Why do we support countries that abuse human rights ?

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naturalplastic
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01 Feb 2023, 5:26 am

1) We have to make allies.

2) Its an imperfect world so we have to make allies with the countries that are available. And all countries "abuse human rights". But some more than others.

3) More often than not its right thing to do because the country we are "supporting" is defending itself from another country that is worse.

About 2. Back in the Eighties Amnesty International would print out the stats for how many political prisoners each country has. Non violent persons imprisoned for speaking out, or running bookstores, union organizers, etc.

China would always top the list with half of million. The worst country in the noncommunist world would always be Indonesia with 100 thousand. But our own US would always be listed has having one, or two, political prisoners at any given time. Shocking that the US would have any number more than zero. But atleast we dont have one for every one or two thousand of the population like Indonesia and China.

About one and three: Churchill and FDR had to support the Soviet Union, under Stalin, in order to defeat Hitler. Hitler was the greater of the two evils, and also an aggressor, and an immediate threat.
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On the other hand there are plenty of examples where "supporting oppressors" was morally wrong, wrong in practical sense, or both morally and pragmatically wrong.

Some countries are okay to their own people, but oppress other people in their colonies overseas.

After WWII we switched from defeating the Axis, to resisting the Communist Bloc.

The great powers of Europe wanted to resume lording it over the brown folks in their colonies in the third world-as if the war had never happened. The French returned to Indochina and ended up fighting and finnally loosing the war to crush the Vietnamese. And they dragged us into it to assist them in thier ultimately lost war. And led the later American war in Indochina.

Our postwar policy of supporting European powers in keeping their empires ...played right into the hands of the Communist Bloc. Both morally wrong, and polticially self defeating.

During the same circa 1950 era the Brits got upset that Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister nationalized BP's oil refineries in Iran. The Brits tried to recruit the US on its side against Iran, but two US presidents (Truman, and Eisenhower) both agreed with the Iranians that they were being unfairly treated. But when the UK threaten to pull out participating in the US led war in Korea the US kissed the UK's ass, and used our CIA to overthrow Iran's democracy, and to reinstall the Shah.

Thirty years later the people of Iran finnally rose up against the American installed Shah, but the Mullahs hijacked the revolution and turned Iran into the theocratic dictatorship it is today- instead of restoring the democracy that had flourished back in 1953.

So... the US saved both Britain and France from Hitler. And in gratitude France got us into Vietnam, and Britain created the current mess in Iran. Thank you...allies! :lol: