Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you typed "unrest" when you meant "democracy". The Egyptian army is not perfect, but the Muslim Brotherhood was worse. Iraq and Afghanistan are also better off then they were under Saddam and the Taliban.
The Egyption progression was military dictatorship -> revolution, elections -> elected Islamists -> everyone realising how awful Islamists are even if elected -> military dictatorship. Turkey has been struggling with a lighter and less violent version of the same issue for a while; you can have a democratic country only until you elect a religious party determined to violate minority rights, at which point military s…
US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
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Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you typed "unrest" when you meant "democracy". The Egyptian army is not perfect, but the Muslim Brotherhood was worse. Iraq and Afghanistan are also better off then they were under Saddam and the Taliban.
Muslim Brotherhood was a democratically elected party in power. The past year has been the most violent in Iraq in terms of civilian deaths and targeted attacks. A lot of my Iraqi friends mention that Iraq was more peaceful under Saddam (despite the fact that they didn't like him as the ruler). A lot of tribal leaders that supported Saddam switched alliances when the was was eminent and so a lot of these individuals…
Your Iraqi friends weren't Kurds, were they? Even if Iraq was more peaceful under Saddam, I expect crime is pretty low in North Korea as well.
The Taliban may well be clawing back to power, and that is a truly terrible prospect for the people of Afghanistan, but their fate is in their own hands now.
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Human well-being, along with literacy, are Cuba's strong suit. They send doctors all over the world, such as during environmental disasters. During the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the U.S. sent troops, weird. But I guess the Haitians are free to eat mud cakes. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/29/food.internatio...
why are all of the anti-us comments being up voted and the the reverse down voted? I feel like the voting system here on hn does nothing but push one specific agenda/view
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Overthrowing governments is completely at odds with humanitarian missions Is it? Oppressive regimes can pose a direct threat to human well-being and sometimes the best thing you can do for people's humanity is to overthrough said regime.
Human well-being, along with literacy, are Cuba's strong suit. They send doctors all over the world, such as during environmental disasters. During the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the U.S. sent troops, weird. But I guess the Haitians are free to eat mud cakes. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/29/food.internatio...
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#75I'm sure this will bring me lots of downvotes, but I actually applaud these tactics. Helping people in oppressive regimes to communicate freely with each other is one of the more humanitarian actions the US can take, and this sort of connectivity is critical in allowing people a degree of freedom even under totalitarian governments. Truly repressive regimes are out there, and without foreign interference and investme…
Right... as if the US could not do anything else to help Cuba and it's people. (E.g. abolishing the trade embargo.)
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, all that crazy freedom and democracy.
Can't work out whether you are being sarcastic or not, but the notion of a free country exporting freedom and democracy is a novel one. A quick survey of history will tell you that a country A being democratic does not necessarily mean it will support countries to follow suit. Think England back in the late 1800s: Very liberal by anyone's standards at that time, but follows horrendous policies overseas.
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#77I'm sure this will bring me lots of downvotes, but I actually applaud these tactics. Helping people in oppressive regimes to communicate freely with each other is one of the more humanitarian actions the US can take, and this sort of connectivity is critical in allowing people a degree of freedom even under totalitarian governments. Truly repressive regimes are out there, and without foreign interference and investme…
Right... as if the US could not do anything else to help Cuba and it's people. (E.g. abolishing the trade embargo.)
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#78I'm sure this will bring me lots of downvotes, but I actually applaud these tactics. Helping people in oppressive regimes to communicate freely with each other is one of the more humanitarian actions the US can take, and this sort of connectivity is critical in allowing people a degree of freedom even under totalitarian governments. Truly repressive regimes are out there, and without foreign interference and investme…
Why did the US go to such great lengths to hide its involvement? You might answer that the US's checkered past in foreign policy (coups, assassinations, drug wars, oil wars, supported rebellions, etc) will make the world suspicious despite our altruistic intensions here. But I think the rest of the world's answer is simpler and more likely: our intentions are not altruistic, and this is merely another unprincipled application of power to obtain a goal. That checkered past is good evidence, and there's no reason this is different just because "social media" is a magic word or something. For example, why are we trying to undermine Cuba's regime but not Saudi's? Because our policy goals only pretend to care about dictatorships. And if we care so much about the Cuban people, why do we have a trade embargo against them?
Which is why no one trusts us and, frankly, shouldn't trust us. Building a platform that you'll use to "push them toward dissent" isn't providing a medium for free thought and reform; it's psychological warfare. We're trying to capture the attention of people and then trick them into doing what we want.
"So what?" you say. "Even if the goals are selfish and strategic, democracy is still good, and Cuba would clearly be better off without a dictator." That's certainly possible, but I doubt it. For starters, our involvement taints any actual emerging democratic movement with the notion that it's just another arm of US foreign policy. I'd like to live in a world where an asshole strong arm dictator can't blame "US meddling" for any unrest without being dismissed out of hand, but sadly, I don't live in that world. So we're really undermining that goal by playing directly into the (mostly correct) notion that the US isn't looking out for other countries' best interests. Maybe we should stop trying to interfere everywhere, because to the extent that our intentions are good in the first place, we're no good at it.
But more importantly, it's not really clear that actual democracy is the natural result of this kind of thing. If driven by US involvement, will a grassroots rebellion against the Cuban regime actually result in an open, honest democracy or will it devolve into a feeding frenzy for US interests, led by US-friendly politicians pushed into place by US operatives? The US has installed enough dictatorships and phony democracies for me to think this is more likely. When you use democracy as a veneer, I'm not sure why you'd expect it to really work.
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, all that crazy freedom and democracy.
Yeah, let's force freedom and democracy down people's throat. It didn't work so well in Irak but I'm sure the next one is going to be a success ! Everyone who doesn't think like us is wrong and needs to be set on the right path anyways.
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#80I see a bad comedy where they pitch this to "secret VC's" and talk about how Cuba is simply the "beach head" with plans to expand into Venezuela next. They're raising now due to an opportunity to take huge share from Twitter in Turkey and Egypt. (where they've gone viral despite only being in Spanish)