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Plus think about the precedent being set here. Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. Should the g

Plus think about the precedent being set here. Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? Realize that our next Iraq or Vietnam this new standard could be applied to us or any other country. Will bloodthirsty Twitter be cheering on the digital and economic destruction of civilians then? Cooler heads need to start prevailing.

megous 5y ago
> Realize that our next Iraq or Vietnam this new standard could be applied to us or any other country. Is that a bad thing?
- mywittyname 5y ago
  For you and me? Yes. For the wealthy and powerful who make the decisions? No.
  - lazide 5y ago
    If it is for you and me? If yes, then it is more likely to matter to the wealthy and powerful whose power base depends to some extent on us. Assuming we haven’t all been convinced via propaganda that this is all a conspiracy to weaken us and we need to band together under $glorious_leader anyway.
arcticbull 5y ago
> Plus think about the precedent being set here. Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. I disagree. This is war - it's not meant to be comfortable - and a government does represent the people. Putin's approval rating over the years has been really high, in the mid-high 70s [1]. The only way this ends with minimal bloodshed is if the populace exerts sufficient pressure against leadership. That means protests, that means civil disobedience. If the populace doesn't feel the impact of the war, then there's no pressure for the administration to end it. Think of it more like less-lethal weapons. Yah you don't want to get hit by a rubber bullet but you certainly don't want to get hit by a real bullet. If things escalate then the people may get hit by real bullets metaphorically and literally. [edit] > Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. This is an interesting argument, especially for a representative government. "You can't blame me for what the people I pick do!" I mean, yes? I can? Even in countries without, governments can be overturned internally. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/896181/putin-approval-rating-russia/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/896181/putin-approval-ra...
- parthdesai 5y ago
  Let's cut off some of the western countries first then as well. US has actively destroyed/destabilized countries in the Middle East and South America to install a friendlier government. You've US who voted to invade Iraq based on a lie (along with UK), invaded Libya, bombed Syria, invaded Afghanistan among other things. You've Canada, US and other nations selling arms to Saudi Arabia that continue to bomb the fuck out of Yemen. You've Israel occupying Palestine. Let's cut all the countries off as well. Or are you implying that Russian invasion of Ukraine matter more than all these examples, and if you do so, I wonder why that is? (fyi, it's a rhetorical question, I know why that is)
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > Let's cut off some of the western countries first then as well. ... first? Why first? Which western country is actively invading anyone right now? Which western country started a land-war in Europe last week? Why would I cut off someone not doing anything for something that happened 20 years ago when there's a land-war in the Ukraine now? > You've US who voted to invade Iraq based on a lie (along with UK). On bad pretenses sure, but to overturn a despot who used chemical weapons against his own people. He wasn't a threat to the US, and the pretenses were wrong - and I didn't support the war at the time. But is it the same thing? Not even close. > Or are you implying that Russian invasion of Ukraine matter more than all these examples, and if you do so, I wonder why that is? (fyi, it's a rhetorical question, I know why that is) Yeah because the Russians launched an un-provoked land war in Europe to re-create the Soviet Union - on the premise of "de-Nazifying" a country run by a Jewish PM. Save your whataboutism for once this is resolved.
    - parthdesai 5y ago
      Well, you've Saudi with the support of Western countries and US weapons that is bombing the shit of Yemen. I don't see you calling for sanctions there. Where was the outrage while that is happening? I like how you choose the timeline of right now/last week. US just got out of Afghanistan few months, have destroyed countries and families for generations to come in the past 10-15 years, but you know what let's only count two weeks. > On bad pretenses sure, but to overturn a despot who used chemical weapons against his own people. He wasn't a threat to the US, and the pretenses were wrong - and I didn't support the war at the time. Yeah, looks like US actively knew and helped him gas his own people though because Iran would've been too powerful otherwise, and US can't have that. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-pro... > But is it the same thing? Not even close. Yeah it isn't, while the world looks to sanction Russia (which they should btw), US blackmailed other countries into invading Iraq and no country got sanctioned. But like you said, US only got pretenses wrong, s who whore cares that millions of lives were lost as a result and a country has been destabilized and destroyed. > Save your whataboutism for once this is resolved. Reddit's favourite term to use when you point out double standards. I don't support this invasion either, it's just the hypocrisy in the outrage that is astonishing. But hey I guess, as the media puts it, world cares more when it's white people with blonde hair and blue eyes that are dying and not brown people you've in middle east, so it's different this time.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? Yes. If anything people in democracies are more culpable for the misdeeds of their government than the people of autocratic states.
- parthdesai 5y ago
  Hey, majority of US wanted Hilary to be the president after she voted to invade Iraq based on a lie, and also destroyed Libya.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    So what if it was based on a lie? History is full of such political machinations. The man was a tin-pot despot who used chemical weapons against his own people. Do you disagree with that assessment? btw, I was and remain anti-Iraq war but your equivocation is clearly wrong.
    - parthdesai 5y ago
      I mean you yourself said that Russian people should be punished because they support Putin. So shouldn't the American population be punished as well because they voted for Hillary Clinton who was pro war based on a lie. > So what if it was based on a lie? Jeez, it's that easy for you to say that eh. Say that to a person who lost his family in that invasion.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        > I mean you yourself said that Russian people should be punished because they support Putin. So shouldn't the American population be punished as well because they voted for Hillary Clinton who was pro war based on a lie. You could make the argument that the world could have stood up and sanctioned the US - but likely they did not because they probably agreed with the action, whether they could say so directly or not. 'Should' is not the bar. The fact it took a lie to convince folks to go in is neither here nor there, IMO. Again, I was against the war. > Jeez, it's that easy for you to say that eh. Say that to a person who lost his family in that invasion. Say that to someone in Kurdistan who suffered life-long debilitating injuries due to the sarin and VX gas attacks that were then followed by a Napalm run. [1] Saddam launched some of the worst chemical attacks in history against his own citizens. We can go back and forth on this all day. It was life frozen. Life had stopped, like watching a film and suddenly it hangs on one frame. It was a new kind of death to me. (…) The aftermath was worse. Victims were still being brought in. Some villagers came to our chopper. They had 15 or 16 beautiful children, begging us to take them to hospital. So all the press sat there and we were each handed a child to carry. As we took off, fluid came out of my little girl's mouth and she died in my arms. If your argument is "ah but Saddam wasn't that bad" my guy, you've already lost. He really wasn't great. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre#Chemical_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre#Chemical_atta...
cabalamat 5y ago
> Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? Wrong question. Whether they "should" in any moral sense is not a useful way to think about things because geopolitics isn't a morality play. Clearly effective sanctions against USA were a non-starter because it is too big and rich a country and does a lot of trade with the outside world. > Realize that our next Iraq or Vietnam this new standard could be applied to us or any other country. Nope. Effective sanctions won't happen against big powerful countries (or coalitions of countries, e.g. EU, NATO).
- ajross 5y ago
  It's more the wrong question because the "international community" as such broadly supported action in Afghanistan and (to a lesser extent) Iraq. Lots of individual groups had qualms, but none rose to the level of actual policymaking in democratic governments. Obviously in hindsight (informed by the results of the occupation and the exposure of the extremely spun intelligence that was used to justify the war) lots of people would claim to have "opposed" the Iraq war, but at the time it was mostly just shrugs and silence.
  - vkou 5y ago
    We don't need to go as far back as Iraq. The Saudis have been waging an offensive war for years in Yemen. Yet there hasn't been a single peep about cutting them off SWIFT, sanctioning their royal oligarchs, freezing their western assets, etc, etc. It seems to send a message that yes, repressive petrostate dictatorships can get away with waging offensive wars... Well, at least some of them can.
    - all2 5y ago
      Oil, and by proxy money, protect them from anything people might want to do to them. People want their money, want their oil, so they turn a blind eye.
      - 5y ago
pfisch 5y ago
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Oh man, when Russia cut off twitter, my timeline cleaned up instantly. Check out the Trudeau post replies - not a single person calling him Hitler. That ended the day Russia cut off twitter. Basically all pro-Trucker content ended that day.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Didn't the emergency orders end at the same time?
    - naasking 5y ago
      Indeed, post hoc ergo proctor hoc fallacy.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        Did happen same day though. Not proof, just signal. And it happened across a broad range of topics. I'll be the first to admit this is anecdotal. I would love a study.
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    Except that Russia never actually cut off Twitter? It was throttled for a few hours at most, but never fully blocked. And even if they did cut it off, do you think they'd cut off the troll farms and their propaganda outlets too? Unless you are saying that normal russians are calling trudeau hitler with no state backing? Your comment is a bit funny since you are forectly contradicting yourself. When you (wrongfully) thought that russians couldn't access twitter anymore, the russian bots just seemed to have... disappeared for you. But in reality, nothing changed, so maybe they weren't there to begin with, and this is a weird example of a placebo effect, lol.
    - 5y ago
adventured 5y ago
This moral, intellectual con that the Russian people are not responsible needs to stop. The Russian culture must change. Of course the Russian people are morally responsible for their culture and its products (including the war in Ukraine). That culture has produced the conquest obsessed Russian state (including Putin, he is a product of that culture). The Russian people have reveled in the atmosphere of power, greatness, empire, return to glory, and all that bullshit propaganda that Putin has been feeding them for two decades. They cheerily rode the highs with him during the good oil years, applauding as he stripped away human rights one after another, refusing to go against him en masse. They now bear the moral responsibility for tolerating him from the very beginning (dictators quite often only get more difficult to remove with time). Oh now you can't get rid of him? No kidding. Oh now a lot of people would have to die to remove him from power? No kidding - like the people being killed in the name of the Russian people in Ukraine. The Russian people are responsible for what ideas they hold, what they believe, who they follow, what propaganda they accept or reject (and they've been willingly drinking the propaganda by the liter for a very long time). They tolerated Putin's power grab and abuses for many years early on and did next to nothing to try to stop him. They have celebrated him often, he has been widely popular for most of his reign. How many more centuries of authoritarianism need to go by before people figure out that the Russian people are responsible for their culture and their culture is producing the authoritarianism. It's not bad luck producing those repeat results. Raise your hand if you think the Nazi ideology magically, spontaneously appeared - no, it was an assembled mash of ideas that were popular at the time, prevalent in the culture of the German region, commonly held by the people there. Putin's authoritarianism, his obsession with the Russian ethnic superstate (which is quite similar to Hitler's obsession with the German ethnic superstate), also did not appear out of nowhere, it's directly from their culture. And - speaking as an American - of course the American people are morally responsible if their government does something similarly horrible as what Russia is doing in Ukraine. That very obviously also goes for what happened in Vietnam. The US Government and its presidents are the product of the American culture, which the American people are responsible for. If the other empires of Europe changed (Germany, Spain, Britain, France, etc) - their people changed those empire, conquest obsessed cultures - then Russia too can and must change. Russia is the last major power in Europe still clinging to those decrepit, backwards ways. Russia must give up the notion of empire culturally and that means its people must fully abandon all the related ideas that propel and sustain that ideology (which endlessly spawns monsters like Putin (who is just another Russian Tsar type)). Until the people of Russia change their beliefs, the authoritarianism will just keep repeating.
practice9 5y ago
> Cooler heads need to start prevailing. ..in Russia
- rightbyte 5y ago
  No. This is not how things work. We need to get back the cold war mindset. Moral and righteousness will get us all killed. Screw that. The "West" response need to be carefully thoughtout to not trigger an escalation while protecting our borders like a knife wielding psycho that somehow still tolerates "mistakes". Todays western politicians are acting in an insane way. Look how India and China instinctively stay out of this. Putin will be dead or out of power in 10 years. There is a tomorrow without him too.
  - bayindirh 5y ago
    > Putin will be dead or out of power in 10 years. There is a tomorrow without him too. So, as the planet, shall we let him be? Or what's the right course of action?
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      I don't know. Something like, throw Ukraine (yes I know it is a terrible thing ...) to the wolfs and maybe only field NATO infantry to the Baltic states (no armor or planes). The important part is to give the Russian state a fake victory. They know it is fake. We know it. But it is still a victory. Prepare for a post-Putin Russia and prevent chaos when he dies by economic support and a hug. We don't want those nukes in the hand of a regional warchief ...
      - gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
        I don’t think the Ukrainians would be down with that. They’re crazy/brave enough to defend their democracy and organize militias to bolster their armed forces and have already taken out a Chechen special forces unit and a Spetznaz Maj Gen. I’ll let you explain your plan to them.
devmor 5y ago
> Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. I wish people would realize that this is what most of our sanctions do as well.
- vkou 5y ago
  The reason you apply sanctions is the same reason that you shoot at enemy conscripts in a war (despite them also being victims). Except in the case of sanctions, you aren't even actively engaging in violence (which some moral systems would take issue with). You're simply choosing to not cooperate.
  - sidibe 5y ago
    This. Plus sanctions are also a deterrent, and not using them when a state goes over the line will weaken soft power in the future. So while it sucks for Russians who don't support Putin it will make the Chinese or American or whoever is next to egregiously violate what the rest of the world considers right take the threat of sanctions more seriously.
- light_hue_1 5y ago
  How about the civilians in Ukraine who have to cower in basements, watch their loved ones die, and flee the the country leaving their entire lives behind? The children in Ukraine who have to live through a traumatic war losing all of the stability that they have? The suffering of Russian civilians is nothing compared to what is happening to civilians in Ukraine.
  - p_j_w 5y ago
    One person suffering is not a good reason to go cause some other person who isn't at fault to suffer.
  - 131012 5y ago
    Comparing suffering is useless. There is no objective measure for pain, just as diminishing the suffering of Ukrainians because Yemen or Palestine is pointless. Some brave Russian people are now suffering in Putin's prisons for speaking out against war. Some mothers will never know how or where their children died. Some African students in Ukraine are suffering from racism perpetrated by other war victims. It's all bad and they all deserve compassion.
quickthrowman 5y ago
> Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? This is not realistic due to the fact that the US is at least an order of magnitude more powerful than Russia, both economically and militarily. We also made it look less sketchy by bribing/begging Britain (and others) to join the Iraq invasion and invoking Article 5 for Afghanistan. Sanctions against the US were not tenable.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
908B64B197 5y ago
> Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? I don't think it's fair to compare the democratically elected government of an European country to a blood thirsty middle eastern dictatorship. At least, they certainly didn't garner the same sympathy from people. As for Vietnam, it’s interesting to see that the loosing side was where people desperately fled, often risking their lives in makeshift rafts. That the people would risk their lives for a shot at maybe getting refugee status in America rather than live in a communist nation should tell us a lot. Same goes for failed states like Venezuela and Cuba.
diob 5y ago
On the other hand, perhaps that would have gotten us to reconsider the forever war that killed so many and wasted so much money for no reason?
pessimizer 5y ago
> Plus think about the precedent being set here. Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. This would not set up a precedent, it's almost the entirety of US foreign policy.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
You mean a dangerous precedent like the US drone striking schools and wedding parties?
kbelder 5y ago
>Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. That isn't always true. Obviously, if the actions of the government are bad enough, it sometimes becomes necessary to kill many of its citizens. Since that's morally justifiable, lesser economic damage is morally justifiable. It sucks. They're innocent. If damage can be avoided, great. But if it's necessary, the blame falls on the aggressor nation.
- cgio 5y ago
  Not sure what you mean. The fact that in the last century or so wars have been having disproportionately high numbers of civilian casualties does not mean that this is acceptable. When is it necessary to kill civilians and what makes it a necessity? And if there is a necessity why is there a war criminal court? I suggest we are careful with the excuses we give, in this case in order to argue “e-casualties” you also argue that if Putin thinks Ukraine is the aggressor he can go after civilians.
dfxm12 5y ago
Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Who realistically could have done this, keeping in mind the Coalition of the Willing [0]? The global "community" was clearly not of one mind about this. Sanctions are working against Russia because most of the richest countries are behind the sanctions. Other commenters have alluded to sanctioning US/UK over Yemen, which sounds reasonable, however, in that the case, too, why would European countries impose sanctions for conflicts they're taking part in themselves [1]? Also, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is merely the (very large) straw that broke the camel's back with regards to these sanctions. Russia went it alone. Let's not pretend that Russia was on good terms with NA/EU or that Putin had any built up good will, either. The situations are vastly different. I'm not sure the precedent being set is what you think it is. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing 1 - https://www.adhrb.org/2021/01/european-involvement-in-the-humanitarian-crisis-in-yemen/ https://www.adhrb.org/2021/01/european-involvement-in-the-hu...
staticman2 5y ago
It's interesting to try to model the type of moral philosophy you have that would cause you to write "Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly." I'm guessing the word "complicit" is not in your moral vocabulary. Or for some reason you don't feel it applies to doing business and helping to enrich a society that is murdering their neighboors. Apparently refusing to be complicit with Russian aggression is "punishment". Let's just same I'm less than impressed with this moral argument.
- galactus 5y ago
  It's not the whole society that is murdering their neighboors. If that were true, all americans should be considered criminals.
  - staticman2 5y ago
    The Russians are all complicit since they are all paying taxes to fund the war and obeying the dictator's edicts (unless they are in prison.) Maybe it's true of Americans for the war in Iraq or whatever but my objection is specifically to the weird (to me) use of the word "punishment" in the post I replied to. I'd say don't talk about "punishment" as if your position has a moral high ground. Let's talk about being complicit. The post above argues we should help fund the war efforts to kill Ukrainians through profitable business relations with the Russians, and the poster apparently thinks they have the moral high ground given the use of the word "punishment" to describe the the idea we shouldn't help the Russians continue to fund their efforts to kill people.
- 4bpp 5y ago
  By implication, you are saying that the 9/11 attacks were morally justified, right? In fact, there is a case that they were strictly more so: as everyone asserts, American elections are more fair and free than Russian ones, so American citizens would have a better chance to elect someone who did not brutalise the Islamic world, and American citizens have more money and stronger passports, so they would have a much easier time leaving. (Arguably, 9/11 indeed backfired badly for the perpetrators.)
8note 5y ago
No precedent is being set here. Sanctions aren't new, and their purpose is to put pressure on the citizens to change their government. It's already been done to the US before as well. Eg. The Gulf states raised US oil prices to protest America supporting Israel, and Canada recently targetted products from key states for tarrifs in response to Trump's. Russian misinformation bots are the same thing, punishing the citizens to make the government more compliant. America is a democracy, so influencing the citizens is effective. Cooler heads still need to prevail - you can't use all your non-war tools, or you'll only be left with going to war
tintor 5y ago
"Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam?" Or how about aggression on Yugoslavia?
nsv 5y ago
As an American: I agree with your point broadly, but I would love to see the world punishing Americans e.g. through sanctions for an event like the invasion of Iraq or Vietnam, should it happen. Such unnecessary destruction of human life should be met with resistance on every level.
- gedy 5y ago
  Vietnam was not invaded by the US
ternaryoperator 5y ago
> Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. That's what sanctions do. That's what military responses do. There's no real way out of the box. If a country responds forcefully to an aggressor's actions, the aggressor's civilians will pay a large part of the price.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  A measured response is appropriate. Actions can be scaled so that if the same thing is applied back to you for a fraction of a transgression, then the public can figure out who's overreacting.
- Zvez 5y ago
  Not really. Civilians are certainly affected by sanctions. But government itself, oligarches, people with power are affected much more. Also making population unhappy gradually is a good motivation to make some changes. But here it will affect general population in the first place. It will remove ability to get other side of the news. Cutting the internet is in a lot of cases what government actually wants (and does). Right now they shutting down sources of information (fb, yt, twitter). And here they suggest to shut it down completely. Russia government will probably thank them for this.
usrusr 5y ago
The Bush Hussein WMD ruse/lie was laughably bad, but compared to Putin's "Selensky is the second coming of Hitler" show, in hindsight the Bush play seems like Academy Awards material compared to that school play where even parents leave. When a country is ruled by someone as incompetent as Putin (yeah, until recently I considered him very competent, just in bad things, but like so many I stand corrected) it's never good for the people living there. And the blame for that does not lie outside of the country's borders.
FooBarWidget 5y ago
I agree with you. But there's the problem that the precedent already exists. That's what sanctions already do, way before Russia-Ukraine.
diordiderot 5y ago
> Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? Fuck yes they should have. Absolutely Americans were complicit because it didn't (immediately and viscerally) effect them, just like Russians have been so far. If it effects them enough they'll stop working. > Punishing civilians for the actions of its government With few exceptions, governments serve the people under them. Pray tell, How popular is Putin in Russia right now?
avereveard 5y ago
> the actions of its government Except neither the cabinet nor the oligarchs are the one doing the killing, it's the grunts at the bottom. If every Russian deposed arms, there would be no war.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
>>Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? I mean, yes? America is a functioning democracy. The leaders have been elected, and stay in power based on the mercy of the electorate. Some recent challenges in that respect notwithstanding, I feel it's almost a tautology that America and Americans should be held responsible for things that America and Americans do - even MORE than in authoritarian countries. Same for Canada and UK et cetera et cetera. I don't know what viable alternative to sanctions affecting citizenry anybody is proposing - targeted assassination of heads of state one disagrees with? Mlitary response? Just ignoring it? Yelling loudly? How else do we propose to send a message to a state "Please don't DO that" without involving the electorate that either demanded, participated, or allowed such actions?
throw10920 5y ago
> invading Iraq under false pretenses? Is this about the chemical weapons, that were confirmed to exist by the NYT itself, as well as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons? https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/world/middleeast/questions-answers-abandoned-chemical-weapons-in-iraq.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/world/middleeast/question... https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/world/middleeast/thousands-of-iraq-chemical-weapons-destroyed-in-open-air-watchdog-says-.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/world/middleeast/thousand... https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have-bought-and-destroyed-iraqi-chemical-weapons.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middleeast/chemical-weapons-iraq-pentagon-secrets.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middlee... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middlee...

megous 5y ago

> Realize that our next Iraq or Vietnam this new standard could be applied to us or any other country. Is that a bad thing?

mywittyname 5y ago
For you and me? Yes. For the wealthy and powerful who make the decisions? No.
- lazide 5y ago
  If it is for you and me? If yes, then it is more likely to matter to the wealthy and powerful whose power base depends to some extent on us. Assuming we haven’t all been convinced via propaganda that this is all a conspiracy to weaken us and we need to band together under $glorious_leader anyway.

arcticbull 5y ago

> Plus think about the precedent being set here. Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. I disagree. This is war - it's not meant to be comfortable - and a government does represent the people. Putin's approval rating over the years has been really high, in the mid-high 70s [1]. The only way this ends with minimal bloodshed is if the populace exerts sufficient pressure against leadership. That means protests, that means civil disobedience. If the populace doesn't feel the impact of the war, then there's no pressure for the administration to end it. Think of it more like less-lethal weapons. Yah you don't want to get hit by a rubber bullet but you certainly don't want to get hit by a real bullet. If things escalate then the people may get hit by real bullets metaphorically and literally. [edit] > Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. This is an interesting argument, especially for a representative government. "You can't blame me for what the people I pick do!" I mean, yes? I can? Even in countries without, governments can be overturned internally. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/896181/putin-approval-rating-russia/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/896181/putin-approval-ra...

parthdesai 5y ago
Let's cut off some of the western countries first then as well. US has actively destroyed/destabilized countries in the Middle East and South America to install a friendlier government. You've US who voted to invade Iraq based on a lie (along with UK), invaded Libya, bombed Syria, invaded Afghanistan among other things. You've Canada, US and other nations selling arms to Saudi Arabia that continue to bomb the fuck out of Yemen. You've Israel occupying Palestine. Let's cut all the countries off as well. Or are you implying that Russian invasion of Ukraine matter more than all these examples, and if you do so, I wonder why that is? (fyi, it's a rhetorical question, I know why that is)
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > Let's cut off some of the western countries first then as well. ... first? Why first? Which western country is actively invading anyone right now? Which western country started a land-war in Europe last week? Why would I cut off someone not doing anything for something that happened 20 years ago when there's a land-war in the Ukraine now? > You've US who voted to invade Iraq based on a lie (along with UK). On bad pretenses sure, but to overturn a despot who used chemical weapons against his own people. He wasn't a threat to the US, and the pretenses were wrong - and I didn't support the war at the time. But is it the same thing? Not even close. > Or are you implying that Russian invasion of Ukraine matter more than all these examples, and if you do so, I wonder why that is? (fyi, it's a rhetorical question, I know why that is) Yeah because the Russians launched an un-provoked land war in Europe to re-create the Soviet Union - on the premise of "de-Nazifying" a country run by a Jewish PM. Save your whataboutism for once this is resolved.
  - parthdesai 5y ago
    Well, you've Saudi with the support of Western countries and US weapons that is bombing the shit of Yemen. I don't see you calling for sanctions there. Where was the outrage while that is happening? I like how you choose the timeline of right now/last week. US just got out of Afghanistan few months, have destroyed countries and families for generations to come in the past 10-15 years, but you know what let's only count two weeks. > On bad pretenses sure, but to overturn a despot who used chemical weapons against his own people. He wasn't a threat to the US, and the pretenses were wrong - and I didn't support the war at the time. Yeah, looks like US actively knew and helped him gas his own people though because Iran would've been too powerful otherwise, and US can't have that. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-pro... > But is it the same thing? Not even close. Yeah it isn't, while the world looks to sanction Russia (which they should btw), US blackmailed other countries into invading Iraq and no country got sanctioned. But like you said, US only got pretenses wrong, s who whore cares that millions of lives were lost as a result and a country has been destabilized and destroyed. > Save your whataboutism for once this is resolved. Reddit's favourite term to use when you point out double standards. I don't support this invasion either, it's just the hypocrisy in the outrage that is astonishing. But hey I guess, as the media puts it, world cares more when it's white people with blonde hair and blue eyes that are dying and not brown people you've in middle east, so it's different this time.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? Yes. If anything people in democracies are more culpable for the misdeeds of their government than the people of autocratic states.

parthdesai 5y ago
Hey, majority of US wanted Hilary to be the president after she voted to invade Iraq based on a lie, and also destroyed Libya.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  So what if it was based on a lie? History is full of such political machinations. The man was a tin-pot despot who used chemical weapons against his own people. Do you disagree with that assessment? btw, I was and remain anti-Iraq war but your equivocation is clearly wrong.
  - parthdesai 5y ago
    I mean you yourself said that Russian people should be punished because they support Putin. So shouldn't the American population be punished as well because they voted for Hillary Clinton who was pro war based on a lie. > So what if it was based on a lie? Jeez, it's that easy for you to say that eh. Say that to a person who lost his family in that invasion.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      > I mean you yourself said that Russian people should be punished because they support Putin. So shouldn't the American population be punished as well because they voted for Hillary Clinton who was pro war based on a lie. You could make the argument that the world could have stood up and sanctioned the US - but likely they did not because they probably agreed with the action, whether they could say so directly or not. 'Should' is not the bar. The fact it took a lie to convince folks to go in is neither here nor there, IMO. Again, I was against the war. > Jeez, it's that easy for you to say that eh. Say that to a person who lost his family in that invasion. Say that to someone in Kurdistan who suffered life-long debilitating injuries due to the sarin and VX gas attacks that were then followed by a Napalm run. [1] Saddam launched some of the worst chemical attacks in history against his own citizens. We can go back and forth on this all day. It was life frozen. Life had stopped, like watching a film and suddenly it hangs on one frame. It was a new kind of death to me. (…) The aftermath was worse. Victims were still being brought in. Some villagers came to our chopper. They had 15 or 16 beautiful children, begging us to take them to hospital. So all the press sat there and we were each handed a child to carry. As we took off, fluid came out of my little girl's mouth and she died in my arms. If your argument is "ah but Saddam wasn't that bad" my guy, you've already lost. He really wasn't great. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre#Chemical_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre#Chemical_atta...

cabalamat 5y ago

> Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? Wrong question. Whether they "should" in any moral sense is not a useful way to think about things because geopolitics isn't a morality play. Clearly effective sanctions against USA were a non-starter because it is too big and rich a country and does a lot of trade with the outside world. > Realize that our next Iraq or Vietnam this new standard could be applied to us or any other country. Nope. Effective sanctions won't happen against big powerful countries (or coalitions of countries, e.g. EU, NATO).

ajross 5y ago
It's more the wrong question because the "international community" as such broadly supported action in Afghanistan and (to a lesser extent) Iraq. Lots of individual groups had qualms, but none rose to the level of actual policymaking in democratic governments. Obviously in hindsight (informed by the results of the occupation and the exposure of the extremely spun intelligence that was used to justify the war) lots of people would claim to have "opposed" the Iraq war, but at the time it was mostly just shrugs and silence.
- vkou 5y ago
  We don't need to go as far back as Iraq. The Saudis have been waging an offensive war for years in Yemen. Yet there hasn't been a single peep about cutting them off SWIFT, sanctioning their royal oligarchs, freezing their western assets, etc, etc. It seems to send a message that yes, repressive petrostate dictatorships can get away with waging offensive wars... Well, at least some of them can.
  - all2 5y ago
    Oil, and by proxy money, protect them from anything people might want to do to them. People want their money, want their oil, so they turn a blind eye.
    - 5y ago

pfisch 5y ago

arcticbull 5y ago
Oh man, when Russia cut off twitter, my timeline cleaned up instantly. Check out the Trudeau post replies - not a single person calling him Hitler. That ended the day Russia cut off twitter. Basically all pro-Trucker content ended that day.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Didn't the emergency orders end at the same time?
  - naasking 5y ago
    Indeed, post hoc ergo proctor hoc fallacy.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Did happen same day though. Not proof, just signal. And it happened across a broad range of topics. I'll be the first to admit this is anecdotal. I would love a study.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Except that Russia never actually cut off Twitter? It was throttled for a few hours at most, but never fully blocked. And even if they did cut it off, do you think they'd cut off the troll farms and their propaganda outlets too? Unless you are saying that normal russians are calling trudeau hitler with no state backing? Your comment is a bit funny since you are forectly contradicting yourself. When you (wrongfully) thought that russians couldn't access twitter anymore, the russian bots just seemed to have... disappeared for you. But in reality, nothing changed, so maybe they weren't there to begin with, and this is a weird example of a placebo effect, lol.
  - 5y ago

adventured 5y ago

This moral, intellectual con that the Russian people are not responsible needs to stop. The Russian culture must change. Of course the Russian people are morally responsible for their culture and its products (including the war in Ukraine). That culture has produced the conquest obsessed Russian state (including Putin, he is a product of that culture). The Russian people have reveled in the atmosphere of power, greatness, empire, return to glory, and all that bullshit propaganda that Putin has been feeding them for two decades. They cheerily rode the highs with him during the good oil years, applauding as he stripped away human rights one after another, refusing to go against him en masse. They now bear the moral responsibility for tolerating him from the very beginning (dictators quite often only get more difficult to remove with time). Oh now you can't get rid of him? No kidding. Oh now a lot of people would have to die to remove him from power? No kidding - like the people being killed in the name of the Russian people in Ukraine. The Russian people are responsible for what ideas they hold, what they believe, who they follow, what propaganda they accept or reject (and they've been willingly drinking the propaganda by the liter for a very long time). They tolerated Putin's power grab and abuses for many years early on and did next to nothing to try to stop him. They have celebrated him often, he has been widely popular for most of his reign. How many more centuries of authoritarianism need to go by before people figure out that the Russian people are responsible for their culture and their culture is producing the authoritarianism. It's not bad luck producing those repeat results. Raise your hand if you think the Nazi ideology magically, spontaneously appeared - no, it was an assembled mash of ideas that were popular at the time, prevalent in the culture of the German region, commonly held by the people there. Putin's authoritarianism, his obsession with the Russian ethnic superstate (which is quite similar to Hitler's obsession with the German ethnic superstate), also did not appear out of nowhere, it's directly from their culture. And - speaking as an American - of course the American people are morally responsible if their government does something similarly horrible as what Russia is doing in Ukraine. That very obviously also goes for what happened in Vietnam. The US Government and its presidents are the product of the American culture, which the American people are responsible for. If the other empires of Europe changed (Germany, Spain, Britain, France, etc) - their people changed those empire, conquest obsessed cultures - then Russia too can and must change. Russia is the last major power in Europe still clinging to those decrepit, backwards ways. Russia must give up the notion of empire culturally and that means its people must fully abandon all the related ideas that propel and sustain that ideology (which endlessly spawns monsters like Putin (who is just another Russian Tsar type)). Until the people of Russia change their beliefs, the authoritarianism will just keep repeating.

practice9 5y ago

> Cooler heads need to start prevailing. ..in Russia

rightbyte 5y ago
No. This is not how things work. We need to get back the cold war mindset. Moral and righteousness will get us all killed. Screw that. The "West" response need to be carefully thoughtout to not trigger an escalation while protecting our borders like a knife wielding psycho that somehow still tolerates "mistakes". Todays western politicians are acting in an insane way. Look how India and China instinctively stay out of this. Putin will be dead or out of power in 10 years. There is a tomorrow without him too.
- bayindirh 5y ago
  > Putin will be dead or out of power in 10 years. There is a tomorrow without him too. So, as the planet, shall we let him be? Or what's the right course of action?
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    I don't know. Something like, throw Ukraine (yes I know it is a terrible thing ...) to the wolfs and maybe only field NATO infantry to the Baltic states (no armor or planes). The important part is to give the Russian state a fake victory. They know it is fake. We know it. But it is still a victory. Prepare for a post-Putin Russia and prevent chaos when he dies by economic support and a hug. We don't want those nukes in the hand of a regional warchief ...
    - gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
      I don’t think the Ukrainians would be down with that. They’re crazy/brave enough to defend their democracy and organize militias to bolster their armed forces and have already taken out a Chechen special forces unit and a Spetznaz Maj Gen. I’ll let you explain your plan to them.

devmor 5y ago

> Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. I wish people would realize that this is what most of our sanctions do as well.

vkou 5y ago
The reason you apply sanctions is the same reason that you shoot at enemy conscripts in a war (despite them also being victims). Except in the case of sanctions, you aren't even actively engaging in violence (which some moral systems would take issue with). You're simply choosing to not cooperate.
- sidibe 5y ago
  This. Plus sanctions are also a deterrent, and not using them when a state goes over the line will weaken soft power in the future. So while it sucks for Russians who don't support Putin it will make the Chinese or American or whoever is next to egregiously violate what the rest of the world considers right take the threat of sanctions more seriously.
light_hue_1 5y ago
How about the civilians in Ukraine who have to cower in basements, watch their loved ones die, and flee the the country leaving their entire lives behind? The children in Ukraine who have to live through a traumatic war losing all of the stability that they have? The suffering of Russian civilians is nothing compared to what is happening to civilians in Ukraine.
- p_j_w 5y ago
  One person suffering is not a good reason to go cause some other person who isn't at fault to suffer.
- 131012 5y ago
  Comparing suffering is useless. There is no objective measure for pain, just as diminishing the suffering of Ukrainians because Yemen or Palestine is pointless. Some brave Russian people are now suffering in Putin's prisons for speaking out against war. Some mothers will never know how or where their children died. Some African students in Ukraine are suffering from racism perpetrated by other war victims. It's all bad and they all deserve compassion.

quickthrowman 5y ago

> Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? This is not realistic due to the fact that the US is at least an order of magnitude more powerful than Russia, both economically and militarily. We also made it look less sketchy by bribing/begging Britain (and others) to join the Iraq invasion and invoking Article 5 for Afghanistan. Sanctions against the US were not tenable.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

908B64B197 5y ago

> Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? I don't think it's fair to compare the democratically elected government of an European country to a blood thirsty middle eastern dictatorship. At least, they certainly didn't garner the same sympathy from people. As for Vietnam, it’s interesting to see that the loosing side was where people desperately fled, often risking their lives in makeshift rafts. That the people would risk their lives for a shot at maybe getting refugee status in America rather than live in a communist nation should tell us a lot. Same goes for failed states like Venezuela and Cuba.

diob 5y ago

On the other hand, perhaps that would have gotten us to reconsider the forever war that killed so many and wasted so much money for no reason?

pessimizer 5y ago

> Plus think about the precedent being set here. Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. This would not set up a precedent, it's almost the entirety of US foreign policy.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

You mean a dangerous precedent like the US drone striking schools and wedding parties?

kbelder 5y ago

>Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. That isn't always true. Obviously, if the actions of the government are bad enough, it sometimes becomes necessary to kill many of its citizens. Since that's morally justifiable, lesser economic damage is morally justifiable. It sucks. They're innocent. If damage can be avoided, great. But if it's necessary, the blame falls on the aggressor nation.

cgio 5y ago
Not sure what you mean. The fact that in the last century or so wars have been having disproportionately high numbers of civilian casualties does not mean that this is acceptable. When is it necessary to kill civilians and what makes it a necessity? And if there is a necessity why is there a war criminal court? I suggest we are careful with the excuses we give, in this case in order to argue “e-casualties” you also argue that if Putin thinks Ukraine is the aggressor he can go after civilians.

dfxm12 5y ago

Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Who realistically could have done this, keeping in mind the Coalition of the Willing [0]? The global "community" was clearly not of one mind about this. Sanctions are working against Russia because most of the richest countries are behind the sanctions. Other commenters have alluded to sanctioning US/UK over Yemen, which sounds reasonable, however, in that the case, too, why would European countries impose sanctions for conflicts they're taking part in themselves [1]? Also, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is merely the (very large) straw that broke the camel's back with regards to these sanctions. Russia went it alone. Let's not pretend that Russia was on good terms with NA/EU or that Putin had any built up good will, either. The situations are vastly different. I'm not sure the precedent being set is what you think it is. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing 1 - https://www.adhrb.org/2021/01/european-involvement-in-the-humanitarian-crisis-in-yemen/ https://www.adhrb.org/2021/01/european-involvement-in-the-hu...

staticman2 5y ago

It's interesting to try to model the type of moral philosophy you have that would cause you to write "Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly." I'm guessing the word "complicit" is not in your moral vocabulary. Or for some reason you don't feel it applies to doing business and helping to enrich a society that is murdering their neighboors. Apparently refusing to be complicit with Russian aggression is "punishment". Let's just same I'm less than impressed with this moral argument.

galactus 5y ago
It's not the whole society that is murdering their neighboors. If that were true, all americans should be considered criminals.
- staticman2 5y ago
  The Russians are all complicit since they are all paying taxes to fund the war and obeying the dictator's edicts (unless they are in prison.) Maybe it's true of Americans for the war in Iraq or whatever but my objection is specifically to the weird (to me) use of the word "punishment" in the post I replied to. I'd say don't talk about "punishment" as if your position has a moral high ground. Let's talk about being complicit. The post above argues we should help fund the war efforts to kill Ukrainians through profitable business relations with the Russians, and the poster apparently thinks they have the moral high ground given the use of the word "punishment" to describe the the idea we shouldn't help the Russians continue to fund their efforts to kill people.
4bpp 5y ago
By implication, you are saying that the 9/11 attacks were morally justified, right? In fact, there is a case that they were strictly more so: as everyone asserts, American elections are more fair and free than Russian ones, so American citizens would have a better chance to elect someone who did not brutalise the Islamic world, and American citizens have more money and stronger passports, so they would have a much easier time leaving. (Arguably, 9/11 indeed backfired badly for the perpetrators.)

8note 5y ago

No precedent is being set here. Sanctions aren't new, and their purpose is to put pressure on the citizens to change their government. It's already been done to the US before as well. Eg. The Gulf states raised US oil prices to protest America supporting Israel, and Canada recently targetted products from key states for tarrifs in response to Trump's. Russian misinformation bots are the same thing, punishing the citizens to make the government more compliant. America is a democracy, so influencing the citizens is effective. Cooler heads still need to prevail - you can't use all your non-war tools, or you'll only be left with going to war

tintor 5y ago

"Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam?" Or how about aggression on Yugoslavia?

nsv 5y ago

As an American: I agree with your point broadly, but I would love to see the world punishing Americans e.g. through sanctions for an event like the invasion of Iraq or Vietnam, should it happen. Such unnecessary destruction of human life should be met with resistance on every level.

gedy 5y ago
Vietnam was not invaded by the US

ternaryoperator 5y ago

> Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly. That's what sanctions do. That's what military responses do. There's no real way out of the box. If a country responds forcefully to an aggressor's actions, the aggressor's civilians will pay a large part of the price.

unityByFreedom 5y ago
A measured response is appropriate. Actions can be scaled so that if the same thing is applied back to you for a fraction of a transgression, then the public can figure out who's overreacting.
Zvez 5y ago
Not really. Civilians are certainly affected by sanctions. But government itself, oligarches, people with power are affected much more. Also making population unhappy gradually is a good motivation to make some changes. But here it will affect general population in the first place. It will remove ability to get other side of the news. Cutting the internet is in a lot of cases what government actually wants (and does). Right now they shutting down sources of information (fb, yt, twitter). And here they suggest to shut it down completely. Russia government will probably thank them for this.

usrusr 5y ago

The Bush Hussein WMD ruse/lie was laughably bad, but compared to Putin's "Selensky is the second coming of Hitler" show, in hindsight the Bush play seems like Academy Awards material compared to that school play where even parents leave. When a country is ruled by someone as incompetent as Putin (yeah, until recently I considered him very competent, just in bad things, but like so many I stand corrected) it's never good for the people living there. And the blame for that does not lie outside of the country's borders.

FooBarWidget 5y ago

I agree with you. But there's the problem that the precedent already exists. That's what sanctions already do, way before Russia-Ukraine.

diordiderot 5y ago

> Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? Fuck yes they should have. Absolutely Americans were complicit because it didn't (immediately and viscerally) effect them, just like Russians have been so far. If it effects them enough they'll stop working. > Punishing civilians for the actions of its government With few exceptions, governments serve the people under them. Pray tell, How popular is Putin in Russia right now?

avereveard 5y ago

> the actions of its government Except neither the cabinet nor the oligarchs are the one doing the killing, it's the grunts at the bottom. If every Russian deposed arms, there would be no war.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

>>Should the global community have targeted all Americans for the actions of the Bush Presidency invading Iraq under false pretenses? Or how about Vietnam? I mean, yes? America is a functioning democracy. The leaders have been elected, and stay in power based on the mercy of the electorate. Some recent challenges in that respect notwithstanding, I feel it's almost a tautology that America and Americans should be held responsible for things that America and Americans do - even MORE than in authoritarian countries. Same for Canada and UK et cetera et cetera. I don't know what viable alternative to sanctions affecting citizenry anybody is proposing - targeted assassination of heads of state one disagrees with? Mlitary response? Just ignoring it? Yelling loudly? How else do we propose to send a message to a state "Please don't DO that" without involving the electorate that either demanded, participated, or allowed such actions?

throw10920 5y ago

> invading Iraq under false pretenses? Is this about the chemical weapons, that were confirmed to exist by the NYT itself, as well as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons? https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/world/middleeast/questions-answers-abandoned-chemical-weapons-in-iraq.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/world/middleeast/question... https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/world/middleeast/thousands-of-iraq-chemical-weapons-destroyed-in-open-air-watchdog-says-.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/world/middleeast/thousand... https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have-bought-and-destroyed-iraqi-chemical-weapons.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middleeast/chemical-weapons-iraq-pentagon-secrets.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middlee... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middlee...