Well, this gives me license to be angry at all US voters then.

Not just voters. You don't need to have voted to be doing something about what's happening in your country. You should blame Americans - all Americans - for what is happening over there.

That's a pretty naive take that ignores the reality of... well, everything about life.

And why do you feel capable to judge if somebody is OK with what their government is doing or not? It’s really that simple: you cannot, unless they explicitly state it.

i think it is very safe to say, if your government is still in power, you as a colective are fine with whatever they are doing, or at best you don't give a f while it doesnt affect you personally. hence the point of sanctions and geoblocks. rest of the world don't want to do anything with genocide enablers.

so save some tears how hard it is when rest of the civilised world don't want to do anything with you, maybe do some self reflection why it is that way and what can you do about it.

This is a 14 years old take on geopolitics, I refuse to believe any other explanations

How do you know what that person is doing or not doing to try and get rid of those in power, and for their survival? In fact, your government is still in power, so according to your line of argument I can hold you personally responsible for any of their action and inaction and direct and indirect support of genocide. I am not going to, since I don’t share that perspective.

A theory of culpability for government actions that is broad enough to apply to North Korean citizens who will be summarily executed for even suggesting regime change (or shot in the back while trying to escape) is useless. At that point it’s basically geopolitical predestination.

How did that Arab Spring work out for Syrians? Right, they were barrel bombed by the regime, then slaughtered by ISIS, then just generally killed in random crossfire. 14 million of them were driven from their homes, either to other places in Syria or outside the country to live in overcrowded refugee camps. Now the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rules over the ashes, since all the original people fighting for change are long dead. Why can't everyone just do this?!??! Stop being lazy people, rise up.

What do you mean by "you as a collective"? Did you just shift the goalpost? Do you think people are part of a hivemind? I thought we were talking about individuals, now you want to talk about "a collective"? You clearly aren't thinking about this rationally. A bit of thinking things through logically would really help here. I suggest spending a few hours whiteboarding your argument, because as it stands 0% of people are going to agree with you.

> if your government is still in power, you as a colective are fine with whatever they are doing

"You as a collective" is not a thing, though. We are not Borg; we are individuals. I live in the US, and I am absolutely not fine with what Trump and the GOP are doing, but... well, they are still in power. And I do have some (albeit fairly minimal) ability to affect the actions of my government through voting.

Someone who lives under a dictatorship like Iran has zero say in what their government does, and zero say in what government is in power. The only way for someone like that to change their government is to engage in armed rebellion, but asking someone to put their life on the line like that is way more than I would presume to ask of anyone.

This is the exact same argument Bin Laden used for 9/11; that the US civilians were culpable due to their votes and taxes supporting what the US government was doing.

Correct! And he hit a nerve laying this logic bare, which is exactly why The Guardian took the unprecedented and absurd measure of removing his manifesto from a decades-old article when it went viral a year or 2 ago. Lest the populace get to see things for what they are. At the same time unmasking their veil that despite their pretenses, they're just as much of a capital interests-captured rag as their "competitors".

It is absolutely possible, reasonable, and normal to be unhappy with US foreign policy in the Middle East dating from before I was born, but also believe I have no power to change course there.

I'm not the "both sides are the same" kinda guy, but we realistically only have choices between Democrats and Republicans here, and I'm not convinced things would be meaningfully different in the ME if some US elections over the past 50+ years had gone the other way.

As a personal example: I was eligible to vote in my first US presidential election at age 19, in 2000. I did not vote for Bush. He still won, and still started a war with Iraq under false pretenses. I was utterly powerless to change those events.

So I'm not sure what nerve was hit here, because, "I'm going to attack regular folks in another country because I don't like what their government is doing" is still just as cruel, cold, and ineffective, regardless of the targeted country. Ultimately bin Laden failed: US foreign policy in the Middle East has not changed in ways that I expect he'd be happy with. Perhaps his consolation prize is that, due to the reaction to his attacks, the US is a lot less freer than it was before; not only did the government use it as an excuse to curtail freedoms, but the actual citizenry started prioritizing some higher measure of safety and security over freedom. But I don't think that makes the world a better place, even if bin Laden might have considered that particular aspect of things a success.

> I think there is a fundamental misconception that people think because "Islamic Republic" has the word "Republic" in it, it must be a government of people in charge. That's not the case. I have yet to see anyone who actually supports Russian aggression in my real life in Iran.

> it is really that simple

That simple? How would you know who's "OK" with what judging only by their IP address? What do you read from a US IP?

Why are you assuming that any particular person is ok with what their government is doing? Feeling powerless to change what their government is doing is not the same is endorsement.

I'm a Russian citizen. I'm not okay with what my government is going. What do you suggest I do about it?

As it is, I can't even get rid of my Russian citizenship. The only option to renounce it requires doing so in person, and it can't be in a consulate - I'd have to travel to Russia for that to submit the request in person. But I doubt I'd get a chance to do so if I ever set foot there again - they arrested Ksenia Karelina in the airport and imprisoned her for 12 years for the crime of giving $50 to some generic Ukrainian charity; I give hundreds of dollars every month specifically to crowdfund drones and thermals for Ukrainian units.