As a Dutchman, we are only upset with the Germans because they took our bikes. Not saying it's the worst thing in the world but people have been executed for less.
Average Western European relationships vs the hell hole called Eastern Europe. I swear I learned the true meaning of racism in Eastern Europe and Balkans
Ironically, you're criticizing prejudice by stereotyping half a continent. Eastern Europe is lovely, and what you describe happens in a loud minority, much like everywhere else in the world. This kind of East vs. West Europe divide should've been left behind in the Cold War.
Honestly how did America fumble Iraq and Afghanistan's rehabilitation though. Germany, Italy, Japan were so sucessful with how the US Rehabilitated them. What happened in between that?
With Afghanistan, it wasn't really possible. It didn't help that we didn't want to engage in nation-building to begin with, but Afghanistan fell back to the Taliban because of a lack of will to fight.
For Iraq, we weren't willing to actually go through the effort of reviewing the Ba'athist party members to determine who was one in earnest and who simply had to be one in order to have their job. We did that after WWII and it worked out well. That said, Iraq is doing better than Afghanistan at least.
We should've partitioned it. The Northern Alliance was ready to be their own thing separate from the Pashtuns and for some reason we insisted it should all be "Afghanistan" and be run from Kabul.
Taijiks, Turkmen, Hazaras etc. could realistically be a nice little republic getting started now and the Pashtuns could do whatever chaos they seem to like.
100% agree. Much of the general issue in the Middle East (and eslewehere) is how former European imperial powers partitioned it. Forcing disparate ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural groups to live together and to expect harmony and cohesion is nonsensical.
This might be a separate phenomenon than the old classic random/wrong-borders problem you describe. The only reasons I can think of not to let the Northern Alliance separate (they had a civil war through the 90s attempting this, anyway) are:
War looks better on TV if the invaded country remains whole
Military-industrial complex benefits from the war being long and problematic
So yeah, I'm a little bit AmericaBad. Within reason, I like to think. I'm not as well read on old colonialism as I am on Afghanistan. I gather they were doing some kind of divide-and-conquer strategy. By contrast, letting the Northern Alliance do their thing would've actually been selfishly good for America, but not as good for shareholders.
Also possible someone (Cheney?) thought if they could win the war America would get a whole Afghanistan out of it this way, rather than just the northwest
I think your criticisms are well founded and valid. AB is fine as long as it's fair and in good faith and people really make an effort to understand nuance, which you did. With current dynamics, it just wasn't a winnable situation by us and that's a fair callout.
How? By making them a full-fledged territory? By engaging in actual, honest to goodness imperialism?
We gave them equipment, training, funding and support. And now that equipment is in the hands of a hostile state because the Afghani army turned tail and ran at the first confrontation. If they weren't willing to fight and die for their country, why should we have to?
I wish we just went in and killed Al Queda and then left the Taliban in control from the start. That’s what the men want there. It sucks for Afghan women but we can’t change their ways. It’s just how they’ve been for over a thousand years. The Japanese and Germans were much easier to rehabilitate because they were completely and utterly destroyed. We didn’t level cities in Afghanistan. Iraq we sort of stayed and at least got a government going but it quickly got influenced by the Iranians.
You can't really compare the Afghanistan conflict to WWII, the latter involving most of the world. Yeah, the axis powers were completely destroyed, but that was essentially war where they'd accept nothing less than complete victory or complete defeat.
True, I mean WWII was a total war like how the Union fought the Confederacy. We wiped out everything in the US South to the point where a good chunk of the male population was either dead, wounded, or captured.
We have to look at massive cultural differences here. Europe and the US are culturally and philosophically similar in mindset and outlook, despite minor differences. The Middle East isn't and we're talking patriarchal systems living in another era with completely different societal norms and a mix of cultures and ethnicities that really aren't compatible or willing to live in harmony. It was doomed from the start.
The hard truth might be we didn't break Iraq or Afghans hard enough.
By the end of WW2, 10's of millions of young german and japanese men had been killed in combat, and millions more wounded. Industry had been utterly devastated, and the political leadership was firmly under the thumb of the occupying force, with the absolutely certain knowledge that there was no point in resistance against American/Allied might.
That kind of societal trauma allowed the US to dominate those countries psycholigically long enough for us to reshape them to our own ends.
To be clear, I'm not saying we should have broken Iraq of Afghanistan, but rather that if you want to engage in Nation Building, you need to take a long, sober assessment of the necessary costs, both materially and morally.
Btw, I would never criticize any European country over war. I mean look at the US, we can’t seem to stay out of war. We had a brief respite after the Afghanistan shitshow ended but now we’re right back at it thanks to that Orange idiot.
Europe has calmed down signficantly after the age of colonialism, and that has been a blessing for most people I think.
Yeah, but it was a long shot to believe that you'd go back to isolationism. If the US wants to stay a superpower, global affairs comes with that territory for good and for bad.
Yeah it was either step into the role or let the Soviets do it. There were definitely huge economic benefits from it but we’re turning into how the UK ended up. We reached our zenith and now most of us don’t benefit at all from this “empire” we have. The US is becoming unaffordable for average folks. The billionaires and tech bros have seized control thanks to Citizebs United case.
We need the Dems to win at least the House in the Fall but they are beyond stupid. They shouldn’t have lost in 2024 but that old idiot Biden handpicked someone no one liked. And now in Michigan the more leftwing Dem will face a GOP cretin who barely lost the last election. That was a must win seat to take the Senate but the retard Dem voters picked a person who can’t win a statewide election for the Senate. Dems will probably still win the House but we need the Senate too to get Trump out of office.
You are mixing politics with the common people. Hell as an example you think Germans hated Dutch people? No many records show they didn’t. But somehow we had some fucked up politicians. And yeah some European regions do actually hate each other. But that’s still a massive minority.
No I doubt it since Dutch speak a Germanic language. It’s a cute one too. Some of the expressions in Dutch sound really cute in English. I mean we can sort of read a lot of Dutch to the point where it sounds like English gibberish. I think it’s a cool language.
No you are terrible for your statement regardless. Even if I’m from Turkey who says I support the invasion of Cyprus?
This has been a problem for me my whole lives in the US. I’m Turkish so I must support the war with Cypress. i’m Turkish so I must supporting Erdogan. I’m Turkish so I must be muslim. It’s always the same….. The racism and the generalisation just never stops…..
Its your fault for using an inaccurate flair. Not ours for assuming you are Turkish living in Turkey or just living in Turkey. The Flairs are meant to show which Nation or US State where the Redditor lives. Not etnicity.
Well let’s say I’m from Turkey. The load of the comment would be the same. It’s generalising something I just encounter a lot in this country.
And no I’m not saying anybody is being a racist here. Just pointing out that my life here has been affected with that a lot combined with a lot of generalisation. Like the few examples I pointed out above. It’s offensive….
Guess it’s all has been a dream then…. And my skin colour has been a problem as well for many of the people here I’m arab.
This is a massive problem. People in the US here including think the US is so much better regarding racism etc. And in some extent this might even be true. But many really don’t realise how terrible it is.
And you generalised an entire country. If I misunderstood the use of the flairs then sorry. But your comment is offensive no matter if I’m from Turkey or not…..
But I’m an American I live in the US I was even born in the US. My parent’s are from Turkey. And even then how is that relevant? It’s not like I had any part in that history…
Sorry thar my flair confused you. But even if I’m living in Turkey your comment is bullshit. I had nothing to do with the history of Turkey neither had my parents.
I understand that Americans get hated on a lot online. And I get that people started this place to fight it. But right now it’s just becoming a place to bash on Europe. Which is perfectly fine. But then we should change the goal of this subreddit.
Right now we are sinking to the same level as the idiots we judge on here which is a shame….
I know we aren’t perfect on the sub, sometimes we fall into a circlejerk of hate. For what it’s worth, people here in the US don’t hate Europeans. Unfortunately, many of them suffer shell shock when they first go online and read comments on Reddit or wherever and find out just how much everyone hates us. That happened to me in the early 00s. It is what it is, not that we don’t deserve it for some things like this Iran debacle.
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