of Europe the Sith Lords you spoke of.
 
HomerJS said:
Possible Trumpanzee excuses...

You guys take him literally
Figure of speech
He was joking
Otto had it coming for ripping down a sign
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That's the one that I've seen a lot and find really depressing. The punishment for stealing a sign shouldn't be months of torture. Generally, I think the punishment for non-violent crimes committed by foreign visitors should be restitution and deportation. For example, if you steal something, then pay back the person you stole from and then get the hell out and never come back.
 
cfenton said:
That's the one that I've seen a lot and find really depressing. The punishment for stealing a sign shouldn't be months of torture. Generally, I think the punishment for non-violent crimes committed by foreign visitors should be restitution and deportation. For example, if you steal something, then pay back the person you stole from and then get the hell out and never come back.
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I see that type of commentary from people that have done worse shit and were able to get diversions for it. Its fucking ridiculous just how big of hypocrites conservatives seem intent on being to prop up their team.
 
cytg111 said:
And the gifts shall keep on cometh

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/u-s-end-large-scale-military-drills-south-korea-n978111

"The U.S. military is preparing to announce that annual large-scale joint exercises conducted with South Korea every spring will no longer be held, according to two U.S. defense officials. "

Vladman approves of this message.

Are you not tired of getting rearended? You even need lube anymore?
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We're 'Muricans we don't need no stinkin' lube we like it raw.
 
pcgeek11 said:
Personally it is my opinion that nobody takes a crap in NK without Kims Approval.
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This is sooo true, every house, every business, every building has a picture of Kim and another of his Dad. Citizens are expected to say thank you to them every morning & every evening.
 
This is all pretty simple. Kim has something Trump wants so Trump says nice things about him. If he didn’t (see Maduro) then Trump would shit all over him.

Neither Trump’s praise or his criticism is ever sincere because Trump doesn’t actually give a shit either way.
 
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