I would love you to find me a source for millions of non enemy combatant deaths directly caused by the US.
Notice that I never said that the US hasn't committed shameful human rights abuses. I'd be happy to discuss them. Most are taught in schools, like Kent State in which 4 students were killed. Do the Chinese teach about Tiananmen, where hundreds were killed?
If you seriously want to compare the US to one of the bloodiest nations in the history of the world, I'll take that comparison any day.
First, deaths and genocide are different things. The CCP’s killing between 20 and 43 million people from 1959–1961 was incompetence not a genocide. Numbers of deaths are irrelevant the intent must be the systematic destruction of a people.
So sure the Iraq war combined combined with a sectarian civil war, and after effects from the breakdown of the economy and social order possibly reached a few hundred thousand deaths. But that’s by definition not a genocide. If you want an American genocide look back to what happened to Native Americans.
It's an inherent quality of government. Since WWII, the US has killed somewhere around 20 million people during their various adventures around the globe. The Soviet Union killed an equivalent amount, perhaps up to three times as much, but both are staggering, horrifying numbers.
"To the families and friends of these victims it makes little difference whether the causes were U.S. military action, proxy military forces, the provision of U.S. military supplies or advisors, or other ways, such as economic pressures applied by our nation."
"The U.S. is responsible for between 1 and 1.8 million deaths during the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, by luring the Soviet Union into invading that nation."
"Over the years we have repeatedly heard about the Khmer Rouge’s role in the deaths of millions in Cambodia without any acknowledgement being made this mass killing was made possible by the the U.S. bombing of that nation which destabilized it by death , injuries, hunger and dislocation of its people. So the U.S. bears responsibility not only for the deaths from the bombings but also for those resulting from the activities of the Khmer Rouge – a total of about 2.5 million people. Even when Vietnam latrer invaded Cambodia in 1979 the CIA was still supporting the Khmer Rouge."
"Some people estimate that the number of Cuban forces killed range from 2,000, to 4,000. Another estimate is that 1,800 Cuban forces were killed on an open highway by napalm. This appears to have been a precursor of the Highway of Death in Iraq in 1991 when U.S. forces mercilessly annihilated large numbers of Iraqis on a highway."
"Between 8,000 and 12,000 Nepalese have died since a civil war broke out in 1996. The death rate, according to Foreign Policy in Focus, sharply increased with the arrival of almost 8,400 American M-16 submachine guns (950 rpm) and U.S. advisers. Nepal is 85 percent rural and badly in need of land reform. Not surprisingly 42 % of its people live below the poverty level."
"Yugoslavia was a socialist federation of several republics. Since it refused to be closely tied to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it gained some suport from the U.S. But when the Soviet Union dissolved, Yugoslavia’s usefulness to the U.S. ended, and the U.S and Germany worked to convert its socialist economy to a capitalist one by a process primarily of dividing and conquering. There were ethnic and religious differences between various parts of Yugoslavia which were manipulated by the U.S. to cause several wars which resulted in the dissolution of that country. From the early 1990s until now Yugoslavia split into several independent nations whose lowered income, along with CIA connivance, has made it a pawn in the hands of capitalist countries. (1) The dissolution of Yugoslavia was caused primarily by the U.S."
"Let us put this in historical perspective: the commemoration of the War to End All Wars acknowledges that 15 million lives were lost in the course of World War I (1914-18)." [But see the 1917-1919 flu pandemic, which may have started in the United States, making the US directly responsible for the deaths of 50 million people.]
Please provide sources for the millions of deaths. Your post sounds like an anti-capitalist screed more than an argument against US military hegemony. Consider that alternative of world war and Russian or Chinese imperialism.
The US has not killed millions of people in the last 15 years that is just a blatantly false statement. A quick search on Google or Wikipedia will refute your claim instantly.
Can you provide a decent source for your millions of casualties claim or for you claim about the US toppling more Governments than Russia/China? I bet you can’t.
Judging by your username I believe you know some things about history. Why spread false info?
I think you're making an unfair argument. It was rarely (if ever) the intent of the US to kill civilians in it's various wars it's done. You're making the "collateral damage" argument that is often used as a point to attack the US on. Be consistent.
As to all your examples, we could have a large discussion about each, but most are from the independent actions of the populace rather than government policy forcing deaths upon the populace at effective gun point. And none of them killed anywhere near the number that the great famine did. Most of them in fact killed zero people and just caused economic hardship. (Also while the American civil war killed 1%, the Chinese great famine killed over 10% in many areas.)
When farmers are dying of starvation and aren't allowed to eat the food that they're growing, you've gone seriously off the rails.
The US suffered around 58k casualties during the Vietnam war. Nearly as many people domestically are dying each year from opioid overdoses. In 2017, that number was 47k. Now compare and contrast this with 9/11, which killed roughly 3k. If you believe the government's bald faced lies, that should be a great enough loss of life to spur them into action. Yet there's nothing substantial being done to fix this. Keep in mind here that 9/11 is supposedly what got us the Patriot Act and legalized sexual assault in airports.
So not only am I saying the US government doesn't care about civilian mistreatment, they actively encourage it by turning a blind eye to corporate greed. North Korea does bad things, but it doesn't matter because nobody talking about is actually willing to help those people. So they're just pawns for you to signal about. No policy is impacted it whatsoever.
2) By the same simplistic reasoning, Americans killed 20-30 million [1] just by themselves. I'm not sure what the totals would look like after adding in the British, French, Dutch, etc. empires.
3) I'm almost certain that that 100 million figure includes revolutions caused as a direct result of imperial powers meddling in the affairs of local populations. E.g. Cambodia [2]. That's the part that's "overly zealous".
Yes civilians do die in wars but the conduct of the US forces in South east Asia was pretty reprehensible by any measure. Particularly if you’ve read “Kill anything that moves” by Nick Turse
The US isn't concerned with civilian casualties. Of course, it wouldn't go out of its way to inflict them, but it simply pays no regard to them, no matter what their scale. Look at US actions in Laos, Cambodia, and Libya for direct instances of this, where hundreds of thousands of people were killed because of US actions.
I read this and Chomsky says what I said - the civilian deaths due to the US ground invasion and carpet bombing are ignored.
Also, as I said, the US began arming the Khmer Rouge in 1979, and began openly arming them in the 1980s. So if the Khmer Rouge had committed a genocide, then that's who the US was arming to put back in power.
I would invite you to read a list of notable quotes by Gen. LeMay [0]. The man had a specific interest, sustained over decades, in promoting and normalizing the idea that the US should kill civilians to make wars easier.
Meanwhile, most estimates put North Korea's total deaths at between 400 and 700 thousand. I'm sure you'll find many war crimes on both sides. The crimes of North Korea do not justify those of the US, and those of the US do not justify those of North Korea. If you insist on comparing them, again, I'll take that comparison any day.
To put this another way, the fact that the US has done X, does not excuse 1000X done by repressive regimes around the world. Trying to cast the US as the world's "bad guy" isn't brave or controversial, it just gives cover to the truly evil nations committing ongoing genocide.
> I would love you to find me a source for millions of non enemy combatant deaths directly caused by the US.
The US killed roughly 20% of the population of North Korea with direct targeted bombings of civilian centers and infrastructure.[1] They destroyed so much of the country that they ran out of targets. Civilian death estimates for North Korea alone start around 1.5 million.
"We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too." — General Curtis LeMay
Nowhere near as many that were systematically slaughtered by their own gov't.
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