I don’t think Americans and Europeans know how much invasions into southeast Asia in the 1800s and prior there were. It’s not a post-WW2 thing. It’s centuries of atrocities in the region. Someday the UK are going to be grandstanding against India too and people out here will be confused why Indians aren’t wistfully looking back to the days of the British empire exporting foods by coercion while Indians go through famines

Is the plan to kill some more millions of southeast Asians like good ol’ days

Americans shouldn’t be looking at other countries to feel better about themselves regardless. They should be letting themselves feel bad so that they actually maintain some energy levels to fight for their own rights domestically instead of contributing to the constant stream of jingoism that has been American media since inception. Decades living and its a cycle of next enemy while economic disparity just keeps widening but people are pacifying themselves with the next enemy

I’ve never viewed the anti-slavery stance as much of any substance. The French and others just exported slavery to other countries so they wouldn’t feel bad witnessing where their wealth was coming from. I side eye everytime I see news of French paratroopers touching down in whatever African country that is supposed to be fully independent and not under any French coercion

My impression is that France mostly ignores with popular support anything they had done for centuries to people in other countries. That seems true for most of the European colonial empire countries treating their roles in atrocities as footnotes in history rather than major events that modern countries are still trying to rebuild from