So SuttaCentral too, like other “dharma/dhamma” forums, is getting sucked into political frays, complete with USA bashing, media bashing, extreme viewpoints, participation by the “usual suspects”, and just overall general celebration of dukkha?
3 Likes
DN 31 refers to avoid four kinds of prejudice (agati): due to love, hate, ignorance & fear.
The US engaged in war against Iraq, Libya and also Syria and droned Pakistan heavily since 2008.
These are real FACTS. Why the denial?
Next it will be asserted there was no US war in Vietnam.
All the best in discerning what is true & real. 
Why this personal attack, out of the blue, in a non-relevant topic? You do know the story about the Buddha and unwanted gifts, don’t you?
I’m not going to argue with you.
Yes, the USA created the taliban and supported jihadism for so many decades, even today in recent wars. But this was prefectly justifiable since the communist were doing exactly this too. At the begining of the cold war things were not going exactly in US favor. The URSS had the upper hand. And they were sponsoring monstruous communist terrorism in africa, south america, south-est asia. Just look at Pol Pot who murdered 25% of his population in the Theravada buddhist country of Cambodgia.
In recent years, this sponsorship of islamic terrorism has turned against the west and the west no longer supports it. Only gulf states continue to support it. It’s true that US is for example backing al-qaeda in syria but they are the most reluctant in all of backing them and recently had abandoned them. The US has even started to put pressure in Saudi Arabia to stop terrorism and started desecretising information from 9/11 to put pressure on them.
It’s just realpolitiks where nobody is ever right and nobody is ever wrong. Those who complain about anything in realpolitiks do not understand it. There are no bad guys and good guys, it’s just how things go. Complaining about realpolitiks is like complaining about winter or storms.
No matter what they do, the US and Europe remain the good guys for the simple fact that they are democratic and have free market economy. The west has always treated his allies in a great way and did their best to bring free market and democracy in their allied countries. Russia and China, by the simple fact that they are not democracy themselves, can never even attempt to promote democracy in an allied country. Dictatorship always brings corruption and this corruption goes from the lowest level to the highest possible levels producing a lot of economic inefficiency. Witch means the country can never be as rich and have as good of a living standard as possible by a western allied country. You will be crying for this west in 2050 when China is predicted to be nr1 army on the globe. I’m speaking as a citizen of a western allied country who has benefited a lot from allying itself to the west. Take a look at this:
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:BGR:ROM:POL:UKR:MDA&ifdim=region&hl=ro&dl=ro&ind=false
There are real people living in this countries and their lives really differ if they stand at 2000$ or at 10.000$ pib per capita. There are real humans like me living there.
And this is why most people out there, including 100% of politicians from both US parties, are all neocons. They are not evil or have some mysterious motives. They are just good intended and play the realpolitiks game just like everybody else: without the intention to suicide themselves.
If they would not be do that, maybe some people in these western-allied countries would go to jail for criticizing your government like it happens in Russia or China. Maybe even you would end up in such a situation one day.
I have no judgement about whether the US created the Taliban or not.
But excuse me, are you a Buddhist?
When someone does wrong things, it justifies you doing wrong things, too?
I have no judgement about whether the US created the Taliban or not.
But excuse me, are you a Buddhist?
When one does wrong things, it justifies you doing wrong things, too?
As a person whose parents have lived in 1600pib per capita all their lives, endured one of the hardest oppression people can be subjected to. (Only North Korea was run in the same style as Ceauchescu’s Romania) and also suffered the 80s famine - I can not be more grateful that the west did all they could to win the cold war. The faster they won it the better it was for the whole globe.
Do you remotely understand what it means to live in 1600$ pib per capita ? You do understand that this is not just a number on a paper ? Real humans live in these places. And to mention nothing about levels of oppression. Saudy arabia are good people compared to the communist in terms of oppression. And their terrorist also kill infinitely less of the population than these communist regimes.
Stalin - 60 million
Mao Zedon - 70-100 million
Other communist states such as my Romania - there are not exact numbers but things were kinda the same
The faster they won the cold war, the more lives were saved and billions of people got out of poverty and brutal oppression faster.
By the way, when was the last time you saw US try something like this:
No to mention what they’re doing in the Theravada buddhist countries, backing all kind of dictators and military juntas. US backs a couple of dictatorships and people have a problem. Russia or China can back all kind of dictatorships and even be dictatorships themselves and nobody has a problem. They’re the good guys in realpolitiks.
And do you think that in all those places proxy wars take place or took place, Afghanistan to start with, there are no real humans living there?
And to reply to your last post, isn’t this about the same:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/
I stop here, this is way too much off-topic.
Hi Friends,
Just a brief mindfulness pause. The Watercooler is a place for general interest topics, and I think it’s possible to talk about almost anything with kindness. But I just want to take a brief moment to ask you to take a breath, pause, think about what you really want to say, what’s really important and whether it’s something that’s really worth spending your time and energy on here.
Metta! For Sehwan and for all.
5 Likes
Thanks Cara, your words are very much appreciated 
I can’t really say anything, trying to pick up my dropped jaw.
I apologize for my tone : D To my excuse if people from ex-communist countries are not going to jump off their chair when US foreign policy is criticized, then who else ? Romania and Poland are the one of the most pro-american countries in the world.
Thanks Cara, your words are very much appreciated
I can’t really say anything, trying to pick up my dropped jaw.
I agree there is going to be some some pretty ugly stuff happening from time to time because of this realpolitiks. But that is nothing compared to lives saved and improved. During the Cold War in particular, not only was half the world population at stake (those living in criminal oppression and poverty in communist countries), but it was also an actual war state.
About recent wars, I agree some things have gone wrong with US policy. Afganistan was URSS problem with their invasion, not US problem who just reacted. In Iraq, things were 100% justified. In Lybia, I consider it was 50-50% if you stop and really think about it. As for Syria, I agree it was a disaster.
I happen to be a map lover and Syria map is such a complicated and unpredictable one updated in real time with every street captured so I check it from time to time and am familiar with what is happening there. Map here: http://syriancivilwarmap.com/
Reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/new/
The map used to look much worse. Here is the background:
After starting the Lybia adventures, the west decided to try the same thing against Assad. It was an anti-west regime, it was also a dictatorship so it was fair game despite the fact that Assad is quite a moderate and reformist person for that area. At first, the west and gulf states and turkey started to back a revolution against Assad witch was islamist but was pretty moderate. It didn’t work and the gulf states, just like in Lybia started pumping jihadist from around the world into rebel lines to help with the process and gain influence after the war. In Lybia they did not gain too much influence and the west managed to maintain things under control and moderate. But in Syria the jihadist totally took contol of the oposition and now there is hardly any moderate rebel existing on the map.
The war is between the red part of the map (government) and green part (rebel) witch means Al-qaeda. Isis and Kurds are secondary figures. The west continued to back Al-qaeda untill recent months. This happened because now Assad really got the upper hand and anyway, the opposition really are only jihadist so lack legitimacy.
I agree with everybody that they should have stopped backing al-qaeda years ago and the media campaigns such as “starving modaya kids” or the siege of allepo or etc. are absolutely disgusting. The Syrian war has been in my opinion too much to digest in terms of real politiks. It’s hard to justify backing al-qaeda against a secular government supported by the huge majority of population that never really did any harm other than been anti-west and been a little too brutal at the initial protests that sparked the revolution. I mean you have do draw the line somewhere with this realpolitiks. But other than this Syrian war and maybe Lybia + some bad stuff done in the past by US in south america - other than that there are not really any things hard to digest.
Are you aware this is a Buddhist forum in the first place?
Yes, and I am trying to explain why these politicians that run foreign policy this way are not some evil people with corrupt intentions but actually have a logic in what they are doing. This is why people are so surprised to find even Obama been exactly like any other president that ever was before him in terms of foreign policy. There is no evil conspiracy about politicians been all neocons, they actually are really good intended people and this is simply how things go in realpolitiks. If they don’t act with this kind of long-term thinking, even more people get killed. Take for example what happened in Rwanda when US decided not to intervene because people back home would have complained about too much interventionism and might have ruined Bill Clinton image in front of his anti-interventionist supporters.
What should be a buddhist opinion about this if he would be a politician ? It should be the same opinion in case he does not want to cause even more trouble by inaction. Lack of action is also kamma. I know even in Buddhism this has been debated in Thanissaro vs B.Bodhi debate about just war.
Would you sleep well at night if you were Bill Clinton after that Rwandan genocide ?
1 Like
Worth noting that the only one of the 4 Theravada buddhist countries that is remotely developed is Thailand - and that is because of been allied with US. When the population is in poverty and uneducated, we can be sure that is going to have an effect on their understanding of Buddhism. Take a look at this grapth: https://www.google.ro/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:KHM:LAO&hl=ro&dl=ro#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:KHM:LAO:MMR:THA:LKA&ifdim=region&hl=ro&dl=ro&ind=false
EDIT: Oups, I see this is not a politics topic and people have actually complained about it going this way. I apologize but I had read only the last posts before posting.