You realize that sanctions also kill people through lack of supplies like medicine being available, people being unable to economically support themselves, and, if the sanctions cause the government to collapse, all the death that results from that.

So let’s not pretend sanctions are somehow nonviolent.

In this case it seems Microsoft at least is striking the right balance by leaving open the free version. They are not profiting from sanctions yet they are leaving open an information service that could be used to organize dissent within the sanctioned regime. Not that github would be the first place you’d try but at least it’s an option if all the others are blocked.

Everything that reduces quality of life kills people in some way. Heck, I commute through a town that back in the day was rich enough to prevent the highway from being expanded. I bet a couple people have died in ambulances in gridlock there.

Sanctions are a heck of a lot less violent than bombs, or some tit for tat response (which would probably eventually escalate to bombs). They're basically one step up from taxes/tariffs.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

But how many lives were saved from not having a fast moving road running alongside the town.

Everything is good and bad.

Normally I'd agree but this highway was built as a highway in the '50s a new route where there formerly was no road. It's not like a main street that slowly grew into a major road. The only points where pedestrians cyclists cross the road (it's limited access, nobody is walking or biking on it) are at the aforementioned traffic lights. Based on my experience as a pedestrian I suspect the lights are about the same safety as walking biking past on/off ramps.

This is king of going off on a tangent though.

Sounds like something you could say about anything.

and yet, that will be less than the war in iraq.

It's github. I would personally be inconvenienced, but not terribly so. I cannot imagine their life is going to crash in some meaningful way for not having access to github.

> it's github.

Are you naive enough to think the sanction is explicitly targeted exactly at github, and not any number of services, or part of a wider economic attack?

yes, tehbeard. The takeaway from my comment should have been that I'm naive and have no idea how sanctions work, or why they're used.

That is absolutely, 100%, unequivocally, the most fair interpretation of my comment that you could have made.

I should thank you for this, really. I cannot imagine someone on the internet assuming that maybe my opinion is based upon more than ignorance and naivete.

These countries are run by some of the most violent and oppressive regimes in the world. Let’s not pretend that the US is responsible for the quality of life of the people living there.

These sanctions are entirely non-violent. The actual word you’re looking for is harmful. They’re designed to be harmful, economically. Responding to regimes like this with economic pressure is most certainly preferable to actual violent conflict. Which would be guaranteed to kill thousands of innocent civilians.

Given recent history, if you think electing to use non-violent methods to sanction these governments is disgusting, then I really don’t think there’s anything I could say to you.

If the regime in Iran falls. It won’t be because of US sanctions. It will be because that country has been operated by a brutal dictator for decades, and the Iranian people grew tired of being the enemy of their own government.

In all fairness, the Iranian government is more popular in Iran than the US govenment in the US. The US sanctions wasn't enacted to help the Iranian people, but to weaken a country that the US perceives as an adversary.

This is important. This kind of actions have to be taken as what they are: unilateral actions of a country against another. It is just the US defending what it sees as they interests. But for the rest of the world it is just a maneuver.

For some people in the USA it is difficult to see it. Given their (expected) skew towards their country. But people outside that country can see it with a more objective perspective.

Similar thing is happening with the concentration camps in the south.

You’ve just described the foreign policy of every country in the world.

Are they? Or are the Iranian people too afraid of the Revolutionary Guard to say different? If you want to go that route, North Korea has the most popular government and leader on Earth. I don't think you can make claims about popularity of a government that can and does make people disappear who say otherwise.

Two very different cultures. there has been several protests in Tehran in the last decade with no execution.

NK has their own culture too where it's just wrong to critise their rules (or their parents). we need to stop looking at the world from a globalised western lens.

This comment seems borderline satire. But I guess you’re right. There’s the western way of approving of your government, where you’re free to make up your mind about whether you do or not, and the way that they do it in North Korea and Iran, where you have to constantly fear the consequences of not approving of your government in the appropriate government prescribed manner.

> the Iranian government is more popular in Iran than the US govenment in the US

It really would be sad if you controlled the media, religious doctrines as interpreted by the gov't (which you can't criticize), had censors, and couldn't pull that off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Iran

> If the regime in Iran falls. It won’t be because of US sanctions. It will be because that country has been operated by a brutal dictator for decades, and the Iranian people grew tired of being the enemy of their own government.

If so (that Iran falls not because of US sanctions), surely it follows that there is no point to the sanctions?

They would only serve to embitter the targeted population.

> surely it follows that there is no point to the sanctions?

Not at all. Either the sanctions pressure Iran into changing their policies, or the sanctions restrict their ability or enact those policies.

Of course the US is pressuring Iran to act according to the Interests of the US. But if you want to criticize that, you’d have to look at what they are in this situation.

* Protecting allies in the region (which Iran openly and repeatedly vows to wipe of the map)

* Preventing nuclear proliferation

* Doing so while avoiding war

You have to try quite hard to apply the USA-is-just-a-bully trope to this situation.

"These sanctions are entirely non-violent." Their effect on the rich in these countries mostly is. What about children dying because of a lack of medication?

One could avoid a lot of collateral damage by targeting sanctions at specific powerful individuals. Think of the way some Russian oligarchs from Putin's inner circle got restricted by western sanctions.

It's relatively easy to avoid sanctions in the first place or have them removed: comply with US demands.

Most of the world does this just fine. There's a few bad actors out there screwing their countries and their people.

I'm hoping you're being sarcastic - if so, you're right, the US is becoming more and more transparent in its use of power to simply force countries to do whatever it wants.

False dichotomy! Economic sanctions are not the only alternative to actual wars. In fact, they are a form of collective punishment that harm average citizens of these countries more than their governments. And this is not just about some inconvenienced github users; this has been a contentious issue in every natural disaster [1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-floods-redcrescent/f...

In any situation, the people will be harmed by any form of action taken against its government. By this logic, it would never be considered reasonable to take any action at all against any government.

When one country vows to wipe another country off the map, it’s reasonable for other countries to take some action against that. When a dictator spends the better part of a decade bombing its civilians, it’s reasonable for other countries to take some action against that.

Your options really are to retaliate with force, or sanctions. Economic sanctions are far less harmful, and far more productive. I’d bet that all those Syrians you see on the news digging their dead family members out of the rubble of their bombed houses would be more than willing to trade that life for one with economic sanctions.

I’m really struggling to believe that an anti-war stance is now considered controversial on HN.

> I’m really struggling to believe that an anti-war stance is now considered controversial on HN

I Don't know about HN, but I don't think an anti-war stance is controversial. Having said that, I believe, presenting economic sanctions as a humane alternative to war is deeply misleading. Of course you are entitled to your opinion.

Economic sanctions are quite obviously an alternative to war (though perhaps not the only alternative), and if you look at recent administrations proclivity for intervention and regime change, it’s also quite obviously a change of tack.

Whether the sanctions are warranted is much more open to debate. But in Syria you have a regime that created the greatest humanitarian crisis of a generation, and in Iran you have a regime that repeatedly vows to wipe another country off the map, and an enormous proliferation risk. So I know what side of that debate I’d fall on, and I know what my preferences are when it comes to starting new wars.