I’m from Buenos Aires and I say kill them all.
The “maybe Trump is actually better on imperialism” bit has gotten out of control, too. He tried to coup Venezuela and Bolivia (and Bolivia isn’t out of the woods yet), rolled back some meaningful progress on Cuba, and went from a serious diplomatic agreement with Iran to exchanging acts of war with them. His incompetence and boredom in this area is at least offset by his willingness to pick fights with anyone and the ability of his handlers to talk him into stuff he doesn’t really care about. He’s also revived the careers of a ton of Bush-era war criminals who are responsible for two full-scale invasions (far more damaging than any coup) and the rapid expansion/entrenchment of U.S. assassination and torture programs. Democrats, for as shitty as they are on imperialism, haven’t been responsible for a full-scale invasion since Vietnam. Over the same period Republicans have invaded Grenada, Panama, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan. Buying the line that Democrats are the real hawks here is a straight-up chud talking point.
And that doesn’t even touch climate change – even half-assed action from a Democratic administration might mitigate some of the coming effects on the Global South. The fact that Biden is shit doesn’t make Trump any less shit.
He tried to coup Venezuela and Bolivia
Operation Gideon was a hilariously ill-planned failure, and if you’re referring to the successful (for a time) 2019 coup in Bolivia, that was mostly the fault of the OAS and the conservatives in the country. The Trump administration, from what I can gather, performed no differently with Bolivia than any other previous US leadership would. It voiced support for the findings of the OAS and denounced Morales as a dictator.
His incompetence and boredom in this area is at least offset by his willingness to pick fights with anyone and the ability of his handlers to talk him into stuff he doesn’t really care about
I would disagree with that, but it’s hard to prove either way conclusively. Even so, that irrationality and hostility further isolates America on the world stage, and can only hasten the decline of empire.
Democrats, for as shitty as they are on imperialism, haven’t been responsible for a full-scale invasion since Vietnam. Over the same time period Republicans have invaded Grenada, Panama, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan.
All of those invasions were carried out with varying degrees of bipartisan support, and to say that the Democrats would have acted significantly differently were they in control of the presidency is naïve. Additionally, more US troops were sent to Libya in 2011 than were sent to Grenada in 1983, so if Grenada qualifies as a “full-scale” invasion then Libya should as well.
the successful (for a time) 2019 coup in Bolivia, that was mostly the fault of the OAS and the conservatives in the country
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, the OAS is heavily influenced by the U.S., and even the most cursory reading of Latin American history should lead you to the default assumption that the U.S. is behind any right-wing coup.
that irrationality and hostility further isolates America on the world stage, and can only hasten the decline of empire.
This isn’t a bad point, but I’m skeptical of it as the U.S. has the ability and willingness to act unilaterally.
to say that the Democrats would have acted significantly differently were they in control of the presidency is naïve
I don’t think Democrats would have fabricated the 2003 invasion of Iraq out of thin air. Clinton had all the opportunities in the world to do that in the 1990s and didn’t, and Obama never did anything of that magnitude either. And “the Democrats would have done the same thing” is speculative while “the Democrats didn’t do anything similar” is historical record.
The OAS is certainly heavily influenced by the US, but that influence is bipartisan, and American intervention in Latin America is a bipartisan endeavor as well. For example, the overthrow of Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, while executed under Eisenhower in 1954 with Operation PBSuccess, was first planned under Truman with Operation PBFortune two years earlier. I find it very unlikely based on history that the actions of the OAS would have been any different with a Democratic president.
I mean, the Democrats did do similar things with Libya, and Obama increased the amount of troops in Afghanistan by 50% less than a month into his presidency. Looking at the vote for the invasion of Iraq, over half of Democratic senators voted for it, including Schumer, Biden, Kerry, Clinton, and Feinstein. The democratic leadership was totally cool with it (save Pelosi, so points for her I guess). The idea isn’t “the Democrats would have done the same thing”, but rather “the Democrats have done similar things and voted to let Republicans do it when they themselves were not in power.” Liberals have no problem with going gung-ho into countries that don’t kneel to America, they just try to give the appearance that they do.
That’s good material on Biden’s role in propagandizing for the Iraq War. However, this conclusion:
I think Biden will be far more aggressive than Obama on Foreign Policy.
Assumes that Biden is the same now as he was in 2003, and that the country’s appetite for war is the same as it was in 2003. I think both are significantly more gun shy, at least of full-scale invasions.
And that doesn’t even touch climate change – even half-assed action from a Democratic administration might mitigate some of the coming effects on the Global South. The fact that Biden is shit doesn’t make Trump any less shit.
Key word ‘might’
Might as well also throw in that they might do something about healthcare…
Yes, “might” means might. But it’s counterproductive to conflate Democrats doing half-assed things with Democrats never doing anything, ever. Obamacare was a half-assed healthcare solution, but there are still millions of people who have healthcare today because of it.
We can’t dunk on libs so much we fool ourselves into thinking they’re worse than Republicans.
Democrats, for as shitty as they are on imperialism, haven’t been responsible for a full-scale invasion since Vietnam.
So we just gonna ignore Libya, Syria and Yemen? Literally all in the top five imperial disasters of the 21st century
So we just gonna ignore Libya, Syria and Yemen?
None of those were invasions on the order of Afghanistan or Iraq. Invading and occupying a country is a lot more destructive and kills a lot more people than helping one side in a civil war.
For example, take Libya. The upper range of estimates of the deaths caused by the 2011 fighting are around 25,000, and the figure for the current fighting is less than 10,000. Combine those numbers and assume they undercounted the death toll by a factor of ten. That would be 350,000 deaths, which is significantly less than the 2.4 million Iraqis we’ve killed.
It’s also worth noting that Democrats tried to end our support for Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen, but they didn’t have the votes to override Trump’s veto. Democrats do sometimes find themselves in a decent position on military action; Republicans almost never do. Democrats at least occasionally have anti-war sentiment; Republicans fall in line behind whatever imperial excursions the State Department can dream up.
The casualties of the Libyan war extend far past 2011, like wtf kind of garbage wikipedia article is that, completely arbitrary end date
And I’m not comparing the casualties of the Iraq war, in terms of the top five it’s right there at number one (I never claimed otherwise), while also being a war continued and supported by democrats, I’m debunking the bizarre statement that Democrats haven’t been responsible for the outright invasions of multiple countries by groups armed, funded, trained and supported by the United States military
It’s also worth noting that Democrats tried to end our support for Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen
Four years too late, are you really gonna give democrats points for that partisan motivated shit? The war started in 2015, you know perfectly well who was in charge at that time
And then there’s the Syrian war…
The greatest imperial disasters of the 21st century are
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Iraq
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The Congo wars
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Syria
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Yemen
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Libya
Democrats are responsible for 3 out of 5
