re: The Russians say the chemical attack was by the rebels, America says by Assad.

quote:

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so like your average American thinks of this conflict and goes "well we just need a non-dictator to win and with US support, they'll develop institutions and create a better society for all" but in reality it's more "they will consolidate power and develop institutions and stability so that they can more easily exterminate all opposition and exact revenge for previous oppression"

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Yeah, it's realpolitik vs naivete.

And the reason we think of WW2 as being this great win for the whole "everyone can live in harmony" is because we don't actually know much about what happened other than "Marshall Plan, we gave everyone money and they stopped hating each other". A better look is how Europe re-drew borders after the war and FORCABLY MOVED PEOPLE TO THEIR ETHNIC SIDE OF THE BORDER. A great example of this is the historical German city of Stettin, now Szczecin. In 1945 when the Polish/German border was drawn, Stettin was on the Polish side, even though it was entirely ethnically German. The soviets took all the Germans on the Polish side of the border and "ethnically cleansed" Poland of Germans. Then moved Poles into the old German areas.

This happened on many borders.

This is why I've been saying that multiculturalism is not a natural state for any nation. It is always a historical transition period between one of two stable outcomes: Balkanization or absorption of weaker cultures into a stronger one. Either way is the eventual end of multiculturalism.