[drzaiusapelord]

That's fine, you are very welcome not to buy our rockets, iphones, software, and processors if you want to protest our foreign policy. We're not buying Putin's stuff, so don't buy ours.

I don't see a problem with this.

>overthrow governments

The middle east is migrating to democracy and has the least amount of dictators in charge in my lifetime, thanks to US foreign policy. While I think foriegn policy is hard to judge, annexing land Russia-style for "fuck you" reasons is very different than overthrowing dictators murdering their people and those people begging for US/NATO/UN intervention, which we sometimes provide. The world tried non-interventionism and it got us WWII. Better the US/NATO making these calls than autocratic powers with annexation agendas like China or Russia.

[laurencerowe]

>The middle east is migrating to democracy and has the least amount of dictators in charge in my lifetime, thanks to US foreign policy.

US/Western policy in the region can hardly be described as pro-democracy. We've been propping up dictators and overthrowing democratically elected regimes from Iran in 1953 to Egypt in 2013.

[ryanlol]

>The middle east is migrating to democracy and has the least amount of dictators in charge in my lifetime

How's that democracy working out in Libya and Syria?

Many (probably pretty much everyone actually familiar with the situation) would argue that things were better under those dictators.

[shit_parade2]

Egypt is the best example.

Go read Obama's Cairo speech, do impassioned, if only he believed in his own words.

No, instead we watched a people overthrow a corrupt regime, establish a democracy, and then continued to fund the mitary junta and ignore the country as it becamenobce more a dictatorship which just recently sentenced its former president to death.

Egypt, neighbor to Israel, and the largest secular middle Eastern country by population is too important to the supposed US political interest to allow democracy, especially if that democracy doesn't agree with our policies. It is entirely morally bankrupt, anyone who defends such policy is a warmonger.

[drzaiusapelord]

>How's that democracy working out in Libya and Syria?

How was India immediately after its colonial rule? Or South Korea after the war?

Its incredible how people conveniently forget how long transition periods are for societies that were previous non-democratic to a democratic one. Ten to fifteen years from now it will be a very different picture. Migrating to a democratic capatalistic economy is an incredible thing. GDP comparision between North and South Korea below:

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/sites/default/files/image...

It was rough for the South Koreans until the 1970s then its been all gravy. They went from war ravage rural wasteland to the most envious economy in about 20 years.

[foobarqux]

There is no population on earth that has been grateful for "democracy bombs" to have been dropped on them.

[ryanlol]

Will it be different in 20 years? Or even 50? Right now these countries are warzones, and the stronger parties seem to be those more willing to pick up weapons and slaughter people.

[nraynaud]

Life is not a competition towards who has the stupidest, most antagonistic or most isolationist behavior, that's the whole point of discussing in a forum, trying to put ideas in people's head instead of trying to starve them economically or bombing them.

My idea in the initial post was to have people think about one point of view about this deal. In particular because it seem people are mostly from the left here, but there is a real Reaganian aspect to the move.