Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

Quick, investigate pg for Russia collusion LOL.

But seriously, let's put these reactions in perspective. Supposs the same was revealed the other way, about a US company having ties to the US government investing in Russian technology. We wouldn't bat an eye. This hysteria about Russian collusion makes us waste our energy and attention which is necessary to pay attention to the real issues (which I list below.)

I am not surprised that a Russian billionaire has ties to Putin, or invested in US companies. His company has since sold his stake and moved on, and nothing scary happened.

Compared to what the USA does on a regular basis, Russia is a pretty good actor when it comes to external dealings.

What's much more worrying is internal Russia policies. I personally know some people who started VKontakte (the Russian facebooj). They all sold their stake or were later pressured to do so by the Russian government after refusing to cooperate with the equivalent of the FBI's NSL + gag orders. and of course the Mail.ru conglomerate wanted to take it over. Not easy to maitain a business in Russia.

(Note: the US has just as much spying and NSL+gag orders but far, far greater freedom of speech and property protections so we don't feel it as much.)

But outside? Look US firms regularly make investments in companies around the world. The actual influence comes not from investment but from things like:

The CIA approaching VK founder and developers hoping to install backdoors in Telegram

Microsoft Windows new versions phoning home or cooperating with the CIA. There is a reason many nations including Russia have built and are now promoting ther own operating systems instead of Windows.

It's just so sloppy to talk about "ties" to something. The hysteria cheapens the impact ahen something real happens. Like backdoors and hacking.

> Compared to what the USA does on a regular basis, Russia is a pretty good actor when it comes to external dealings

It has been a while since the United States forcibly annexed another country's territory [1].

In any case, this argument is irrelevant. Irrespective of whether Russia is a "good actor" or not, they are a geopolitical competitor who surreptitiously exercised control over, or at least non-public purview into, sensitive American companies.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_territorial_acqu...

Would you consider the Iraq war a while?

Guantanamo?

Norriega?

Contras?

How long is a while? Or is only annexation considered the red line here?

If you want to blame Russians, you should blame the USSR for deporting the Crimean Tatars after WW2 as collective punishment. Being outraged at an annexation of a territory that was unilaterally given away 50 years earlier where not a single gunshot was fired while giving a free pass to an invasion of sovereign countries resulting a million deaths is not an argument everyone can agree with.

I think this is an interesting discussion, but it's getting down voted because it's off topic. If Russia learned one of their major domestic investors was actually connected to the CIA, I'd expect them to reasonably flip out as well. Who is and isn't a good boy is irrelevant to this discussion, which is more about strategic implications than morality.

Technically, the US didn't annex any of those countries, which makes what it did more above-board in terms of international law than Russia's actions. Sure, a lot of those interventions ended a lot more badly than annexation, but that apparently doesn't matter.

Pfft international law. The US is in Syria against the wishes of that country. It invaded and destroyed Iraq, bombed Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, and countless other crimes all in contempt of international law.

The US occupation of Guantanamo bay for example, is contested by Cuba, who protests continuously. However the Russian annexation of Crimea was at least supported by the inhabitants. They’re both crimes of imperialism but the former is far worse.

> against the wishes of that country

You mean wishes of Asad? Given that Syria hasn't been a democracy since... well, I don't know, bronze age? "wishes of that country" is kinda nebulous term, especially right in the middle of a civil war.

Assad is not a great guy, I'm not denying that. He's a tyrant. Compared to ISIS and the extremist terrorist forces he's up against, which Russia is helping him defeat, he's not so bad. One cannot discount the government of a country just so easily. There is such a thing as international law and the US is violating it by being in Syria, which is still a sovereign state, while Russia is not.

Incidentally the US has supported far worse dictatorships, it has a terrible record in that regard.

A guy who didn't pick after his dog on your lawn is "not a great guy". Asad is a brutal dictator who already caused death of thousands of people and will cause many more. He's way beyond "not a great guy". He's yes "so bad".

> One cannot discount the government of a country just so easily.

It's not "so" easily. It's a brutal strongman that uses WMD against people he's supposedly representing. It's not just some disagreement on taxes or policies. It's routinely using the military against people. And if you think ISIS is the only organization that opposes Asad, you are woefully misinformed - opposition to Asad is much wider and ISIS just used the chaos to get a stronghold, they did not initiate the civil war. And of course Asad has absolutely no problem with "extremist terrorist forces" - as long as they threaten not him but say US or Israel.

> Incidentally the US has supported far worse dictatorships

Not "far" worse, as it's not very easy to go far worse than Asad (maybe Idi Amin who was rumored to literally eat people? Or Papa Doc Duvalier, who at one time ordered to have all black dogs in a country killed because he thought his fugitive opponent turned himself into one?). But yes, it did. But doing a bad thing once is not a reason to do it ten times more.

That's the beauty of slamming the other side's behaviour in geo-politics - you can find any distinction without a difference, and play it up to 11. The US didn't annex Iraq - it merely invaded, occupied it, and plunged it into a bloody civil war.

By that logic, the USSR didn't annex Afghanistan either. It just invaded, occupied it, and participated in a bloody civil war. Why did everyone get all worked up about that war, anyways? Why did the Soviets not have a moral high hill to make a stand on in that conflict?

The US doesn't need to annex any country, they just pay their "partners" overseas, or, if they go "rogue", a few US navy ships show up and that's it.

BTW, you are forgetting more recent events in which the US govt. has been involved, directly or indirectly:

Iraq (war)

Afghanistan (war)

Syria (war)

Libya (war)

Honduras (coup d'etat)

Brazil (soft coup d'etat)

Paraguay (soft coup d'etat)

Venezuela (economic blockade)

Mali (war)

Russia since the creation (26 years ago) was involved in: Transnistria (war)

Nagorny Karabakh (war)

Chechnya (2x 'official' wars and still going)

Georgia (war)

Ukraine (war)

Montenegro (coup d'etat)

And as for economical blockades, they've did that to almost all their neighbours:

Belarus

Estonia

Georgia

Lituania

Latvia

Poland

Ukraine

>It has been a while since the United States forcibly annexed another country's territory

And why is this should be considered of any importance?

> Compared to what the USA does on a regular basis, Russia is a pretty good actor when it comes to external dealings.

No it is not. Russia is a very bad actor when it comes to external dealings, and the reason not many in the US are aware of it is because when USSR crashed and dissolved, Russia emerged from the wreckage much weaker and not yet able to wreak major trouble like USSR could. But where it can (in its immediate vicinity) it is as bad as it always was. True, US is not idea too and does its share of mistakes. But I don't think US - at least now, not 150 years ago - would just grab a chunk of territory of another country and declare it its own because they like it. Russia does that.

But it is currently not a major threat to the US (yet?) and most investments made by it are not for nefarious purposes, at least not in the US. With all their faults, those guys like earning money too.

Be careful when posting unpopular opinions on internet forums! You might get downvoted and get no constructive criticism in return

Come on this is HN. People are reasonable and welcome opposing opinions that are well argued. That should never happen!

:-P

Reply on news.ycombinator.com