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Comment by harshreality | Hacker News Reader

This initially may seem like unproductive, mistargeted overreaction.

However, consider that if Russians can't do what they want to do, maybe they'll focus more efforts on fixing their country so it stops the invasion and doesn't do something like this ever again. It may not work, but every Russian needs to be thinking about that, with priority over their jobs and hobbies. Making things painful for them is one way to do that. It's terrible for people whose jobs are directly affected, but the situation is even worse for Ukrainians.

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Imagine if Americans were held to the same standard with respect to the American invasion and occupation of Iraq.

I'm not going to defend America's military adventurism, but do you really see no difference between a limited military campaign against a brutal dictator (and yes, partially over control of oil) vs a campaign to take over a bordering, more-democratic country for mythological ethic reasons, including by shelling cities?

Are you suggesting killing innocent people is somehow more righteous if a the area is not democratic?

Didn't the USA carpet bomb many places in the Middle East with drones?

Again, not to create a false equivalency but I believe the OPs point is that shouldn’t Americans be ostracized?

Killing people isn't righteous. It is, however, more acceptable or tolerable depending on the context and military force and tactics used. Blame what you want, but what percentage of the UN and UN security council denounced American actions? What percentage denounce Russia's current actions?

> Didn't the USA carpet bomb many places in the Middle East with drones?

The drone war's been horrible, but "carpet bomb" means a specific thing, so, no, the USA did not do that

[EDIT] To be clear, this isn't pedantry—that doesn't even figuratively describe what's gone on.

Is this not carpet bombing?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-ir...

1) Not drones.

2) I assume you brought up drones in particular because the drone war has raged, as you wrote, "all over" the Middle East, which is part of what's alarming about it. Iraq and maybe Syria have experienced US-led saturation bombing during the drone war (but not by drones). Countries subject primarily to the drone part of the war have not.

1) fair enough. My mistake.

And yeah your interpretation of my point is correct.

Cool. Again, I find the drone war more than a little worrisome, so we're probably more-or-less on the same "side" here, but drones have not, as far as I know, been used for this sort of "destroy an entire large area kinda indiscriminately" attack—not because they couldn't be, but because that's not the usual tool the US happens to use for that at this time, so if they did it it'd be with traditional aircraft (as in the linked article), and also because the drone war has, as far as I can tell, mostly not involved those sorts of strikes. Iraq is a big exception, but that's not because of the drone war—it's because of the ordinary war that the US waged there.

The drone war has caused plenty of collateral damage regardless, of course. I'm just not sure characterizing it as carpet bombing is either accurate or helpful in pinpointing exactly what's uniquely bad about the drone war. In fact, I don't even think the people in charge of it are trying to cause widespread damage beyond their typically-very-limited targets—though lack of accountability ultimately is one of the bad things about it, along with normalizing that kind of extraterritorial violence in the first place, the everything-looks-like-a-nail factor (when all you've got is a Predator drone...), and so on.

"Democracy" is your litmus test, remember that the US has been happy to overthrow democracies and put dictators in power if it better serves their economic interests:

- Panama - US invaded it in 1989 and overthrew their leader - Iran - US staged a coup in 1953

Not to mention how the US is actively helping Saudi Arabia's dictators suppress dissent in both Saudi Arabia itself and neighboring Yemen

More fun reading: https://www.quora.com/How-many-countries-has-the-USA-invaded...

I was in high school when the US invaded Iraq and around that time I went skiing in Quebec with a friend. We spent the weekend in the city and, while exploring, accidentally got caught up in what felt like a pretty big protest against the American invasion of Iraq. Looking back it was actually a fairly small and very tame protest but I was just a kid and it was totally unexpected so it was scary. And it really changed my worldview. It was my very first time ever leaving the country and I hadn’t expected Canadians, of all people, to be “anti-American” in any way. It was also the first time it had occurred to me that what the US was doing could even possibly be wrong. The thought had not even crossed my mind.

It’s important to have a friend who will tell you when you’re being an asshole.

Make the Russian people suffer hoping they revolt, because freezing the foreign assets of the oligarchy is too dangerous. Got it.

Grischuk has already made public statements against the war. What else do you want him to do, blow up the Duma?

And Russia is a country where high profile dissenters do risk their freedom if not their lives outright. The people comfortably making this decision from Norway aren't doing anything like that.

This tells to Russians that the world doesn't care about them, individually, risking their lives to stop the actions of their Government as they like to claim.

I would also add that Grischuk was under no obligation to say anything that he did. He was even rudely cut off by the 'host' at one point. And he even mentioned that in his phrasing he was going to avoid using the war since it's illegal in the media, and he wants them to be able to quote him.

If there was ever a man you want with a voice and face in the media at a time like now, it would be somebody like Grischuk. This is somebody that, especially in times like now, that should be elevated. Instead he's going to be effectively depersoned on the international stage and effectively silenced, seemingly like every single Russian regardless of their wrongthink or lack thereof. What a world we're creating.

These kinds of attitudes show to me that much of the western world didn't draw many lessons from 1914 other than that you can do more than figurative painting in the visual arts.

>Making things painful for them is one way to do that.

The problem with this sentiment is that you're assuming that Russians are anything like your people.

We'll endure being deprived of Lego toys and Disney cartoons just fine.

This has to be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read online. When it comes to war, countries like Russia or the US do whatever they want whenever they want, no matter how the population feels about it.

I understand the intention, however, the majority of those broad-stroke sanctions hurt the most progressive and self-reliant citizens first, the current regime support is extremely low for those people already.

Putin's main support base will start to feel anything only in a few weeks, when the economy crashes and inflation starts reflecting on the base needs. Most of the "deep nation" have only internal passports (never travel abroad), work in a government-funded spheres of economy, use mostly state-sponsored sources of information. Sanctions will probably just reinforce the narrative of "the ruthless enemies are encircling the motherland and can't wait to rip it apart".

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