This kind of justification for the North Korean embargo is disgusting. The world is inflicting poverty upon this people to punish the government for the grave sin of not bowing to US hegemony.
What's with astonishing praise for evil just for the sake of sticking it to the status quo?
Completely orthogonal to any US allies and their action, it is absolutely disingenius to dismiss the evils of Saddam's empire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLUktJbp2Ug. There is a large body of work around Saddam's regime, this YT clip isn't provided as an evidence, but to show how misplaced it is to say "Saddam did nothing wrong".
I find this an ongoing problem on HN. There are 2 counter acting forces A and B. Objectively, B is evil. But, HN equates A and B on the same level and demands equal criticism of both just by the virtue of the fact that A and B are up for a discussion. I am sure there is a list of biases being violated. It's similar to the debate between flat earth deniers and believers. If we host a debate between them, there is a perceived notion that both parties are on the same footing. The truth couldn't be far from that.
Generic tangents that get us to Saddam from the OP are not at all the point of this site. Please don't. Reductio ad Saddamum may not be full Godwin but it's way over the line.
We've asked you before to stop using HN for political flamewar. It's not only not what HN is for, it destroys what it is for. If you keep doing it we're going to have to ban you. Using multiple accounts to do this kind of thing is particularly not cool.
I apologize. It is difficult to tell when to refute praise of evil (Saddam, NK) and when to avoid starting a political flamewar. I'll just disengage since it leads to unpleasant toxicity, you're right.
The point is that Saddam was a hero when he was killing Iranians, but a villain when he invaded Kuwait. Saddam didn't actually change, his usefulness to us did. And a large part of the reason he was able to rule Iraq was because he was supported by the West.
Assuming the people you're arguing with are simple-minded flat-earthers who can't think that anything against America is bad because they think America is bad and two things can't be bad because they like to argue is causing you to hear the worst possible version of people's positions.
If you re-read my statement it doesn't justify or praise Saddam. "Saddam did nothing wrong" in the eyes of the US.. like Salman did nothing wrong that is worthy of punishment in the journalist murder case, from the US point of view.
It merely states that the US will happily create, fund and tolerate monsters, but the moment their are political enemies they suddenly become devil incarnate. Happily fund and arm bin-laden, and extreme fundamental ideologies and then turn around and claim the high moral ground. Today KSA can do no wrong and Iran can do nothing right. Tomorrow if KSA switches sides, then they will suddenly become evil tyrants that have regressive views and torture their people.
It's not A vs B is a flawed comparison. It's A makes B, both are evil and roll around happily in the mud. A then claims moral superiority and is called out on it's bullshit.
Not only that, but this breeds hate towards the US as well.
Because in the eyes of a poor individual civilian who had food to eat yesterday and didn't today due to some stupid embargo, the US is responsible for their hunger.
We've been relentlessly attacking them for well over half a century, starting by killing a large portion of the population. I don't think we get to pretend the answer to "what if we stop attacking them" is obvious.
NK invaded SK, not the other way around. Defending an ally from their aggression is a very strange thing to call "relentlessly attacking them". Also after the Korean War, not really sure I would classify much else as "relentlessly attacking" either.
