“Everyone is absolutely terrified”: Inside a US ally’s secret war on its American critics

jeffw@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 156 points –
“Everyone is absolutely terrified”: Inside a US ally’s secret war on its American critics
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Judging New Delhi too important in the fight against China, the US government has adopted its own unstated policy of avoiding fights with India over human rights and democracy.

We're always quick to come up with excuses why this regime or that is "too important" for us to criticize. In the end it just ends up with us having more terrible regimes we're in bed with than ones we're willing to call out, which in turn makes the American-led democratic world order a huge hypocrisy.

Maybe holding back some economic expansion from China isn't worth letting the largest democracy in the world slip into fascism. Because it's not like fully fascist Modi is going to be "our" dictator. Fascist leaders align with other fascist leaders. FFS they tried to perform an assassination on American soil. That's a big fucking deal and deserves a harsh response.

"Hypocrisy" may be relevant to Lemmy commenters but it's not of material concern to geopolitics.

It's relevant to how the citizens view America and how supportive they are when leaders like Modi tell them American accusations or values are a sham. And even relevant to Americans when US politicians try to attack UN institutions. "Of course we're going after the ICC, we've never stood up for justice internationally" is a different domestic response than "we're attacking the ICC? are we the baddies?".

Foreign policy seems to just not be very relevant to the average citizen. The effect probably is there, sure, but it's marginal at best. Really egregious things can be significant, like actual wars and such, but hypocrisy is not material.

Yes it is. International agreements rely on the signatories "honour" of upholding them. Someone who repeatedly breaks agreements or is inconsistent in their argumentation and reaction to various topics is not considered good to negotiate with. Now if you have an army like the US or produce half of the worlds stuff like China, you can get away with more things for a time, but it will come back around.

Countries have interests, not allies. Those interests usually revolve around security or the economy

which in turn makes the American-led democratic world order a huge hypocrisy.

Not a hypocrisy, just a falsehood. America's federal government doesn't have as much influence on global politics as a lot of people seem to believe.