6 ms·

The international community will do exactly NOTHING, as always. Hundreds of people have been tortured in Belarus by a crazy dictator, and nobody actually gives

The international community will do exactly NOTHING, as always. Hundreds of people have been tortured in Belarus by a crazy dictator, and nobody actually gives a shit. The only thing they can do is to say how “worrying this situation is”. Leaders without the balls. Maniacs like Lukashenko and Putin will do whatever they want while the only reaction is talking.

ptero 5y ago
What about forcing the plane of the Bolivian president to land in 2013; what that justified? Lukashenko is doing what "international community" did then -- trying to catch an inconvenient person that the state cannot legally reach otherwise. I am not claiming that such things should be left with no response. In fact, I suspect this might hasten Lukashenko's downfall (quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi), but he is just taking a page from the "western civilization" playbook. My 2c.
- lovecg 5y ago
  > What about… I seem to remember there’s a term for what you’re doing in your post…
  - ptero 5y ago
    Please enlighten me. Ideally, not with a "whataboutism" label, but with a description of why it fits here.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    If we're trying to set up international norms, it kinda seems relevant to what those norms are. Are we distinguishing between those two events or are they equally illegal? What should the punishment be?
finnh 5y ago
Many people give a shit, but it's not straightforward to replace a dictator with something better ... Witness every war since WWII
- baybal2 5y ago
  It is straightforward, and US did it in 1945. It is very straightforward. Very straightforward.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    They seem to have lost their mojo in 2003.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    1945 is probably a good counterexample. If Hitler had kept his regime and genocide locally and not invaded neighbours, there would be no WW2, everybody would let him do that. Just like in Cambodia, or Rwanda, or North Korea, or many, many other examples - as a rule, the world does not intervene with violent regime change just because a regime is abusing their people. Like, nobody in power batted an eye when Saddam gassed Kurds in his territory, intervention happened only when he invaded Kuwait. I'm not even sure if I have seen a single exception in 20th-21st century history; it feels like humanitarian aspects have been only used as a pretext or justification if there were other politic/economic reasons that mattered more than that.
    - konart 5y ago
      I think he was talking about Japan rather than Germany.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Libya? Syria? Afghanistan, arguably? Vietnam? Those are really just off the top of my head.
      - PeterisP 5y ago
        What about Libya, Syria, etc? IMHO none of these are examples where the world intervened with violent regime change just because a regime was abusing their people. Libya 2011 was a civil war/revolution, the "boots on the ground" were locals, western nations weren't willing to risk their own soldiers in an actual intervention and it's highly debatable whether the civilian abuse was ever a reason for the western support (aerial and otherwise), IMHO it was essentially about oil. Syria is again a good counterexample - Assad's totalitarian suppression of human rights and torture of opposition was notorious and one of the triggers for the uprising in 2011, but noone considered an intervention before 2011 or at that time for these reasons - Assad's regime is a clear demonstration that no, the world is not going to intervene just because your police is e.g. literally pulling fingernails off highschoolers who have been reported as criticizing the regime. The west was ready to intervene only a few years later in 2014, when the civil war had already raged for years and again it seems to have been done for entirely different reasons e.g. Islamic State, geopolitical tug-of-war with Russia and, again, oil - those things matter for likelihood of intervention, unlike just abusing your civilians. Afghanistan and Vietnam are obviously irrelevant, IMHO noone is seriously asserting that preventing regime atrocities against their own people was the main driver for these wars, other reasons were clearly dominant there. So in my view all those are just examples that the world is not going to do anything serious just because a dictator is murdering or torturing internal opposition. They may invade for various other reasons, and they may opportunistically support one side or the other once some conflict or revolt is already happening (war doesn't seem as horrible if it's all done by someone else's people fighting and suffering), but as long as the totalitarian state is in control, nobody is going to come and bust the oppressed out of their prisons just to help them.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> international community will do exactly NOTHING, as always. Hundreds of people have been tortured in Belarus by a crazy dictator There is a huge difference between diverting an international flight and terrorising one’s own citizens. The latter is a humanitarian crisis. The former is a threat to me and my family. That’s a material difference. At the very least, Belarusian air space and air access rights should be curtailed. It would also be reasonable to scramble NATO assets to protect those airways.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Ryan Air should stop all flights in and out of Belarus until this guy is released and go somewhere where he is free. Then some other companies could follow their lead.
  - wasmitnetzen 5y ago
    Ryanair does not fly to Belarus, even in non-Covid times. This flight was just passing Belarusian airspace on the way to Lithuania.
- throwaway21_ 5y ago
  NATO to "protect" airways over Belarus? When pigs fly, I guess.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Russia would not permit NATO to control Belarusian air space. Despite some recent strained relations, Russia would see such a move against Belarus as a move against Russia. The western world's love of "no fly zones" only works with the weakest of opponents that have few friends. This isn't Iraq or Libya, this is Russia's front porch. This type of saber rattling is the type that starts act hot wars.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > Russia would not permit NATO to control Belarusian air space Nobody proposed NATO air dominance over Belarus. What I proposed is restricting international flights through Belarusian ATZ, denying Belarusian flights international overfly, escorting international flights that get close to Belarus with armed NATO platforms and denying neighbouring airspace to Belarusian armed platforms.
sofixa 5y ago
What do you want them to do? Do you think people anywhere are willing to go to ( potentially nuclear ) war over Belarus? And even if there's a war, ans the "good guys" win, how does that guarantee that things will be better than before, and won't devolve into chaos and civil war, like they did in Iraq or Lybia?
- achikin 5y ago
  Well they did a lot for Japan and Germany after WW2.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    That was over 70 years ago. Try finding a more recent example.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Frankly, and I rarely use this word, a stupid comparison. You're not going to get a lot of people on your side suggesting we do to Belarus what we did to Japan.
- EugeneOZ 5y ago
  I want them to freeze bank accounts and immovables of the Belarusian establishment, including the most powerful elites. Look at Putin - doesn't matter what he does, his retinue does what they want. They are enjoying super-yachts, parking them without any issues in European ports, their kids are still “almost gods” and do whatever they want. The western world gratefully takes the money from dictatorship regimes, and they don't give a shit where money comes from. While it happens, dictators will not stop. As soon as dictators lose their establishment support, they’ll be overthrown. All of the “sanctions” are so ridiculous, that it looks like these sanctions were made to calm down the own citizens, not to stop this devastating money flow.
  - Arech 5y ago
    Thank you. This post should be pinned to the top.
aus-lander 5y ago
"The international community will do exactly NOTHING" I very much hope you are right. I very much hope also, that this very same "international community", as you choose to call it, would stop supporting what might be very objectively called fomenting violence in Belorussia and Russia.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  Is this a throwaway from an HN user sympathetic to dictators, or is this a member of Russia's contracted troll farms?
  - aus-lander 5y ago
    No, most of Russian people, as far as I know, think more or less like me. I understand this might bother you, but you see, the reality is one thing, and your state propaganda is another.
    - aus-lander 5y ago
      .. so unless you think that I must not be allowed to express my opinion, because the only Russians allowed to express their opinions here would be Navalnyi followers and the like, bear with me.
      - unethical_ban 5y ago
        Well, if you support a gangster wannabe KGB agent like Putin, you're certainly in the wrong. But go ahead and express yourself. Welcome to American free expression.
    - unethical_ban 5y ago
      I'll trust the friend I have from Belarus, along with videos and reporting I've seen from Minsk, that this was in fact a wannabe dictator kidnapping his political opponent by forcing down an international flight.

ptero 5y ago

What about forcing the plane of the Bolivian president to land in 2013; what that justified? Lukashenko is doing what "international community" did then -- trying to catch an inconvenient person that the state cannot legally reach otherwise. I am not claiming that such things should be left with no response. In fact, I suspect this might hasten Lukashenko's downfall (quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi), but he is just taking a page from the "western civilization" playbook. My 2c.

lovecg 5y ago
> What about… I seem to remember there’s a term for what you’re doing in your post…
- ptero 5y ago
  Please enlighten me. Ideally, not with a "whataboutism" label, but with a description of why it fits here.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  If we're trying to set up international norms, it kinda seems relevant to what those norms are. Are we distinguishing between those two events or are they equally illegal? What should the punishment be?

finnh 5y ago

Many people give a shit, but it's not straightforward to replace a dictator with something better ... Witness every war since WWII

baybal2 5y ago
It is straightforward, and US did it in 1945. It is very straightforward. Very straightforward.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  They seem to have lost their mojo in 2003.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  1945 is probably a good counterexample. If Hitler had kept his regime and genocide locally and not invaded neighbours, there would be no WW2, everybody would let him do that. Just like in Cambodia, or Rwanda, or North Korea, or many, many other examples - as a rule, the world does not intervene with violent regime change just because a regime is abusing their people. Like, nobody in power batted an eye when Saddam gassed Kurds in his territory, intervention happened only when he invaded Kuwait. I'm not even sure if I have seen a single exception in 20th-21st century history; it feels like humanitarian aspects have been only used as a pretext or justification if there were other politic/economic reasons that mattered more than that.
  - konart 5y ago
    I think he was talking about Japan rather than Germany.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Libya? Syria? Afghanistan, arguably? Vietnam? Those are really just off the top of my head.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      What about Libya, Syria, etc? IMHO none of these are examples where the world intervened with violent regime change just because a regime was abusing their people. Libya 2011 was a civil war/revolution, the "boots on the ground" were locals, western nations weren't willing to risk their own soldiers in an actual intervention and it's highly debatable whether the civilian abuse was ever a reason for the western support (aerial and otherwise), IMHO it was essentially about oil. Syria is again a good counterexample - Assad's totalitarian suppression of human rights and torture of opposition was notorious and one of the triggers for the uprising in 2011, but noone considered an intervention before 2011 or at that time for these reasons - Assad's regime is a clear demonstration that no, the world is not going to intervene just because your police is e.g. literally pulling fingernails off highschoolers who have been reported as criticizing the regime. The west was ready to intervene only a few years later in 2014, when the civil war had already raged for years and again it seems to have been done for entirely different reasons e.g. Islamic State, geopolitical tug-of-war with Russia and, again, oil - those things matter for likelihood of intervention, unlike just abusing your civilians. Afghanistan and Vietnam are obviously irrelevant, IMHO noone is seriously asserting that preventing regime atrocities against their own people was the main driver for these wars, other reasons were clearly dominant there. So in my view all those are just examples that the world is not going to do anything serious just because a dictator is murdering or torturing internal opposition. They may invade for various other reasons, and they may opportunistically support one side or the other once some conflict or revolt is already happening (war doesn't seem as horrible if it's all done by someone else's people fighting and suffering), but as long as the totalitarian state is in control, nobody is going to come and bust the oppressed out of their prisons just to help them.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> international community will do exactly NOTHING, as always. Hundreds of people have been tortured in Belarus by a crazy dictator There is a huge difference between diverting an international flight and terrorising one’s own citizens. The latter is a humanitarian crisis. The former is a threat to me and my family. That’s a material difference. At the very least, Belarusian air space and air access rights should be curtailed. It would also be reasonable to scramble NATO assets to protect those airways.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Ryan Air should stop all flights in and out of Belarus until this guy is released and go somewhere where he is free. Then some other companies could follow their lead.
- wasmitnetzen 5y ago
  Ryanair does not fly to Belarus, even in non-Covid times. This flight was just passing Belarusian airspace on the way to Lithuania.
throwaway21_ 5y ago
NATO to "protect" airways over Belarus? When pigs fly, I guess.
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Russia would not permit NATO to control Belarusian air space. Despite some recent strained relations, Russia would see such a move against Belarus as a move against Russia. The western world's love of "no fly zones" only works with the weakest of opponents that have few friends. This isn't Iraq or Libya, this is Russia's front porch. This type of saber rattling is the type that starts act hot wars.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Russia would not permit NATO to control Belarusian air space Nobody proposed NATO air dominance over Belarus. What I proposed is restricting international flights through Belarusian ATZ, denying Belarusian flights international overfly, escorting international flights that get close to Belarus with armed NATO platforms and denying neighbouring airspace to Belarusian armed platforms.

sofixa 5y ago

What do you want them to do? Do you think people anywhere are willing to go to ( potentially nuclear ) war over Belarus? And even if there's a war, ans the "good guys" win, how does that guarantee that things will be better than before, and won't devolve into chaos and civil war, like they did in Iraq or Lybia?

achikin 5y ago
Well they did a lot for Japan and Germany after WW2.
- sofixa 5y ago
  That was over 70 years ago. Try finding a more recent example.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Frankly, and I rarely use this word, a stupid comparison. You're not going to get a lot of people on your side suggesting we do to Belarus what we did to Japan.
EugeneOZ 5y ago
I want them to freeze bank accounts and immovables of the Belarusian establishment, including the most powerful elites. Look at Putin - doesn't matter what he does, his retinue does what they want. They are enjoying super-yachts, parking them without any issues in European ports, their kids are still “almost gods” and do whatever they want. The western world gratefully takes the money from dictatorship regimes, and they don't give a shit where money comes from. While it happens, dictators will not stop. As soon as dictators lose their establishment support, they’ll be overthrown. All of the “sanctions” are so ridiculous, that it looks like these sanctions were made to calm down the own citizens, not to stop this devastating money flow.
- Arech 5y ago
  Thank you. This post should be pinned to the top.

aus-lander 5y ago

"The international community will do exactly NOTHING" I very much hope you are right. I very much hope also, that this very same "international community", as you choose to call it, would stop supporting what might be very objectively called fomenting violence in Belorussia and Russia.

unethical_ban 5y ago
Is this a throwaway from an HN user sympathetic to dictators, or is this a member of Russia's contracted troll farms?
- aus-lander 5y ago
  No, most of Russian people, as far as I know, think more or less like me. I understand this might bother you, but you see, the reality is one thing, and your state propaganda is another.
  - aus-lander 5y ago
    .. so unless you think that I must not be allowed to express my opinion, because the only Russians allowed to express their opinions here would be Navalnyi followers and the like, bear with me.
    - unethical_ban 5y ago
      Well, if you support a gangster wannabe KGB agent like Putin, you're certainly in the wrong. But go ahead and express yourself. Welcome to American free expression.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    I'll trust the friend I have from Belarus, along with videos and reporting I've seen from Minsk, that this was in fact a wannabe dictator kidnapping his political opponent by forcing down an international flight.