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        • SphereofWreckening@lemmy.worldEnglish
          193·
          5 days ago

          If we’re using material harm to a person or region as the metric for measurement: objectively yes.

          Both are terrible, but the US is pretty clearly worse.

          • null@piefed.nullspace.lolEnglish
            11·
            2 days ago

            If we’re using material harm to a person or region as the metric for measurement: objectively yes.

            Pound for pound? No.

            • SphereofWreckening@lemmy.worldEnglish
              21·
              2 days ago

              The US has toppled more countries, both single-handedly and with allies compared to Al-Qaeda. The US has started or been responsible for exacerbating more famines/droughts/critical supplies shortages than Al-Qaeda. The US has killed more people, and has more people in slavery than Al-Qaeda. The US has ruined more parts of the world than Al-Qaeda has.

              Logically, no matter how you cut it, the US is significantly worse when compared to Al-Qaeda. And this is before mentioning how the US essentially funded and created the conditions for Al-Qaeda through their worsening affects on the Middle East; as well as trained and funded the Mujahideen to fight the Soviets which helped fund Osama Bin Laden and later Al-Qaeda.

              • null@piefed.nullspace.lolEnglish
                12·
                2 days ago

                Logically, no matter how you cut it, the US is significantly worse when compared to Al-Qaeda.

                Pound for pound on number of deaths? That’s an absurd claim.

          • eurodyne@piefed.worldEnglish
            4·
            4 days ago

            but the US is pretty clearly worse

            To deconstruct this a (tiny) bit - and forgive the Clintonism of “it depends on the what the definition of ‘is’ is”…

            I wouldn’t say “the US is pretty clearly worse”, but, rather, “the US - in the context of its actions in parallel consideration with that of al-Qaeda’s actions - has been (and continues to be) objectively worse, considering overall lives lost, material damage done, and the widespread and colossal impact to global geopolitical instability.” That’s not an equivocation, but a clarification which, IMO, if far more damning and more accurate to what Piker was trying to communicate.

            and all of this? possibly the most masterful - almost artful - military intelligence operation ever devised and pulled off by one Vladimir Putin, such that would make Rasputin proud. he has taken the post-WWII western global hegemony and successfully, over just under 3 decades (especially in the last 10 years) led the dumbest and most arrogant American (Trump and MAGA) to smash it to bits on their own, with little effort on his part.

            • BiteSizedZeitGeist@lemmy.worldEnglish
              11·
              4 days ago

              “I didn’t disagree that America is worse for the world than one of the largest terror organizations, but I refuse to do anything about it!” Magnue yells as he guns the throttle on his Harley Davidson

    • itsjustachairmary@lemmy.worldEnglish
      124·
      5 days ago

      Lmfao ok

      He’s right though. AQ hasn’t caused millions of deaths. Is still leading to millions of deaths.

      AQ are monsters. Absolutely vile monsters. But do not pretend for a second the US is any better.

        • itsjustachairmary@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          2 days ago

          Like the time the US pounded that school? Or the other school? Or the other school. Or the other school. Or the other school. Or the

          I mean I can do the same thing for hospitals, clinics, universities, shelters, old folks homes, churches, mosques, hell even synagogues. Weddings, funerals, kids birthday parties, holidays, casual evening gatherings. Apartment blocks, neighbourhoods, entire cities leveled. Your neighbor’s 4 year old’s body parts held in a plastic bag by their dad begging a doctor to please heal their kid.

          The US has committed so many war crimes, first of all the crime of war itself. It has funded terrorists, supported brutal dictators and caused millions to die and will continue to do so. The scale at which AQ commits its horrid violence is not even dwarfed by the shit the US has done and still does. Nowhere fucking near. ISIS maybe. AQ not even in the slightest. When you bomb three entire countries so much that almost every square foot of earth has had a bomb dropped on it like in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam, when you support Saddam’s gas attacks on the Kurds and Iranians, when you military support Pinochet and the brutal dictators of the Philippines, when that gets millions killed and babies to this day are being born with severe birth defects because of it, you are the greater evil. No car bomb or truck bomb or airplane into a skyscraper can ever hope to compete with the absolute evil that the US has brought forth into this world.

          • null@piefed.nullspace.lolEnglish
            11·
            2 days ago

            Even factoring in the US’ atrocities, yes, claiming that the US is worse than Al Queda pound-for-pound on number of deaths is absurd.

            • itsjustachairmary@lemmy.worldEnglish
              11·
              2 days ago

              How about decades of torture programs, disappearing people, CIA interventions, political assasinations and terror attacks? The US is pretty good at those too. Leaving drug empires everywhere they go, stealing natural resources through warfare, corruption and murdering union workers. Poisoning their own population, slavery and the ongoing oppression of people of colour, the Tuskegee experiment, MKUltra, institutional racism that is still killing people and harming communities, economic warfare, using chemicals and gas attacks on their own citizens and abroad, ruining vast swathes of ecosystems for short term gain, normalizing corruption, shielding oil companies from consequences, several genocides among which the still grossly under recognized genocide of the First Nations that is also ongoing. Their illegal economic boycots, illegal wars, their ongoing support for Israel as it commits a genocide, their support for literally Al Qaida in their fight against ISIS, the support for ISIS aligned groups in Gaza, their illegal war against Iran and their other illegal wars against Iran, their spread of military bases all over the world, their refusal to adhere to International law, their refusal to commit to nonproliferation, their refusal of justice for people who lived downwind of nuclear tests and who are still to this day harmed by their effects, their support of Apartheid South-Africa and Rhodesia and their refusal to respond adequately to several genocides. The United States is the most hated country in the world for a reason dude. Millions were killed and billions have been affected by their bullshit and they won’t stop anytime soon.

              Like what the fuck are you even arguing here?

              • null@piefed.nullspace.lolEnglish
                11·
                2 days ago

                I’m arguing that claiming that the US is worse than Al Queda pound-for-pound on number of deaths is absurd.

                I thought that was pretty clear.

                • itsjustachairmary@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  11·
                  2 days ago

                  Nice goalposts why don’t you move them some more

                  Never said pound for pound dude. The US has done more evil than any other empire combined and it is not even close. AQ isn’t even a fly to a sun when it comes to the US. Get your head out of the 2003 war on terror bullshit and stick that American flagpole where the sun don’t shine. The rest of the world is done with your shit.