> Learning the language of a nation where a significant percentage of population...

yakshaving_jgt · 2025-12-24T16:26:23 1766593583

Do you believe that a significant proportion of native English speakers support the idea of imperialistic invasion and occupation, and the rape and torture of women and children?

viccis · 2025-12-24T20:05:58 1766606758

Yes. This has been incredibly consistent throughout the existence of the US and UK in particular.

yakshaving_jgt · 2025-12-24T20:59:01 1766609941

That seems like a pretty wild thing to say. What is your source for this?

viccis · 2025-12-24T22:41:30 1766616090

Which war? The Iraq War started with around 62% support. When the US started its involvement in the Korean War (one of the biggest mass atrocities we'd carried out since, well, about 5 years earlier when we atom bombed Japan...), around 78% supported it. Around 71% of Americans supported a large scale troop invasion of Afghanistan when it started.

Honestly, even for the wars with bad public perception, like Vietnam, it was mostly because Americans were tired of our guys being drafted just to be turned into dogfood on the other side of the world, not because we were occupying and brutalizing them.

yakshaving_jgt · 2025-12-25T12:47:13 1766666833

Let's just pick one, so as to not get distracted.

> The Iraq War started with around 62% support.

I think the essence of my question is what did "support" look like here?

I can empathise with the position that the invasion of Iraq was warranted (which is not to say that I agree with it), in the context of the September 11 attacks. What I haven't seen is any popular support for the slaughter of civilians or the annexation of territory — there is no grand narrative that the USA is actually liberating its historical lands in Iraq. I think the support was conditional, and based on claims that later collapsed. The end goal was withdrawal after regime change.

What I haven't seen is any analogue to egregious instances like this[0], of which there are many in russia's war against Ukraine.

[0]: https://iwpr.net/global-voices/go-ahead-and-rape-ukrainian-w...

viccis · 2025-12-25T16:44:06 1766681046

You're ignoring the mass atrocities committed by both sides in the Donbas throughout much of the 2010s that provided easy propaganda to achieve the same outcomes as the Iraq War propaganda.

I have another example of a "war" carried out recently with overwhelming support in its nation and in the US (initially) due to rapid propaganda around an attack that was likely intentionally intensified in effect by things like moving civilian events next to a military target the day before. But I won't post that one lol

yakshaving_jgt · 2025-12-26T00:19:12 1766708352

> You're ignoring the mass atrocities committed by both sides in the Donbas throughout much of the 2010s

This is grossly misleading. It implies a scale and symmetry that reputable monitors do not support.

The question now is what caused you to write this. Was it ignorance? Or malicious dishonesty?

otabdeveloper4 · 2025-12-25T14:19:56 1766672396

> it's different when we do it

You're not helping here.

yakshaving_jgt · 2025-12-25T14:32:21 1766673141

Who are you quoting?

Is this what HN has become? Just blatant strawmanning?

jwr · 2025-12-25T09:57:55 1766656675

Ah, the usual whataboutism that derails rational discussion. While the world isn't black and white, there are rare situations where things actually are totally black and white, and we are witnessing one of them right now.