> If the tables were turned here and the Cubans or Russians were accusing us of a sonic attack we’d be screaming that it’s a disinformation campaign
I do not follow Cuban politics (and not much Russian), but Russia nowadays are always accusing USA of some evil -- watch the official 1st channel or read gov't radio transcript: planning an overthrow of their government (via supporting this or that NGO), destabilizing an economy, financing a war and killing Russian citizens (Ukraine, Syria), etc. etc.
Much of this is for internal consumption, and generally the reaction in the US from those who can read it and care to is "meh, business as usual". Trying to influence minds, for sure; but this is par for the course for politics.
The only difference seems to be that we don’t have state media - our outlets are just as happy to claim Chinese military exercises are “practice bombing operations” against the US, and that a Russian plot exists to destabilize our democracy and hack our voting machines.
Our official sources are happy to demur, as they have around claims of sonic attacks - we are still “investigating” and “analyzing data”. We officially keep the claims at arms length.
We’ve figured out that a public-private partnership makes better agitprop.
But is that really as hypocritical as you seem to suggest? After all we are, for lack of a better phrase, the good guys. It's not unprincipled to give the good guys more benefit of the doubt.
Based on the account's history I assume that you're trolling HN like you did before. That's not cool—especially on divisive topics, where it has a genuinely destructive effect. I've banned your account until we get an indication that you'll use the site as intended. You're welcome to read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and email us at hn@ycombinator.com if that's what you'd like to do.
And yet, there are bad guys. Churchill was a bastard, and no kind of “good guy” yet Hitler and the Nazis were the bad guys. C‘est la vie. Stalin was one of the bad guys, and so was Slobodan Milosovic, and so is Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, Pol Pot, etc. Good guy is a tough category to fill, but history is full of inexcusable monsters and we should be careful with our moral relativism.
Dick Cheney and Tony Blair don't seem to belong in that same list. Not saying they are good guys, but I don't see how they can be even close to on the same level as the others.
But I agree with your main point. There is real evil out there and we have a moral prerogative to stop/fight/kill those people.
The USA is hardly spotless, but they have a good reputation of standing up to real evil in the world.
* old cold-war boogeyman
* claims of attacks that leave no physical evidence
* only reported by government officials
If the tables were turned here and the Cubans or Russians were accusing us of a sonic attack we’d be screaming that it’s a disinformation campaign.