[anon1385]

I'm not sure it makes much sense to compare a country that has engaged in zero wars of aggression in the last 25 years with one that has invaded or bombed Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, Serbia, Sudan and Bosnia. The death toll for the Iraq war alone may well have been over a million. Add another 300,000 - 500,000 child deaths from the Iraq sanctions in the 90s.

It's possible that the North Korean government has killed more North Koreans over that time period; I see estimates for the 1948-1987 period of 700,000 - 3,500,000 deaths. However even assuming that rate remained the same subsequently it is at most within the same order of magnitude as US caused deaths. I don't really see a great difference morally.

It's a strange argument to make anyway. We don't need to compare the US government to poorly understood North Korean atrocities to measure the awfulness of the atrocities it commits which are numerous and heinous.

[pyre]

North Korea punishes people for their ideas (do anything that the Glorious Leader doesn't like, and your entire family for a couple of generations will live in a prison camp). That is rather insidious, and these people can have 'natural' deaths in captivity.

North Korea also threatens to attack civilian populations indiscriminately (e.g. Seoul, Japan, etc) if they don't get their way. They even threaten nuclear war on an semi-annual basis.

On the other hand, the US strikes may kill civilians due to poor intelligence gathering or 'acceptable levels of collateral,' but they have not indiscriminately bombed (or even threatened to bomb) civilian populations. There is at least an attempt made to limit the amount of death dealt, even if it's not always successful. I'm not admitting that this is good, or that (e.g.) the US should have been in Iraq in the first place, but claiming that the US is on the level of North Korea is laughable.

[anon1385]

The US 'threatens' nuclear war as well. There is no point in nuclear weapons if you don't threaten to use them.

>they have not indiscriminately bombed (or even threatened to bomb) civilian populations

That is pretty disingenuous. We both know that the US government counts any adult male in certain countries/regions as a militant rather than civilian. If you claim nobody is a civilian then of course you never kill civilians

Also, I would like to hear your defence of the Iraq sanctions. You can hardly claim that was accidental or poor intelligence or that it wasn't indiscriminate. Much like in North Korea those excess deaths can be (and were by the US government) attributed to natural causes.

[pyre]

> The US 'threatens' nuclear war as well. There is no point in nuclear weapons if you don't threaten to use them.

I challenge you to cite an incident where the US has openly said, "do this or we will launch nukes at [city full of civilians]."

> That is pretty disingenuous. We both know that the US government counts any adult male in certain countries/regions as a militant rather than civilian. If you claim nobody is a civilian then of course you never kill civilians

Your post is the one that comes across (to me at least) as being disingenuous. My claim was that the US is not indiscriminately bombing civilian populations. You somehow are trying to conflate this with me saying that the US is not killing any civilians at all, which I did not claim, nor do I believe.

This section of your post comes across like you're looking for a way to vent your anger about how the US counts "any adult male in certain countries/regions as a militant." In doing so, you are also discounting women and children as civilians by implicitly claiming that only male civilians are killed (and then 'covered up' by claiming that they must have been militants).

> Also, I would like to hear your defence of the Iraq sanctions

I'm unsure what you're talking about. The economic sanctions against Iraq post-Gulf War but prior to the invasion? If you claim deaths due to economic sanctions are the fault of the countries that are imposing sanctions, then technically most of the world was responsible. Carrying this line of reasoning further, you could blame the US for deaths in North Korea due to economic sanctions, no?

[tptacek]

Absolutely nobody on this thread has made the argument that the US doesn't kill civilians. That's a straw-man argument.