>> ^quantumushroom:
Ah, those crazy liberals. Historical revisionism not only for what actually happened, but also for what didn't.


Why don't you tell us about how well the blacks were treated as slaves in the south, QM?

Why don't you copy and paste, without attribution, some little screed from one of your rightwing whackjob websites?

Our less than 200,000 US troops would have a hard time staying if the 28 million Iraqis wanted us gone.


Sherman ravaged the South with 62,000 men while the population of the Confederate states of America was 9.1 million. And that was without any tanks, air support, etc. The North's technological advantage over the South was small, while the USA's technological advantage over Iraqi insurgents is huge.

Chechnya and others started resolving to military actions (including violating human rights toward Russian soldiers) whenever Russia was weak historically (this time, pre-2000 without today's Russian oil business). And desperate to hold the government from downright collapse, Russia started to implement torture and violation of human rights etc.

What's going on in Chechnya and other provinces of Russia is a necessary evil. You may argue that Russia doesn't have to resolve to torture and oppression. But how else would you fight against a militarily active independence movement that outright refuses to abide by Russian rules? If they don't want to play by the rules, then the rules don't apply to them either.

You may say this is cruel, but we had a similar history of our own. We had Confederate States of America declaring independence, forcing USA to declare war, killing total 3% of United States population. These guys wanted to secede from United States and wanted to keep slavery (violation of human rights). It came from a very distinct political stance and desire to protect local economy (also influence of Texas, who wanted a country of their own as well), as seeing end of slavery would mean collapse of already dwindling southern economy.

You could argue that United States would've been better off granting independence to CSA without a declaring war. Well then I don't see why US should keep Texas or California or New Mexico or Vermont. And with CSA continuing to have slave trade, and Texas continuing to raid local Indian settlements to gain territory?

Would we have been better off as a divided nation? That is a very serious question.


In reply to this comment by messenger:
More civic power in certain culturally different areas of a country leads to demands for rights and independence, which either leads to actual independence, or to violent oppression. In these cases, it was violent oppression, and that's what I don't like. When I say that it's human rights violations that are holding those two countries together, I mean that human rights violations are forcing Chechnya and Taiwan to remain part of the country, not that the whole country would fall apart.