So it seems there wasn't a Politics Images thread before either

[Bob Schroeck]

   


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[Norgarth]

[hazard]

Aww, they missed calling it the Resolute Desk under the My First Presidency line.

[robkelk]

Got these by email, so watch my attachment quota fill up...


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[robkelk]

Source

[robkelk]

Source

[robkelk]

For reasons that rhyme with "shoredom", I was trawling through the xkcd archives and re-discovered this one:

[Bob Schroeck]

   

[DHBirr]

Fake note!  The Dotard didn't write that; the printing is too neat and none of the words are misspelled!

[nemonowan]

[Norgarth]

Occurred to me that these ones might be a bit too political for the general images thread (possibly I should have posted other ones here too, but I'd forgotten about this thread)

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Black Aeronaut]

Doing this here because it's political as fuck.

See, this here actually fucking cheeses me off more than you can imagine.

Yes, we have had our terrible moments.  Slavery, Manifest Destiny, Dollar Diplomacy, and all that other populist, racist bullshit.

But when the one fucking thing you cite all the goddamn time is Afghanistan, I'm gonna laugh in your fucking face.

Why?

Because shit going to hell in Afghanistan wasn't our fault.  It was the fault of the Russians, and hilariously exacerbated by the UN by doing exactly what this guy wants - for no one to intervene.

See, here's the BlackAeronaut's quick'n'dirty version.

The USSR props up a Communist regime taking power in Afghanistan, which BTW, has absolutely no popular support - this was a very small minority that the USSR supported because HEY!  More Communist Brothers!  The USA makes grumbling noises about it, but otherwise stays out of it because, unfortunately, it's not our fleas and not our circus.

Needless to say, an uprising takes place.  It's a slow burner, but as it ramps up the USA finally decides it's gonna do something about it.

What does the USA do?

Do we send troops?  Advisors?  Air strikes?

No.

We provide funding for the war effort, and sell them a few man-portable anti-air missiles.

The Afghans fucking love us.  We've empowered them to fight their war for themselves and on their terms.

Exceeeeept there're these guys from Saudi Arabia.  They're kinda fucking with things by being generally incompetent because they all think they're their grandfathers in WWII or something.  (And we all know that Arabia was ALSO a hot mess back in WWII, so yeah, they're being their grandfathers alright.)  But despite these guys mucking things up, the Afghans are successful in ousting the Communists.  Once everything was said and done, a provisional government was set up so reconstruction could begin.  And boy, was there a lot to do.

See, the USSR, of course, threw it's full support behind the Afghani-Communist regime.  Which meant that they sent their soldiers, their guns, their planes, their bombs - pretty much every damn thing except for nukes, thank God.  Long story short?  It got seriously messy and just about every major city was reduced to nothing.

And this is saying something, really.  Because Afghanistan before all this happened?  Place was freakin' gorgeous and I don't just mean the landscape.  The cities were very much modern and had some great architecture.  Had none of this happened, they'd be one of the few First World Nations in that part of the world.

Thus, they had a very long and hard slog ahead of them.  Trouble is?  All these Saudis were still there, and the Afghans couldn't do much because they had all the money - the money we sent them had been all spent on the war.

Low and behold, these Saudi ass holes begin to create for themselves their little Fundamentalist Hell Hole out of Afghanistan.  Oh, and Fuck America.  Why?  Because.  They're Infidels.  That's Why.  Oh!  WELCOME BROTHER BIN LADEN!  Yes, we know, that thing in the Persian Gulf was bad.  A thousand curses upon those Americans for getting involved!

(PS: We were explicitly invited to that party.  By the Kuwaiti people no less.  Bin Laden's beef was that they chose America's assistance over Saudi Arabia's.  Gee, I wonder why? *cough*taliban*cough*)

Of course, the US makes grumbling noises about the situation in Afghanistan before the UN's general assembly.  But we were told to keep our noses out of it because that's an internal matter.

But it's funny how internal matters can spiral out of control and metastasize like a fucking cancer.

And if you think that's just an isolated incident, let me remind you about Japan.  In the events leading up to WWII, we left Japan the hell alone, doing nothing more than denying them trade with the US...  And then they sent a fleet up our asses with the intent of giving the US Navy in the Pacific a coup de grace.

At the very least we helped them rebuild their country from the ground up once we got done beating the everloving shit out of them for it.  God only knows what it'd be like over there if we just left them to their own devices afterwards.  *Looks in the general direction of Afghanistan*

So forgive me if dumbshits that can't remember modern history piss me off.  Don't paint all of us with the same goddamned brush.  How about you look at who's in charge when shit goes down instead?

[Norgarth]

The pic you quoted? says nothing about Afghanistan. Yeah, some people may use it to refer to Afghanistan, but it can just as easily apply to Iraq, or further back, Vietnam.
(admittedly, I SHOULD have posted it here rather than the general thread, yes.)

Or other times where the US backed rebels/local governments depending on which was more anti-communist back in the Cold War (the USSR was admittedly at least as bad about that sort of thing) or even more recently.

[Black Aeronaut]

You'd have to be specific about which Iraq war.  The first one we were invited.  The second one, Dubbya's administration just pointed at Saddam Husein and said, "He's got WMDs!  Get 'em, Dubbya!  Get 'em!"  That one *was* some fucked up shit, and it only happened because Dubbya wanted to show the world that he was better than his dad by actually catching Hussein this time.

As for Vietnam?  Ohhhhh no no no no no no noooooooo you don't.

First: We were cleaning up after the utter fucking mess the French made of the place in trying to colonize South Vietnam.  That colonization effort was the source of a lot of the misgivings these guys had towards the West.

Second: the Viet Cong kicked things off, because fuck those Capitalist Pigs that are trying to fix up the place!

Third: Though the Viet Cong was primarily of South Vietnamese origin, pretty much all their backing came from North Vietnam...  Who were being backed by Russia, China, and North Korea.  (Big surprise there, huh?)

Fourth: You *do* remember what happened afterwards, right?  When these fuckers won their war?  When they got exactly what they wanted?  Pretty damn sure none of the genocides and refugee crisis would have occurred had it been a US-South Vietnam victory.  Hell, we probably even would have let them keep North Vietnam with some concessions to the tune of disarmament and reparations.

See, here's the thing about this era in US history: the Communist Block were *always* the ones to initiate things.  And they were also the ones to always abide genocides and purges and all kinds of other heinous and fucked up shit.

The point is we're not always the bad guys.  And I fucking hate these ass clowns that go around saying that we are, all the time.

Oh sure!  Let's go ahead and disband our standing armies and naval forces!  I'm sure that Russia, China, and North Korea would all love that.  You just do that, and then watch as Russia reestablishes the USSR by annexing all the countries around it, China nukes Taiwan and Japan, and North Korea settles their territorial claim once and for all, and in the worst ways possible.

[hazard]

Oi, First: The French didn't try to colonize South Vietnam.

They colonized most of Indo-China, not just Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were included.

Second: The hands of the US and South Vietnamese governments aren't clean; the entire WW2 and on era in the region was messy and unpleasant and rife with civil wars for a reason. The Viet Cong may've kicked things off, but the West backed South and communist backed North were always going to come to blows over the political structure of Vietnam.

Third: The US and South would've no doubt sought to support and finance rebel groups in North Vietnam if they'd had the chance. The South because they were the rightful government of Vietnam (or so they claimed, just like the North) and the US because it was a useful proxy war.

Fourth: Not saying Vietnam's hands were clean, but they fought multiple wars with other communist countries, including China shortly after the conclusion of the reunification of Vietnam, not least of which because the Red Khmer were crazy and China wanted land that was Vietnam territory and influence in the region, none of which the communist government of Vietnam was very happy with.

And no, the communist block were not always the ones initiating things. On the eleventh of September 1973 the Chilean military couped a democratically elected socialist president on the basis of pressure by the US administration of the time, establishing a military junta under General Pinochet, a government not exactly known for their even handed and sensitive approach to maintaining order and handling dissenting voices. And while the US wasn't directly involved in the coup, it sure as hell did everything it could short of it, and supported the junta afterwards. Can't have those dirty commies point to a successful socialist government as an example, after all.


The US isn't always the bad guys. The US is sometimes the good guys. But the US sure as shit will be the bad guy when it suits the US and tell everybody they're the good guys and lie about everything so they don't get called out for their bad behaviour, which makes it harder to credit the US when they are actually being the good guys.

[Bob Schroeck]

... Guys, this is the images thread.

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[classicdrogn]

Disney: Not the gayest place on earth

[Norgarth]