Please don't cross into personal attack or practice (god help us) collective punishment on HN. It's not for internet message commenters, presumably in safe, distant places to talk aggressively, blame, and put down others like this. It only makes things worse.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30507142.

I'm uncomfortable with this argument. It seems that people here are pretty comfortable advocating for regime change in Russia and punishing the population until it happens. I don't think the implications of this have been thought out at all.

If Bay of Pigs had instead been an open invasion, I can't imagine expecting Americans (especially ones who already opposed intervention!) to hear an argument like "we're incrementally boxing you out of everyday life until you take up arms against John Kennedy and oust him from office" as fair or serious in any way.

It would have been totally fair, especially in America, because we have a direct way to influence the selection of our leaders. It's obviously harder and more indirect in modern-day Russia, but the principle is the same.

Remember: this isn't regime change for the sake of regime change. The Russian government has shown itself to be a belligerent destructive authority that is a threat to the entire world (given the weapons it possesses).

That’s a huge ask considering the sheer scale of people jailed for protesting.

You’re not wrong, this person’s problems are dwarfed by those who are dead or might soon be dead. I’m just not sure protesting is actually a sane solution given the potential consequences. Like, who knows what happens to jailed protesters. Are they going to be okay? Is it worth it?

I don’t have the answers, just trying to point out that it’s absolutely crazy on both sides of the conflict, for everyone, and solutions aren’t easy.

Estimated 6 k. Of 144 million in ~60 cities.

That's 100/ city.

I'm not so sure about the claim "sheer scale of protesting". We are a IT forum and I would think that the overlapping demographics with 'us' is more aware than the other 99,9% that isn't reading here.

Please don't misread my comment. There are multiple reasons why people won't dare to protest too, outside of being ill informed ( eg. Rural areas only using TV, according to what I read).

I’m not sure if you misread my comment but I said the “sheer scale of people jailed for protesting”. Maybe I’m wrong too, but I think 100 people per city is absolutely crazy. I’m not sure 100 people have ever been jailed in my city in under a week, ever.

Otherwise I agree, I think we’re more or less on the same page.

I don't think the amount of people arrested in Russia can be compared to your city.

I've seen eg. A report for a woman being arrested for having a blank protest sign. That's insane.

If that's the base for comparison for arrest. I don't think 100 is a lot.

But in general, I think we are in agreement outside of that. Yeah

It's not "100 per city". The vast majority was jailed in Moscow (population about 13 million) and SPb (about 5.5 million). It's really not that much for a heavily authoritarian regime in war time.

https://ovdinfo.org

Of course, you're right. I suppose the question is if "not that much" should be a contextual matter or not. Should people ever be jailed for protesting a war? Is it any better if previous leaders would have responded more harshly, or were they simply worse leaders?

In any case I find it disturbing.

It's a bad wording on my part. I haven't been sleeping much lately. What I tried to say is my Russian friends are shocked about how little the population is willing to do then their Führer is killing their (literally) brothers, pushing the country towards complete isolation and (possibly) WW3.

Oh, that’s an interesting question too though. I’ve wondered if protesting would be a frightening prospect for Russians. Do you think that’s possible? Here in Canada I’d say protesting has been relatively safe for generations. In Russia, dissent has been punished many times over. Should they be protesting more right now, or are there real personal risks attached? I honestly don’t know, but I try not to judge too much.

No, it's definitely not safe. People get picked off the streets (3-4 riot cops against each one), brutally beaten (not all, but many), and thrown in jail for a few hours to a few days. Some lose their jobs after that.

Some even lose their jobs for posting anti-war comments on the internet:

https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2022/03/01/iavnoe-neuvazhen...

Here's another example — an 80 year old lady was picked off the street and thrown in jail with the rest of them. Twice:

https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2022/02/27/v-avtozake-kolle...

What's ironic here is she was born in besieged Stalingrad in 1942. Think about it: they've jailed a siege survivor from the Great Patriotic War which they are so proud of for standing peacefully at an anti-war protest.

You can look up the latest arrest figures on https://ovdinfo.org. It's not official info, but is the best we have.

A new law is currently being fast-tracked through Duma which will allow the state to throw people in prison for up to 20 years for literally any anti-war activity, including peaceful protests.

The country is very close to what it was like in Stalin times, back in 1930s.

Jail space is finite. If enough Russians care, they cannot possibly hope to jail them all.

I've got to ask how many times you've been arrested or jailed fighting for justice in your country. It's very easy to talk about this, it's a lot harder to do it, especially in a place like Russia. I've been arrested while protesting twice and once thrown in max security jail (luckily bailed out within a couple days) and I dealt with the follow-up for many stressful years. It stinks.

In any event I encourage you to use some of that passion of yours fighting for what's right in your own country & putting your own life & livelihood on the line. God speed!

Edit: in USA.

You can rest assured that when X declares in the internet:

"why doesnt Y protest and go to jail for righteusness!"

It will never fail that X has neither righteusness, nor follow their own advice.

Armchair fighters always fight with words, never actions, and will always send someone else to fight THE fight.

If my country, unprovoked, invaded a sovereign nation and threatened any intervening countries with a nuclear response, I would be out in the fucking streets. The people in Russia doing this are heroic, but more need to be doing it.

Historically, when jails have been cramped the solution has been dead bodies in trenches. Putin has demonstrated that he can be ruthless and he admires ruthless people who preceded him. If I was in Russia and I had a family (as I do here in Canada) I would be very afraid of them losing me because I expressed dissent during an extremely contentious and high-pressure war. Maybe that makes me weak or part of the problem; it’s just where I’m at and I can sympathize with people there who might be responding to the situation the way I would.

Priority 1: Stay alive and take care of my family

Priority 2: Do something about the social and political issues if I can, but not at the expense of priority 1

There is some overlap and conflict there. Maybe the government can put my family directly at risk, for example. In this case that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening unless your family has been sent to fight. For those people, god, I don’t have words. It’s unthinkable.

Siberia is vast, the horizon endless and the seasons extreme -- the bones there from Stalin's time attest that in practice it's a "boundless" jail.

Please, go read Gulag Archipelago, come back when you are done and share your thoughts on the limits of the soviet penal system.

"A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch" is (IMHO) an equally valid recommendation, w/ the benefit of being a much shorter and more accessible book.

That's really inconsiderate/rude.

I'm a avoid opponent of Putin, but I have the free speech to do it. And I can look things up online to find pretty decent info and different perspectives.

People that have families and live in other regimes don't have the luxury to do what I do here, in Belgium or probably you too.

You should most definitely be aware of that.

People don't pick the situation where they are born into.

Absolutely, in the last few weeks I’ve been kind of deep diving on Russian history and geopolitics as tensions heated up and the war broke out. I’m well aware of Putin’s ascent and maintenance of power.

I’m honestly doing my best to see this conflict from all sides, including the Russian side. It’s worthwhile in order to make sense of things, but also important to help in recognizing the struggle Russian people who oppose the war are up against.

I’m not voicing support for the war at all – I’m actually very upset by it.

I don’t understand why my comment is clickbaity. Apart from not generating clicks, I don’t see how it’s misleading or controversial.

I hope anyone that lives in the US realizes this applies to us too.

When was the last time the US invaded a democracy?

This is fun because American ideology makes this question tautological.

Any answer that could possibly be given will be invalid, because we wouldn't have invaded them if they were really a democracy.

Also I don't imagine that dead civilians particularly care whether the invaders who shot them were doing it in the name of democracy or not.

No, there are well-defined standards for what makes a country democratic. No country that the US has invaded comes remotely close on any criterion, right?

Invaded, maybe not. Regime-changed? Most definitely. We've sponsored dictatorial coups against democratically elected socialists and communist governments, assassinations, etc. Arguing that the US respects democracy would be quite a joke. I would also argue that "representative democracy" is no different than any other oligarchy, and the small amount of direct democracy and political power afforded to the average US citizen isn't all that much more than anywhere else in the world.

How puzzling, then, that the Ukrainians are so desperate to hang onto their “small amount of power”, and seem to see a large difference between that and being subject to a tyrant. Ditto the Belarusians.

I doubt Ukrainians had much or any direct democracy in their system. I'm not sure what you're supposed to be saying here?

I’m saying that they see a huge difference between Ukraine’s imperfect democracy and Russian dictatorship, and the fact that the former doesn’t conform to your theoretical, ideal democracy is just irrelevant.

Nice strawman. Care to attack the argument I was actually making, which had nothing to do with emotional appeals about Ukrainian sovereignty?

That we know of, El Salvador.

There are quite a few entries in that list, and these are things we are aware of today after FOIA. This list is only confirmed intervention by the US.

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

There likely was direct involvement by USA in overthrows of democracies of some Arab Spring countries, of Ecuador in the late 2000s, and maybe even Brazil and Argentina.

I can’t find anything about El Salvador that’s recent, and almost all of the overthrows of democratic governments happened during or before the 1970s (so 50 years ago.) I would also repeat I used the term invasion for a reason, had Russia used covert actions to bring a friendly regime to power in Ukraine it would be a very different situation.

I seriously hope I am straw manning you, but I don't think I am? Are you implying that invading countries and the consequent devastation of their population is something we should accept or tolerate because they don't have the "right" political system? The same political system where we are supposed to be able to oppose these wars and decide our own future, yet remain powerless to do in spite of largely overwhelming support against them?

In Iraq estimates for the total (and now severely dated) deathtoll [1] range from "just" hundreds of thousands to over a million. That's in a country that had a population of 25 million just before the war (2002). So the higher end of that measurement sees us having killed, or been otherwise responsible, for more the deaths of more than 4% of the population.

Beyond the barbaric and reckless brutality of it all, it also amounts to less than nothing. Democracy doesn't work in countries where people are polarized. In Iraq you have three mostly incompatible groups if Shia, Sunni, and Kurds. And large chunks of each group would be perfectly happy to see the others wiped off the face of this Earth. In this case democracy degenerates into an unstable tyranny of the majority. A problem we're likely to see if divisions within the country continue going in the current direction.

So in our brave new Iraq, the past 4 years have seen endless political assassination, insurrections, and the government killing hundreds of protesters against it all. Since the formation of the new Iraq style of government in 2004, only 2 of 6 prime ministers have managed to complete a single term. And one of the two guys that completed a single term was forced out by an insurrection shortly after the start of his second term.

The vast majority of Iraqis felt they were better off under Saddam. But hey, wrong political system - right? And Iraq looks like a utopia compared to most of the other countries we "democratized."

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

The vast majority of casualties of the Iraq war were due to the civil war that took place. You can blame the US for opening up a power vacuum but the civil war was brewing regardless and this is all still irrelevant since I specifically said Democratic.

Arguments supporting presidents who committed literal genocide on domestic ethnic groups won't last long in this debate.

I could make a list, and we could argue about it, but also, is "invading a democracy" the only horrific crime that a state can undertake, that it's citizens are responsible for preventing?

The post I was replying to actually said "waging unprovoked war on another nation," it didn't say anything about democracies, you've changed the language already, we can keep restricting the language legalistically until we are confident it applies only to what we accuse our enemies of and never to anything we can ever admit our own country has done and continues to do.

It shocks me that people don't realize how full of war and misery the world is every day, and how much the US government is responsible for. That the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a shameful travesty of violence only makes it more shameful that people turn it into some jingoistic "our population is more moral than their population" thing, that instead of using it as an avenue to empathy with refugees and victims of violence everywhere, we use it as a cudgel to paint some other population of day to day people as especially evil, when we aren't any better at figuring out how to deal with our complicity, in fact this projection is a way of avoiding it. We have nothing to be held responsible for on behalf of our government while living comfortable lives as our government commits crimes that we don't know how to stop, it's only them, who deserve punishment for not being willing to sacrifice everything to do something about their government.

The real relevance of "democracy" is probably on the state committing the crimes. If the USA is more of a democracy than, say, Russia, than the USA's residents hypothetically have more power over it's governments actions, and should be held more responsible for them. (Although I can say I don't feel much power).

As other commentators have said this statement is tautological.

Russians could same something to the same tune: “how many territories have we invaded that don’t have Russian heritage” and you get a similar tautological statement.

I find it surprising that people can be against Russia invading Ukraine but in the same sentence still legitimize the United State’s numerous invasions in other countries.

Except they can’t because there are quantified indexes and criteria the world has agreed upon to describe democracy, freedom and human rights. Anyone attempting to equate the US, by every definition a democracy with economic and political freedoms, to Russia is not an honest attempt. If the US invaded Canada or some nation that met the definitions of a free, democratic, society you’d have a point but they haven’t which is my point.

I can be against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and point out that the nations the US invaded were authoritarian in nature. I never said I supported US invasions just that they are not the same. We can also just drop the Cold War and start from 1990, since we’re comparing Russia and the US here, and you’ll see that Russia has invaded multiple democracies now (Georgia and Ukraine) while the US quite literally hasn’t. Whataboutism is dumb but it’s especially dumb when the thing you are whatabouting isn’t even close to the same. Overthrowing Saddam or the Taliban is nowhere near the same as invading a democracy because you’re afraid you won’t be able to dominate your neighbors anyone once they join the democratic alliance that was built to prevent you doing just that.

Why does it matter if it's a democracy?

Because then we can use the non-democracy excuse to invade whoever we want.

We invade functioning countries about every four years.

Not that the response was proportional, but I would call attempting to assassinate the US president with 80kg of plastic explosives a provocation.

So why didn’t they take this action against US citizens when the US government attacked Iraq?

> So why didn’t they take this action against US citizens when the US government attacked Iraq?

Because silly, Iraq had WMDs. /s

This reminds me of someone at my office who tinted his Slack avatar with the colors of the Ukrainian flag. It’s a meaningless, empty gesture. Why didn’t he have Palestinian colors last summer or the Afghan flag for the last two decades?

Frankly, this is punishment of ordinary people who have no say in what their country does (plus maybe some monsters who run the state, but with collateral damage) as a form of virtue signaling. If my DNS was shut down for crimes the US committed despite my objection I would feel very mistreated. The intent may be noble, but it doesn’t feel helpful.

I agree, it is not helpful. I think a lot of Russian civilians are completely against this invasion. They also have zero leverage in this situation. The ones that even think about speaking out face years of hard labor.

I was unconvinced Iraq was an imminent threat at the time, and always considered the invasion a violation of the U.N. charter. But these are qualitatively different invasions.

There were around a dozen U.N. resolutions directing Iraq disarm, stemming from their prior invasion of Kuwait. Which, interestingly, Iraq complete their last reparations payment to Kuwait just last week. Saddam Hussein was consistently evasive and uncooperative with the U.N. inspections regimes. None of these are adequate justifications to invade Iraq, in my opinion. But they are some of the legal ones.

Neither the U.S. nor U.N. questioned the borders of Iraq, or the right of Iraqi nationalism. Russia categorically rejects Ukraine's right to exist as an independent country. Keep in mind this invasion started in 2014 with the taking of Crimea. Something the west wrongly accepted, and let Putin get away with it. That was clearly a dress rehearsal for what is happening today. How would things be different if meaningful sanctions were levied on Russia for that? How many lives would be saved? We will be getting some idea.

Also, U.S. attacking Iraq had no chance of starting world war three. Russia invading Ukraine could. At what point does Russia consider western countries arming Ukraine a reason to take a much bigger retaliation, not against Ukraine? And at what point does one of those trigger NATO article 5? The risk here is very different than it is was with Iraq, as wrong and terrible as that was. Putting an end to what's going on in Ukraine is important for everyone, because unlike Iraq, everyone globally has something to lose. World war two took nearly 100 million lives, 1/3 due to famine.

Iraq was never going to be a world war three. And I will never understand the legitimacy of that war.

> people getting killed by your army,

This is ridiculous. It’s not HIS army. Unless Putin is posting on HN about his Namecheap troubles.

Things like this alienate people and push them into Putin’s will. The less options Russian people have the more vulnerable they are to dictatorship.

It’s common people who got in a socioeconomic grinder.

The US army is _my_ army, even if I don't agree with all their actions or have any direct control over them what so ever.

The place where I borrow a book is _my_ library, and the sports team I follow is _my_ team.

The Russian people are not in control and likely the majority do not agree with what is happening, but it is still their army. And the Russian army is made up of Russian people.

The discomfort put on Russian families puts pressure on the Russian people in the military.

Currently everyone who resists Putins will is arrested or worse. However that is simply not a scalable solution to keep an unhappy population from fighting back against the cause of their unhappiness.

In this case Putin unilaterally decided to attack their cousins and take the wrath of the entire world. He is the cause of their unhappiness, and they will squeeze him out like a tick.

> Currently everyone who resists Putins will is arrested or worse. However that is simply not a scalable solution to keep an unhappy population from fighting back

It is not only scalable, moreover the regime is 100% prepared to scale it. The regime's prison/riot control machine will kill 10s of thousands and imprison 100s of thousands overnight if need be.

You clearly have no idea of what's going on there and what the response is like.

Russian people are unarmed (nobody owns weapons and they aren't readily available to anyone on some black market). The police/riot police/national guard are alienated from general population and will retaliate as if protestors are "enemy" (it was the case in every single instance, their never ever went easy on protestors).

The regime change can come either from the army (worst case scenario) or from the cabinet (best case scenario). A crushed civil uprising will just signal to the elites that they need not worry about the masses.

Thus calling for regular russian people to take up arms / topple the government is just pushing the whole thing to a senseless, pointless catastrophe. Painful, direct sanctions on elites AND all of their relatives/close employees (up to 3 degrees of separation), on the other hand..

I don't think we will agree with each other. I wrote a longer response, but it was just reiterating my previous points.

But I'll will leave with a rhetorical straw man argument.

Russia has a mandatory draft. These people did not choose to join the army, similar to how most people did not choose which country they live in. Is sending weapons that may kill these forced soldiers better or worse than providing economic pain to the entire population?

In both cases people who lack free will be affected.

i recommend you watching some footage of russian people who are protesting against putin’s regime, who are being killed and raped in prisons.

source?

Most recent police actions on anti-war demos: https://youtu.be/jEDX-TDUfyQ

Website documenting tortures in Russian prisons and other crimes committed by law enforcement: https://gulagu-net.ru

Yep. He shouldn't even have a glass of water until every single problem there has been solved.

Sarcasm.