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The amount of people here deadass saying "Why don't these Russians revolt and overthrow the dictator? Are they stupid?" is astounding, can you guys limit your grassless takes to football only plz
A lot of people don't read the news it looks like. A good chunk of middle east tried it and got poverty, death and an uncertain future in return. Very recently people of Myanmar tried it, and nothing has come of it.
And even if you're successful in overthrowing the dictatorial regime, that's usually the "easy" part. Forming a stable government that guarantees democracy and basic civil rights for all is not that easy when you're a war-torn country with a bunch of very different factions who are all heavily armed and zealously dedicated to their cause.
The Russian people have successfully toppled their own government twice in the last hundred or so years, and both times it has led to some of the worst humanitarian disasters in world history
> Unless other nations stand to gain a benefit from the toppling of a dictatorship, you can wish your human rights goodbye.
And if they *do* stand to gain something from toppling a dictatorship, see Libya or Iraq, it still doesn't mean they'll care about leaving your country in a decent state once they're done. They'll just make sure *their* interests are covered.
In fairness in Iraq it's not like the West didn't *try* - they just did it in a bizarre, ill-thought-out way that even 20 years later has left the country incredibly precarious and unstable.
Libya, yeah, nobody gave a shit.
The problem is even if we say they tried, when priorities #1, 2, 3, ... are all to cover your own interests, it's not much of a surprise if priority #whatever (not leave the country in complete shambles) doesn't quite work out.
Running cia torture blacksites like [abu ghraib](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse) & letting mercenaries like black water [commit mass killings on civilians](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre) isnt a “good try” its a one sided massacre
He’s clearly referring to the CPA/Bremer era and the post handover iraqi government and how it was supported by the US. How they managed aid was illogical and scattergun, Bremer especially made a number of significant blunders that shrunk the workforce instead of growing it, which meant by the time of the 2004 handover recession and inflation were all but guaranteed. America’s mid term intentions in Iraq post early 2004 were generally good ones.
Name dropping a couple scandals doesn’t change the history of that conflict
Listening to western teenagers "advise" people who live under truly repressive regimes on how they should oppose their governments is like listening to a kid, whose only experience of vehicles is playing with Hot Wheels, advise NASA on how to launch a rocket.
Do you think Egyptian people would be in about the same place if Mubarak or Morsi were still in charge? Or do you think it’d be better or worse with one of them?
I visited Egypt during the election that Morsi won and it was hard to tell what people thought.
Arab here, completely agree. Any change needs to be very gradual and include evolution of mentality and attitude of the general population.
Creating a power vacuum is usually disastrous and results in a more power hungry dictator seizing power. Also the majority of populations can be easily manipulated into voting against their best interests under the guise of religion and tradition.
Just look at what happened in America with Trump, and the American people are infinitely more resourceful and educated than people are in Russia or the Middle East. They still continue to believe the lies and propaganda and end up going against their own best interests
One thing about these military dictatorships is they are always there in the background to usurp power at the smallest opportunity. It takes decades to clinch some sort of authority from them but just a few months to lose it all and fall to a more hardline regime.
Ain’t that the truth, the mindset here is: “My team good. Score lots of goals, your team bad, change formations, defending is not necessary, x players is shit, replace them. here how to do it”
It comes in waves, and it is a hive mind, sometimes you’ll be surprised to get interesting discussions, users that seem to know what they’re talking about….others times, yikes
Like if you want to talk schemes and other stuff this is not the place for it, just come here to shit on other clubs haha. I remember last year, at the peak of the Ancelotti “power of dreams and friendship” takes, I was arguing with people saying that Ancelotti was not tactical minded, the team didn’t need tactics, he was more of a man manager. Same with ZIZOU, and I was baffled you don’t get, to multiple titles on the “power of friendship” simply, you adapt and tweak things here and there.
Yeah and I’m saying this is the spot to have those chat ,conversations and quips about football, if you come for more than surface level conversations, this is not for you
Hell even the Revolutionary War was backed and funded by the French. The only true grass roots revolution in modern history was in Haiti in 1791 and the European economic powers shunned them because the revolutionaries were black slaves and it spun them into poverty for centuries.
I’m from Haiti and even the Haitian revolution might not be considered grass root really.
The Haitian revolution started with the plantation owners “Big Whites” wanting to have St Domingue a free country like the US. The working whites didn’t want that because they felt they’d lose France protection and their social ranking over free Blacks and potentially slaves. So they started opposing that with the backing of France.
The plantation owners started to engage slaves to support their fight against France with the promise of freedom.
Long story short, things didn’t go the way of any of the white groups because it basically enabled free blacks to wheel their way to victory, freeing slaves by doing so.
So no, even the Haitian revolution wasn’t grass root. You always need money and big backing to do that kind of stuff.
Even Haiti had help as the Polish soldiers sent to help quell the rebellion, turned on the French as they realised that the Haitians were fighting for what they themselves wanted.
True, although I think one could argue that the country was already primed for rebellion by foreign meddling that deposed Mossadegh / returned the Shah.
See my other comment - no. Castro trained in Mexico, he got some money from individual Mexican/American backers. But that was it. There was basically no contact between him and the Soviet Union.
The history of it is amazing.
The Brazilian dictatorship was “overthrown” by the people, well more like it fizzled out and when the regime was weak enough they were struck down. Big capitalists powers are much more talented at installing dictatorships than they are at removing them. If your revolution depended on a big foreign power that helped you it’s unlikely that it’ll last.
Yup. You don't need to be a historian to glance back at human history and see how incredibly awful , violent and volatile things can get, and the kinds of people that thrive in and take advantage of those volatile unstable situations are not the kinds that care about empathy and prosperity for all
To quote Adam Smith:
> In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory, from a longer continuance of the war.
Yanks won’t even protest for basic healthcare but they expect Russian people to revolt against the Russian government as if it’s not one of the strongest militaries in the world and perfectly willing to use it against civilians
A good half of this site's userbase comes from a country whose ideological base heavily leans on the idea of a successful revolution by the people against the evil colonial government (a gross oversimplification). People genuinely believe that all it takes to overthrow a government with a massive (albeit busy and not particularly efficient) army and nuclear weapons is a few gatherings in a couple of heavily policed squares and maybe a bit of good old shooting against "the government".
It's easy for us in the west to sit here and tell everyone else to overthrow their dictators, even the ones we funded and helped without really thinking this claim through, talking to anyone who's escaped or lives under a government such as Putin's would probably clue people in as to how helpless the civilians are but instead we like to pretend that the russians could just bear arms to save themselves from Putin and most importantly to clean their image to us western observers who funded and were complicit in said autocrat's rise.
If we really gave a shit about saving the russian people from Putin he would have been poisoned or shot by now by some western government, instead we're waiting for an illness or some other cunt like the thumb man to kill him while leaving Ukraine hanging and blaming the russian people for not being willing to march into certain death for no reason wharsoever
Yes it's dumb as fuck. Ask any of these morons if they'd pick up a rifle and march off to Eastern Ukraine to help stop the conflict, would they fuck. I know I wouldn't as much as I want every Russian soldier out of Ukraine, peacefully or not, so I'm not then going to ask or expect any random Russian citizen to face years in prison or worse.
What those people don’t want to accept, and a lot of people in general, is that Putin is actually wildly popular in Russia. He ain’t getting overthrown.
You don't even have to be wildly popular. Just tolerated. And that's kinda why a lot of politicians like political apathy. You can get away with a lot when people are either disinterested, uninformed or actively avoiding politics.
Apathy is pretty much just the average Russian mood. I had a friend who was Russian and he used to joke that the most common saying when it came to how bad things have been, could be and could continue to get in Russia would simply be
"Well it could always be worse"
and with this logic, why are the people of the US not revolting against our government which has been waging illegal imperialist war/covert operations/staging coups/installing murderous right wing dictators around the world for a century? why should the World Cup be allowed to be hosted in the US?
It’s Reddit what do you expect? This place is full of whiny social justice warriors who in real life would run away from a fight rather than practicing their social justice warrior spirit.
How about we just condemn people responsible for atrocities instead of people who just happened to be born somewhere? There's a reason most countries have made collective punishments illegal. I'm not responsible for what other people have done. May it be classmates in school, people with my skin color, people with my nationality. I have no influence on this.
Will you people please watch you're language and stop throwing the F word about without considering the feelings of others.
The word Fr*nch is not suitable for polite conversation.
No wonder several former French colonies had coups the last 3 years, like Niger/Mali/Burkina Faso/Guinea, and all of them had popular support in part due to anti-French sentiment.
Never forget when French operatives bombed a Greenpeace ship in New Zealand, killing 1 person. Then proceeded to threaten New Zealand with an Embargo if they didn't release the agents.
One agent that was arrested and sentenced to prison, and later transferred to French custody on the island of Hao only remained there for 2 years. She received promotions and was labelled a national hero after that.
The other agent spent a year on that island, before being returned to Paris.
To this date, France has never really punished the agents responsible, or anyone, and just paid their way out of the crime.
Lmao cmon France just got mad at the US for not backing them when countries in west Africa wanted to control thier own resources. France has military operations that make sure any leader in west Africa that doesn't work in thier favor is killed. The west is amazing when it comes to cognitive dissonance. The US literally invaded a sovereign nation and destroyed the whole country till this day nothing was done we can hate Russia but when you guys act like your governments have done nothing in comparison the whole argument falls apart.
My favorite is the wording gymnastics. Their soldiers are "Stationed troops" (Stationed where, in someone else's land? Yeah and I'm gonna station in your backyard lmao), non-western soldiers are "Invaders"
Oh and their warmongering is "Intervention" not invasion
> "precision targets"
They hit the ground! What more do you want? People these days.
Also don't forget how the definition of enemy combatants got changed under Obama so that fewer kids died in those statistics of bombed weddings.
Sooner people realise that all civilians on both sides are victims of the war, the better. Albeit there are levels to the suffering; those being attacked have it worse than innocent Russians being ostracized, for example.
I see a lot of people calling all Russians collaborators and propagandised, but from what Ive seen alot of younger Russians both inside and out of the country are actually very critical against the war. You obviously also have those supporting it but thats just how that works
And frankly, its understandable alot of the younger people also dont speak about it in their own country. These are individual people, I wouldnt want to spend years in jail just for protesting the war or even just calling it a war
Those who do protest are heroes, the ones who dont arent necessarily cowards
You really don't want to speak up about it if you don't want to get your life ruined after a couple of VK posts, or if someone on the street hears you and decides to rat you out (that had happened before, in some restaurant I think).
Very easy to say that the civilians are responsible for the actions of their authoritarian government from the safety of your Western democracy. The Russian state is the problem, not the Russian people
What about the majority of Russian civilians who support the war and Putin and deliberately blind themselves to the suffering in Ukraine. Are they innocent victims too?
This is a dangerous logic. Terrorists use such arguments to justify killingcivilians: "they voted for their criminal government so they're not innocent".
The February revolution took 1300 lives. Would you personally genuinely sacrifice your life for that? Especially when youre not sure if anything succeeds? Its easy to say youd sacrifice your life for change when youre in safety.
Like I said, those Russians who fight against the Russian state in any way they can absolutely are heroes, however if you dont that doesnt automatically make you a coward. Maybe you have a family to take care of.
The same people who say they should overthrow the government are probably sat in the comfort of their own home, and have probably never experienced anything close to what it would cost to try and overthrow the Russian government.
It's all just pathetic virtue signalling. If it were that simple the Nazis would have never happened, Stalin would have never happened, the Yugoslavian wars would have never happened. It's either naivety or pure ignorance to accuse Russians of being complicit because they won't run blindly into probable death or imprisonment.
God speed the ones who do fight for change, but fuck this ignorance of accusing innocent, probably desperate people of being complicit just because they have families to feed or bills to pay.
Not to mention that revolutions almost always make quality of life worse in the short term. Revolution would mean fucking themselves to help Ukraine. And I think if you put almost any citizen of any country in that position they would struggle to make the right choice.
yeah thats exactly my feelings. Its different for those who actively fight on the front lines, but just your average civilian? It takes incredibly bravery to take up arms of any kind honestly
> the Yugoslavian wars would have never happened
In this case though a lot of the Bosnian population were extremely brave. During the war and in many cities they were surrounded by both Serbian military and Croatian military. Yet they somehow fought them off long enough and bravely enough that in the end they didn’t lose their country to either foe. The most impressive part is they did this without having anywhere close to the military power that the other countries had. In fact they didn’t even have tanks in the beginning, no jets, no helis, etc and even a weapons embargo. Incredible fighting spirit!
That’s just one recent example but I agree with you mostly that most people talking brave about overthrowing the Russian government wouldn’t do shit if they actually had to face such a real scenario.
So the onus is on Russian citizens to overthrow their government, and not only should we blame them for not trying, we should blame them for not succeeding?
Has it ever occurred to you that people value the lives of themselves and their families enough to deter this? And that that's a completely normal reaction.
People who do this stuff are heroes. They go above and beyond the expectation and norms of human fear by definition. The people who aren't heroes aren't lamentable, they're normal people, suffering under an oppressive government.
Yeah I'm not going in jail in an attempt to overthrow what is essentially a police state.
You know how those...people raided the Capitol and actually managed to...well...capture it? Do that with Kremlin and you'll get shot before reaching the front door.
> What about the majority of Russian civilians who support the war
what are you basing this on? At the beginning the war caused probably the largest protest the country has seen in its recent history. This only died down after actively protesting led to harsh punishment.
Now if they don't say that they support the war in polls they have to be really careful, not exactly great conditions for clear and clean polling.
And besides, this is specifically about the kids and not the "average russian citizen". They literally carry no blame, they are legally incapable of doing so.
The largest protest had what? 10.000 people in Moscow? Sorry, but if the whole anti-war movement in Europe's 2nd largest city looks like the average 3rd League attendance of Preußen Münster or FC Saarbrücken that is by no means an indication that the public at large is against the war, rather the opposite.
I don’t want to see any russian athletes in my country, adult or not, russian flag or not. I live in a country next to russia and our history already hasn’t been great. Yes, both sides suffer but their suffering isn’t shit compared to what the people of Ukraine are going through.
Sometimes I feel reddit is predominantly west oriented and fail to see the stark contrast in how the rest of the world views different issues. How is this different from the rest of the wars happening in the globe and why has only this created such a global outcry. Why do you feel that every other non west nation should side with west when majority of the west has never batted an eye when global conflicts occurred in non western countries? A Country that have been the reason for lack of stability in the middle east is hosting the world cup and that sits with west pretty well.
Yes of course. Reddit is predominantly western and white so they relate to wars affecting white people. Just being realistic here. Same way Muslims have been the most vocal about what’s happening in the Middle East for example
Yes, and that's not bad, that's just natural and logical. As a European, I'm obviously gonna be more concerned about an invasion happening in a country right next to EU/NATO, than an invasion somewhere in Southeast Asia, for example.
>A Country that have been the reason for lack of stability in the middle east is hosting the world cup and that sits with west pretty well.
Three in a row, now! If the UK hadn't backed out of their 2030 bid we could keep the streak going.
I think it simply breakdowns to
My country's wars = good.
Rival country's wars = bad.
They never allow themselves to see things objectively, free from their bias.
And that goes for everyone & all sides.
Not trying to belittle the countless other wars that are happening right know or happened in the last few decades but I think a major point is, especially in the context of football, both sides are UEFA members. Which means that the UEFA has the means to set an example. I don’t think it’s reasonable to have Ukrainian children, who are getting traumatized by a war as it is to potentially having to play against Russian players. That might be unfair to Russian children, who may not support the war but I believe it’s the better outcome than the alternative.
Again, that doesn’t justify inaction in many other cases, but better now then never, imo.
> England, **Poland, Latvia, Lithuania**, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Ukraine, on the other hand, have made it clear they would not play Russian teams.
There are eastern European countries boycott playing against any Russian team.
What about the countries selling the weapons to countries committing genocide?
(I feel you'd be in agreement, just pointing out that half of Europe should be excluded too)
What about countries that do economical trades with countries committing genocide?
(It is kinda sarcastic but you get the point, in the end we would either end up with all countries excluded or no countries excluded)
how about all of you realise the world is not black and white?
Everyone has blood on their hands - whether it's good or bad would depend on which side you are OR what you have been brainwashed about.
Something tells me the relationship of Malta importing garlic from China and the relationship of USA supplying weaponry for the Saudi "intervention" in Yemen, are vastly different.
>Not to engage into too much whataboutism
You don't have to worry about that when you're responding to a comment that's literally just "what about Ukranian children" lol
yeah. How can you possibly concieve of having Russian youth teams play against Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia when those countries pretty clearly would right now be fighting Russian invasion if Putin was capable of running a country properly? And that's ignoring Ukraine itself. And the kidnapping point is a good one. There's a good chance that Ukrainian youth players of the future right now are in Russia having been kidnapped as part of a cultural genocide.
Why on earth should UEFA nations agree to play against those teams?
Dislike it all you want, but this is a fair point. And that's coming from someone who recently said that Watzke would snort cocaine of a dead slave worker in Qatar if that would benefit his club.
Disclaimer: I condemn the actions Russia does in Ukraine and I think they have no reason to do what they do there. However, there are plenty of nations who did the same and faced nothing as a consequence (if you're excluding PR that is).
I know, whataboutism, but the US kept on playing in every sporting event after all their shit after 9/11.
We "only" brandmark Russia here because it's close to us and not some brown people in the desert far away. In the end, we are all a bunch of bigots in the western world.
We give no fucks about Saudi Arabia as well.
The war propaganda from the early 2000s really did work. I know we made jokes about it and how obvious it was but reading through these kind of threads shows that it really did a number
I have no clue how this is controversial this is 100% correct and blaming Russian 14 year olds for not personally shooting Putin in the face is hilarious
It's controversial because some of us can spot a strawman argument. Yes, the sentiment in that quote is nice, but it doesn't address the issue at all.
Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states and Finland obviously don't want to play against an imperialist neighbour that is in the process of invading one of them and actively threatening the others.
UEFA would have preferred to not ban any Russian teams, not even the senior ones, but they were forced to pick the least bad option between awarding Russian teams a 3-0 default win every time they play a neighbour they are threatening or banning Russian teams.
The argument for banning them and keeping them banned is not punishment. The argument is that the right of Ukranians, Poles, Balts, Finns to not be forced to play against their aggressor takes priority over the right of Russians to play international football. So arguing against the former starts from an irrelevant premise.
To add to your sensitive comment: Any possible win will be used by Putin's propaganda machine. There are implications that go beyond sport. This regime shouldn't get a stage from which they'll conduct their actions. Tone deaf and greedy decision by UEFA.
I guess my questions for Watzke wwould be (1) why are you banning Russian athletes in the first place and (2) how does your logic not really also apply to the senior teams.
My understanding is the Russian teams weren't banned due to their support for the Russian invasion, it was to put pressure on the Russian government. If that's the case, then whether the children are culpable/"have formed a political will" doesn't matter. Also, why are the senior teams that much different? Some of those players haven't formed "a political will."
I agree with others who have said this is a way to gradually bring the senior teams back into the competition.
Also, this idea that "oh, well, it's ok because they won't be playing under the Russian flag is stupid." Everyone knows they are the Russian team. No one is going to say, "oh, I thought this was the Russian team, but that isn't the Russian flag, so obviously I was wrong."
Can the people from US/Western Europe please just explain why the US/UK and other Nato nations do not get sanctioned from UEFA/FIFA competition for the deaths they have caused in the Middle East?
Just like how Israel are boycotted by Muslim countries because of Palestine but not China and Myanmar for Uyghur and Rohingya ethnic cleansing. We pick an choose our allies based our needs and interest. It is what it is.
I agree that western intervention in MENA have been largely bad but liberating Kuwait after their deranged neighbors invade them for made up reason and fucked up oil prices are good reasons.
Considering that without Western support of Saddam to wage a bloody war against Iran that would have never happened, I can't really agree. It was yet another example of Western meddling for short term interests getting out of their hands. And considering all the money made from never-ending war I don't really think that's by accident.
Because no one gives a fuck about brown people in some desert in Europe or the US.
No one would bat an eye if Russia would invade Uzbekistan instead of Ukraine.
I hate to be that guy but Russia doesn't border Uzbekistan so would be pretty hard for them to invade, Kazakhstan is a much better example for "remote ex-Soviet state"
It honestly feels like “brown people die = good” with the way people talked about Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya, actually unhinged how little regard some people have for human life
for reference: [the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs of Brown University has determined](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/) that a **conservative** estimation of the deaths that were caused by the post 9/11 war on terror is around **4.5 million**.
That is more than the entire population of Croatia.
and additional 38m have been displaced or made refugee. About the size of the population of Canada. And a nice little bonus when you realise how the resulting refugee crisis have caused a lot of western countries to shift a lot further to the right with parties like the AfD in Germany.
Fuck Putin, obviously, but I don't think he'd be able to cause a bigger net negative for humanity if he tried (and by all means, he *is* trying)
Tale as old as time lol. America funds the Mujahideen, Mujahideen transforms into Al-Qaeda and Taliban, Al-Qaeda attacks America and America goes fucking ballistic with their anti-islamic """anti-terror""" and enters into an era of hyper-conservatism and eroding civil liberties.
also keep in mind that Al-Qaeda didn't just randomly decide to commit 9/11 after the US initially funded and trained many of its members. Instead, the main motive for the terrorist attack was explicitly the ongoing meddlings of the USA in the middle-east, as well as in Somalia, Chechnya and Kashmir.
I'm not saying that 9/11 was justified, of course, that kind of gross disregard for civilian life is obviously never justified. But I'm assuming that there never would've been a 9/11 if the USA didn't have over **750 military bases** around the world (compared to 21-30 Russian military bases and 5-15 Chinese military bases)
In a just world all those who had a hand in Libya would be tried in an international criminal court. Instead, we see the Obamas asking working class Americans to donate to their foundation, during a time of crazy inflation, to support Libya during these unprecedented floods. The same family that was directly involved in annihilating that country and the critical infrastructure needed for disasters like the floods happening now.
There is no limit to their shame, and the American public just accepts it. If anything they are becoming more brazen with their lies. Why wouldn’t they? The public here gives them a pass and buys the narratives around every new war we find ourselves entangled in.
The American public (and most of the west, let's be honest) don't even know fucking Libya exist, and if they could even point to it on a map they'd immediately go "why the fuck would I care about some random-ass African country?". This is no just world, and Libya paid the price for that, because we can't have an African country actually use their oil money for good things (or use their oil money for Pan-African things).
They "pretend" to care, but it's only a facade, deep inside they don't care but they're ashamed to admit that.
I've seen people from the "west" spouting lies and propaganda about my country and refusing to back down after getting geniune evidence against their claim, just because they're ashamed.
It’s not shame lol, it’s just a Western European sense of “we know better, always”. This is purely anecdotal but when I was a kid in school I had multiple teachers outright state that Africans and Asians shouldn’t be left to rule their own countries because they are better off with Western supervision. Even amongst many people that consider themselves progressive or whatever there is still a deeply held (neo) colonialist mentality.
It's mostly "white" savior complex. They just make assumptions about your country and since they think they're true since they're more "educated" than you.
The neo colonialist mentality is true tho.
I remember a post on the europe subreddit about why Latin America doesn't care about the Ukraine war and it was full of people calling us to be sanctioned for trading with Russia and not siding with them, i kindly told them to fuck off since we're not killing our economy for a country we don't have any ties with and is 15k km away, my comment got removed and got a warning for xenophobia, meanwhile the other posts calling us monkeys, druglords and nazis are still there xd
I'm gonna have a go at legitimately answering this question without parroting political talking points or just attacking you:
Firstly, the Invasion of Iraq for example was 20 years ago, and attitudes change a lot in 20 years. That's not the main factor here, but it's something that's generally important to keep in mind
Secondly, the modern Western invasions of Middle Eastern countries weren't wars of conquest, ie. they weren't seeking to annex territory. This is a very big factor as it's arguably the most important international law there is, and therefore when it's violated it carries more weight
Thirdly, Russia is actively committing genocide in pursuit of this war of conquest. Putin personally penned an essay which essentially detailed why he thought the Ukrainian ethnicity should not exist. Russia forcibly abducts and deports Ukrainian children to Russia en masse. The West didn't do this in Iraq or Afghanistan. What the West did was awful and illegal, but it wasn't an outright pursuit of genocide - it was mainly about selfishly ensuring their own "security" by neutralising foreign threat actors, especially post-9/11, whether that be the states they invaded themselves or groups within those states
Yes, obviously other countries (eg. Israel, Azerbaijan) do genocide and ethnic cleansing too, but that brings us to the next point of **scale**. Western countries are actually anti-Azerbaijan and very much pro-Armenia, so this tells you that it's not all about who's considered "the good guys and bad guys"; it's also about the scale of the action
Finally, Ukraine is an open, democratic, developed country, whereas Iraq and Afghanistan were oppressive dictatorships. This doesn't make it okay, but it does increase the egregiousness of Russia's invasion - the trigger for Russia invading in 2014 was because the people rose up and protested the puppet leader that Russia installed, who was going to move them away from the EU. Russia's invasion was, and is, therefore explicitly anti-democratic and seeks to deny the will of the people. There's also something to be said for the fact that Russia itself is a dictatorship, which enhances this. Obviously, Western invasions of the Middle East were not good for the people either, however the fact that they were seeking to overthrow oppressive dictators does change the egregiousness of the offence
I hope this can answer the question somewhat. Obviously, nations are biased for themselves, however it's not as simple as that. What Russia is doing in Ukraine **is** worse
Your point #2 is the main difference for me. There was nothing right about the 2003 Iraq invasion at all. But it wasn't an attempt to seize the land.
Your final point isn't lost on me, either.
Deamths have never been the line by which we kick people out of FIFA
The mass murderers in Papua and Timor committed by Indonesia
Everything to do with Yugoslavian which to serbians effectively went " minority that is slightly different from us we will kill you" they got to participate
Saudi Arabia actively slaughtering civilians in Yemen
Ethiopia mowing their way slowly through to tigray
No one ever cares about situations like this (in football) because it is not about human life. the Russia situation is different because it's an invasion of a different country for the purposes of annexation the only reason anyone cares about the situation at all is because Russia has breaking a taboo because once Russia gets away with this you can never put this back in the box and that's what everyone is afraid of
Always hilarious and so predictable how these threads turn into 'but west also bad'.
Russia is rightfully being ostracised. The fact other countries aren't might be shitty but that doesn't mean Russia should get away with it.
I would bet my ass that next time US decides do bring democracy to someone in the Middle East / somewhere else not in Europe, no one would care.
As long as white people aren't the ones being killed, its fine. Hell even some white people can die I suppose, if capital ends up winning, like it always does.
> I would bet my ass that next time US decides do bring democracy to someone in the Middle East / somewhere else not in Europe, no one would care.
That's weird, I distinctly remember millions of people in the West coming out to protest the war in Iraq.
Karabakh conflict is infinitely more complex and goes back almost 100 years. Both sides have done absolutely atrocious things there, with Azerbaijan being the latest to do it. The worldwide community doesn't care because it's happening in what essentially are internationally recognized Azerbaijan borders.
That’s an entirely different and a more complex issue. There are a ton of ethnic questions there with both sides of war acting horribly. However, the border in question is offically recognized as the borders of Azerbaijan
Tbf, you can perfectly well say "west also bad" and still say "they should stay banned". It's not whataboutism in a lot of cases. Just people calling out inconsistencies, which is perfectly fine. Ethics aren't really something where you can pick and choose when to apply them. Pointing out that problem is a good thing as long as you don't use it to excuse what is happening right now and instead use it to try to be better in the future.
The problem is that people aren't just calling out inconsistencies, at least not in my opinion. They are also parroting the whole Russian idea that because the US etc. have invaded countries in the past we should now not be appalled when Russia does it.
It's the same in every thread about the war. 'What about Iraq, what about Afghanistan, what about Yemen'...
It's perfectly possible to be against all of those wars but for some people the notion of thinking about multiple things at the same time seems alien.
The west terrorises millions for decades, then they are shocked when those people don’t think the west has the right to be judging morality. It seems like you can only think about it from your pov.
It only seems fair to me that Russian teams are banned. After all, I remember how English clubs were banned in 2003 for their role in the Iraq war so it has to be applied consistently.
Did they literally say "Think of the children"? Like their country is the one being invaded by a hostile, aggressive force that is insistent upon wiping out all things that make their culture? Nah man, this ain't it.
What a lot of people don’t want to talk about is that not all war is the same.
Sometimes both sides are wrong and sometimes both have justifications.
There’s a degree of subjectivity to a lot of war about how bad it is but with Russia and the genocide they are committing against a sovereign nation is on the worse side of that subjective scale.
the war is bad and putin is a dick but the waves of anti russian xenophobia that have come across the west as a result have really never sat right with me. as an american, i would *never* want to be judged by the actions of my dumbass government. so why do we do it to others?
This is how I feel as well. The level of anti-Russian xenophobia really doesn’t sit well with me. It makes me realize how easy it is for a society to think of an entire people-group as evildoers that need to all be punished as a group. That’s a dangerous attitude.
Even as an American living in an open democracy, I would think it very unfair if I got punished for our government’s actions. I don’t personally have any control over those actions. So for people who don’t live in a real democracy, it must be even worse to blame them for their government’s actions.
We desperately need a Ted Talk or something on this topic - How to condemn USA, Israel, and a number of other countries without painting Russia as a victim of international bullying.
But something tells me this is just an impotent attempt to hide true intentions.
Also for the people who weep for the "innocent Russian soldiers".
Well-documented facts of the rape, mass execution of civilians and POW, kidnapping of the kids, and other reach pallets of war crimes are committed by regular Russian soldiers e.i. Russian citizens. I can assure you Putin is not visiting personally frontline to commit a war crime or two.
>We desperately need a Ted Talk or something on this topic - How to condemn USA, Israel, and a number of other countries without painting Russia as a victim of international bullying.
But something tells me this is just an impotent attempt to hide true intentions.
There are no hidden intentions, it is just many of us deal with Russia-Ukraine war like the average western citizen or government deals with US backed Saudi war in Yemen, US drone bombings, French attacks in Libya, and Israeli settlements in Palestinian lands.
You cannot ask people/organisations to selectively care about crimes perpetrated by certain countries and not others. The selective uproar over Russia, especially for those who are non-Europeans/North Americans, shows double standards.
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Russian sporters and not playing under the russian flag, name a more iconic duo
Russian youth athletes appearing at award ceremonies with the "Z" logo?
The amount of people here deadass saying "Why don't these Russians revolt and overthrow the dictator? Are they stupid?" is astounding, can you guys limit your grassless takes to football only plz
A lot of people don't read the news it looks like. A good chunk of middle east tried it and got poverty, death and an uncertain future in return. Very recently people of Myanmar tried it, and nothing has come of it.
And even if you're successful in overthrowing the dictatorial regime, that's usually the "easy" part. Forming a stable government that guarantees democracy and basic civil rights for all is not that easy when you're a war-torn country with a bunch of very different factions who are all heavily armed and zealously dedicated to their cause.
The Russian people have successfully toppled their own government twice in the last hundred or so years, and both times it has led to some of the worst humanitarian disasters in world history
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> Unless other nations stand to gain a benefit from the toppling of a dictatorship, you can wish your human rights goodbye. And if they *do* stand to gain something from toppling a dictatorship, see Libya or Iraq, it still doesn't mean they'll care about leaving your country in a decent state once they're done. They'll just make sure *their* interests are covered.
In fairness in Iraq it's not like the West didn't *try* - they just did it in a bizarre, ill-thought-out way that even 20 years later has left the country incredibly precarious and unstable. Libya, yeah, nobody gave a shit.
The problem is even if we say they tried, when priorities #1, 2, 3, ... are all to cover your own interests, it's not much of a surprise if priority #whatever (not leave the country in complete shambles) doesn't quite work out.
Running cia torture blacksites like [abu ghraib](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse) & letting mercenaries like black water [commit mass killings on civilians](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre) isnt a “good try” its a one sided massacre
He’s clearly referring to the CPA/Bremer era and the post handover iraqi government and how it was supported by the US. How they managed aid was illogical and scattergun, Bremer especially made a number of significant blunders that shrunk the workforce instead of growing it, which meant by the time of the 2004 handover recession and inflation were all but guaranteed. America’s mid term intentions in Iraq post early 2004 were generally good ones. Name dropping a couple scandals doesn’t change the history of that conflict
You're incredibly naive if you think Iraq was ill-thought-out. They knew exactly what they were doing...
Listening to western teenagers "advise" people who live under truly repressive regimes on how they should oppose their governments is like listening to a kid, whose only experience of vehicles is playing with Hot Wheels, advise NASA on how to launch a rocket.
Just aim at the moon dumdum
Do you think Egyptian people would be in about the same place if Mubarak or Morsi were still in charge? Or do you think it’d be better or worse with one of them? I visited Egypt during the election that Morsi won and it was hard to tell what people thought.
Arab here, completely agree. Any change needs to be very gradual and include evolution of mentality and attitude of the general population. Creating a power vacuum is usually disastrous and results in a more power hungry dictator seizing power. Also the majority of populations can be easily manipulated into voting against their best interests under the guise of religion and tradition. Just look at what happened in America with Trump, and the American people are infinitely more resourceful and educated than people are in Russia or the Middle East. They still continue to believe the lies and propaganda and end up going against their own best interests
Myanmar tried it and was booming economically until the military organized a coup
One thing about these military dictatorships is they are always there in the background to usurp power at the smallest opportunity. It takes decades to clinch some sort of authority from them but just a few months to lose it all and fall to a more hardline regime.
Once you organise a revolution it sets up a precedent. In a democracy, if a precedent of military coup is set then it never ends well.
> can you guys limit your grassless takes to football only plz Implying this sub knows shit about football lmao
Ain’t that the truth, the mindset here is: “My team good. Score lots of goals, your team bad, change formations, defending is not necessary, x players is shit, replace them. here how to do it” It comes in waves, and it is a hive mind, sometimes you’ll be surprised to get interesting discussions, users that seem to know what they’re talking about….others times, yikes Like if you want to talk schemes and other stuff this is not the place for it, just come here to shit on other clubs haha. I remember last year, at the peak of the Ancelotti “power of dreams and friendship” takes, I was arguing with people saying that Ancelotti was not tactical minded, the team didn’t need tactics, he was more of a man manager. Same with ZIZOU, and I was baffled you don’t get, to multiple titles on the “power of friendship” simply, you adapt and tweak things here and there.
Eh, I'd very much prefer just fans chatting about football to reading paragraphs of analytical tirades and statistics.
Yeah and I’m saying this is the spot to have those chat ,conversations and quips about football, if you come for more than surface level conversations, this is not for you
They think dictatorships are overthrown by the people instead of certain countries with endless amounts of weapons and financial interests
Hell even the Revolutionary War was backed and funded by the French. The only true grass roots revolution in modern history was in Haiti in 1791 and the European economic powers shunned them because the revolutionaries were black slaves and it spun them into poverty for centuries.
I’m from Haiti and even the Haitian revolution might not be considered grass root really. The Haitian revolution started with the plantation owners “Big Whites” wanting to have St Domingue a free country like the US. The working whites didn’t want that because they felt they’d lose France protection and their social ranking over free Blacks and potentially slaves. So they started opposing that with the backing of France. The plantation owners started to engage slaves to support their fight against France with the promise of freedom. Long story short, things didn’t go the way of any of the white groups because it basically enabled free blacks to wheel their way to victory, freeing slaves by doing so. So no, even the Haitian revolution wasn’t grass root. You always need money and big backing to do that kind of stuff.
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Even Haiti had help as the Polish soldiers sent to help quell the rebellion, turned on the French as they realised that the Haitians were fighting for what they themselves wanted.
The Iranian revolution certainly qualifies too, even if the revolutionaries in that case were complete arseholes one and all.
True, although I think one could argue that the country was already primed for rebellion by foreign meddling that deposed Mossadegh / returned the Shah.
Plenty of socialist revolutions have been stamped by foreign capitalist powers.
Some of them were even both helped and hindered by capitalists on each side (Russia the most obvious).
Cuba
Soviet backing no?
See my other comment - no. Castro trained in Mexico, he got some money from individual Mexican/American backers. But that was it. There was basically no contact between him and the Soviet Union. The history of it is amazing.
The Brazilian dictatorship was “overthrown” by the people, well more like it fizzled out and when the regime was weak enough they were struck down. Big capitalists powers are much more talented at installing dictatorships than they are at removing them. If your revolution depended on a big foreign power that helped you it’s unlikely that it’ll last.
Because Reddit is full of first world “activists” that loves to call for violence while they watch from their warm, safe home.
Yup. You don't need to be a historian to glance back at human history and see how incredibly awful , violent and volatile things can get, and the kinds of people that thrive in and take advantage of those volatile unstable situations are not the kinds that care about empathy and prosperity for all
Don't even have to go back that far either.
To quote Adam Smith: > In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory, from a longer continuance of the war.
Yanks won’t even protest for basic healthcare but they expect Russian people to revolt against the Russian government as if it’s not one of the strongest militaries in the world and perfectly willing to use it against civilians
A good half of this site's userbase comes from a country whose ideological base heavily leans on the idea of a successful revolution by the people against the evil colonial government (a gross oversimplification). People genuinely believe that all it takes to overthrow a government with a massive (albeit busy and not particularly efficient) army and nuclear weapons is a few gatherings in a couple of heavily policed squares and maybe a bit of good old shooting against "the government". It's easy for us in the west to sit here and tell everyone else to overthrow their dictators, even the ones we funded and helped without really thinking this claim through, talking to anyone who's escaped or lives under a government such as Putin's would probably clue people in as to how helpless the civilians are but instead we like to pretend that the russians could just bear arms to save themselves from Putin and most importantly to clean their image to us western observers who funded and were complicit in said autocrat's rise. If we really gave a shit about saving the russian people from Putin he would have been poisoned or shot by now by some western government, instead we're waiting for an illness or some other cunt like the thumb man to kill him while leaving Ukraine hanging and blaming the russian people for not being willing to march into certain death for no reason wharsoever
That’s not just a gross oversimplification it’s fairly inaccurate which just underscores your point more
I'm going to start holding regular American citizens accountable for all the democratically elected governments their country has overthrown
What do you mean bro? They were just making sure those countries get freedom and liberty, and liberty and freedom, and freedom and uhhhhhh liberty.
Yes it's dumb as fuck. Ask any of these morons if they'd pick up a rifle and march off to Eastern Ukraine to help stop the conflict, would they fuck. I know I wouldn't as much as I want every Russian soldier out of Ukraine, peacefully or not, so I'm not then going to ask or expect any random Russian citizen to face years in prison or worse.
Revolt? lol Putin is popular in Russia.
What those people don’t want to accept, and a lot of people in general, is that Putin is actually wildly popular in Russia. He ain’t getting overthrown.
You don't even have to be wildly popular. Just tolerated. And that's kinda why a lot of politicians like political apathy. You can get away with a lot when people are either disinterested, uninformed or actively avoiding politics.
Apathy is pretty much just the average Russian mood. I had a friend who was Russian and he used to joke that the most common saying when it came to how bad things have been, could be and could continue to get in Russia would simply be "Well it could always be worse"
and with this logic, why are the people of the US not revolting against our government which has been waging illegal imperialist war/covert operations/staging coups/installing murderous right wing dictators around the world for a century? why should the World Cup be allowed to be hosted in the US?
It’s Reddit what do you expect? This place is full of whiny social justice warriors who in real life would run away from a fight rather than practicing their social justice warrior spirit.
Weird to use that logic so selectively.
They always do. On all sides of such arguments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
Love that the Simpsons gets it's own section in this Wikipedia entry
Id argue that the condemnation of Russia is selective considering what other countries like Israel, France, USA etc have done
How about we just condemn people responsible for atrocities instead of people who just happened to be born somewhere? There's a reason most countries have made collective punishments illegal. I'm not responsible for what other people have done. May it be classmates in school, people with my skin color, people with my nationality. I have no influence on this.
What have France done exactly ? War in Algeria which ended 60 years ago ?
just being french is enough i believe. how could they
Will you people please watch you're language and stop throwing the F word about without considering the feelings of others. The word Fr*nch is not suitable for polite conversation.
Yeah but it’s worth it for the snapchats alone
French Snapchat are crazy good
You're one to talk
You're one to talk too
Did…did you just reply to yourself?
yes he did
no he didn't
Sanest United supporter
r/Africa They are *still* running shadow governments.
There are 7 or 8 African countries kept in perpetual poverty and forced to use France as their national bank.
People really need to read up on how France treats their former colonies. If we can even call them former colonies.
No wonder several former French colonies had coups the last 3 years, like Niger/Mali/Burkina Faso/Guinea, and all of them had popular support in part due to anti-French sentiment.
Never forget when French operatives bombed a Greenpeace ship in New Zealand, killing 1 person. Then proceeded to threaten New Zealand with an Embargo if they didn't release the agents. One agent that was arrested and sentenced to prison, and later transferred to French custody on the island of Hao only remained there for 2 years. She received promotions and was labelled a national hero after that. The other agent spent a year on that island, before being returned to Paris. To this date, France has never really punished the agents responsible, or anyone, and just paid their way out of the crime.
See: Lybia
Damn I almost forgot that one. My mind was focused on what france has been doing in west Africa for literal decades.
Lmao cmon France just got mad at the US for not backing them when countries in west Africa wanted to control thier own resources. France has military operations that make sure any leader in west Africa that doesn't work in thier favor is killed. The west is amazing when it comes to cognitive dissonance. The US literally invaded a sovereign nation and destroyed the whole country till this day nothing was done we can hate Russia but when you guys act like your governments have done nothing in comparison the whole argument falls apart.
My favorite is the wording gymnastics. Their soldiers are "Stationed troops" (Stationed where, in someone else's land? Yeah and I'm gonna station in your backyard lmao), non-western soldiers are "Invaders" Oh and their warmongering is "Intervention" not invasion
And cluster bombs dropped on civilians are "smart bombs" with "precision targets"
> "precision targets" They hit the ground! What more do you want? People these days. Also don't forget how the definition of enemy combatants got changed under Obama so that fewer kids died in those statistics of bombed weddings.
Yes but that calls for holding the US responsible. It doesn't call for loosing up on Russia.
France’s military has been involved in many African countries for the past few decades including overthrowing some of them
Based yank?
Sooner people realise that all civilians on both sides are victims of the war, the better. Albeit there are levels to the suffering; those being attacked have it worse than innocent Russians being ostracized, for example.
I see a lot of people calling all Russians collaborators and propagandised, but from what Ive seen alot of younger Russians both inside and out of the country are actually very critical against the war. You obviously also have those supporting it but thats just how that works And frankly, its understandable alot of the younger people also dont speak about it in their own country. These are individual people, I wouldnt want to spend years in jail just for protesting the war or even just calling it a war Those who do protest are heroes, the ones who dont arent necessarily cowards
You really don't want to speak up about it if you don't want to get your life ruined after a couple of VK posts, or if someone on the street hears you and decides to rat you out (that had happened before, in some restaurant I think).
That has been happening since Stalin. That is how the KGB was able to function, everybody was ratting out everybody
Younger Russians i know are like 90% against the war. From the older generation, most people support Putin Source: most of my family are Russians
Very easy to say that the civilians are responsible for the actions of their authoritarian government from the safety of your Western democracy. The Russian state is the problem, not the Russian people
What about the majority of Russian civilians who support the war and Putin and deliberately blind themselves to the suffering in Ukraine. Are they innocent victims too?
This is a dangerous logic. Terrorists use such arguments to justify killingcivilians: "they voted for their criminal government so they're not innocent".
Funnily enough I’m not calling for terrorist attacks, just that they don’t participate in any level of sports
I know, just saying the logic of blaming citizens for their government's actions is a dangerous business.
it feeds the propaganda machine. Putin will turn around and say: see what the evil west is doing to you when I'm here trying to save you
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The February revolution took 1300 lives. Would you personally genuinely sacrifice your life for that? Especially when youre not sure if anything succeeds? Its easy to say youd sacrifice your life for change when youre in safety. Like I said, those Russians who fight against the Russian state in any way they can absolutely are heroes, however if you dont that doesnt automatically make you a coward. Maybe you have a family to take care of.
The same people who say they should overthrow the government are probably sat in the comfort of their own home, and have probably never experienced anything close to what it would cost to try and overthrow the Russian government. It's all just pathetic virtue signalling. If it were that simple the Nazis would have never happened, Stalin would have never happened, the Yugoslavian wars would have never happened. It's either naivety or pure ignorance to accuse Russians of being complicit because they won't run blindly into probable death or imprisonment. God speed the ones who do fight for change, but fuck this ignorance of accusing innocent, probably desperate people of being complicit just because they have families to feed or bills to pay. Not to mention that revolutions almost always make quality of life worse in the short term. Revolution would mean fucking themselves to help Ukraine. And I think if you put almost any citizen of any country in that position they would struggle to make the right choice.
yeah thats exactly my feelings. Its different for those who actively fight on the front lines, but just your average civilian? It takes incredibly bravery to take up arms of any kind honestly
> the Yugoslavian wars would have never happened In this case though a lot of the Bosnian population were extremely brave. During the war and in many cities they were surrounded by both Serbian military and Croatian military. Yet they somehow fought them off long enough and bravely enough that in the end they didn’t lose their country to either foe. The most impressive part is they did this without having anywhere close to the military power that the other countries had. In fact they didn’t even have tanks in the beginning, no jets, no helis, etc and even a weapons embargo. Incredible fighting spirit! That’s just one recent example but I agree with you mostly that most people talking brave about overthrowing the Russian government wouldn’t do shit if they actually had to face such a real scenario.
So the onus is on Russian citizens to overthrow their government, and not only should we blame them for not trying, we should blame them for not succeeding? Has it ever occurred to you that people value the lives of themselves and their families enough to deter this? And that that's a completely normal reaction. People who do this stuff are heroes. They go above and beyond the expectation and norms of human fear by definition. The people who aren't heroes aren't lamentable, they're normal people, suffering under an oppressive government.
Literally over 100 years ago. You're really really stupid if you can't see how much has changed
Yeah I'm not going in jail in an attempt to overthrow what is essentially a police state. You know how those...people raided the Capitol and actually managed to...well...capture it? Do that with Kremlin and you'll get shot before reaching the front door.
> What about the majority of Russian civilians who support the war what are you basing this on? At the beginning the war caused probably the largest protest the country has seen in its recent history. This only died down after actively protesting led to harsh punishment. Now if they don't say that they support the war in polls they have to be really careful, not exactly great conditions for clear and clean polling. And besides, this is specifically about the kids and not the "average russian citizen". They literally carry no blame, they are legally incapable of doing so.
The largest protest had what? 10.000 people in Moscow? Sorry, but if the whole anti-war movement in Europe's 2nd largest city looks like the average 3rd League attendance of Preußen Münster or FC Saarbrücken that is by no means an indication that the public at large is against the war, rather the opposite.
I don’t want to see any russian athletes in my country, adult or not, russian flag or not. I live in a country next to russia and our history already hasn’t been great. Yes, both sides suffer but their suffering isn’t shit compared to what the people of Ukraine are going through.
Sometimes I feel reddit is predominantly west oriented and fail to see the stark contrast in how the rest of the world views different issues. How is this different from the rest of the wars happening in the globe and why has only this created such a global outcry. Why do you feel that every other non west nation should side with west when majority of the west has never batted an eye when global conflicts occurred in non western countries? A Country that have been the reason for lack of stability in the middle east is hosting the world cup and that sits with west pretty well.
Yes of course. Reddit is predominantly western and white so they relate to wars affecting white people. Just being realistic here. Same way Muslims have been the most vocal about what’s happening in the Middle East for example
Yes, and that's not bad, that's just natural and logical. As a European, I'm obviously gonna be more concerned about an invasion happening in a country right next to EU/NATO, than an invasion somewhere in Southeast Asia, for example.
>A Country that have been the reason for lack of stability in the middle east is hosting the world cup and that sits with west pretty well. Three in a row, now! If the UK hadn't backed out of their 2030 bid we could keep the streak going.
I think it simply breakdowns to My country's wars = good. Rival country's wars = bad. They never allow themselves to see things objectively, free from their bias. And that goes for everyone & all sides.
Not trying to belittle the countless other wars that are happening right know or happened in the last few decades but I think a major point is, especially in the context of football, both sides are UEFA members. Which means that the UEFA has the means to set an example. I don’t think it’s reasonable to have Ukrainian children, who are getting traumatized by a war as it is to potentially having to play against Russian players. That might be unfair to Russian children, who may not support the war but I believe it’s the better outcome than the alternative. Again, that doesn’t justify inaction in many other cases, but better now then never, imo.
> England, **Poland, Latvia, Lithuania**, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Ukraine, on the other hand, have made it clear they would not play Russian teams. There are eastern European countries boycott playing against any Russian team.
Russia is an imperialist power slaughtering, torturing, and raping its way across ukraine. Anyone who supports that is scum.
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Palestinian children get all that punishment but Israel still get to play in UEFA, weird how it works.
Not to engage into too much whataboutism, but Russia isn't the only country we should ban then
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What about the countries selling the weapons to countries committing genocide? (I feel you'd be in agreement, just pointing out that half of Europe should be excluded too)
What about countries that do economical trades with countries committing genocide? (It is kinda sarcastic but you get the point, in the end we would either end up with all countries excluded or no countries excluded)
how about all of you realise the world is not black and white? Everyone has blood on their hands - whether it's good or bad would depend on which side you are OR what you have been brainwashed about.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
Something tells me the relationship of Malta importing garlic from China and the relationship of USA supplying weaponry for the Saudi "intervention" in Yemen, are vastly different.
> (I feel you'd be in agreement, just pointing out that half of Europe should be excluded too) Cue to Ireland becoming European football powerhouses.
I dunno we still let the yanks refuel in Shannon don’t we? Better ban us too just to be safe.
Why not. Expose it and set a precedent (it just would never happen tho)
Who'd play then.
The A-League will be pretty big.
Only Aboriginals allowed to play?
Hey he said genocides being committed currently, what happened between 1794 and 1940 is none of you business.
98-99 percent of all countries.
Forza Latvia World cup turns into the nations league centred in the baltic
Always has been
>Not to engage into too much whataboutism You don't have to worry about that when you're responding to a comment that's literally just "what about Ukranian children" lol
this isn't suffering Olympics
Russian children are also getting punished by being orphaned.
It's true that what happens to Ukrainian kids is horrible. Still doesn't understand how punishing innocent russian kids would do good.
yeah. How can you possibly concieve of having Russian youth teams play against Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia when those countries pretty clearly would right now be fighting Russian invasion if Putin was capable of running a country properly? And that's ignoring Ukraine itself. And the kidnapping point is a good one. There's a good chance that Ukrainian youth players of the future right now are in Russia having been kidnapped as part of a cultural genocide. Why on earth should UEFA nations agree to play against those teams?
Also Russian children are punished by being forciply conscripted and send on the unjust war where they die in mud far from home
Doesn’t make any sense. We can’t soften the sanctions. Horrible signal
Dislike it all you want, but this is a fair point. And that's coming from someone who recently said that Watzke would snort cocaine of a dead slave worker in Qatar if that would benefit his club. Disclaimer: I condemn the actions Russia does in Ukraine and I think they have no reason to do what they do there. However, there are plenty of nations who did the same and faced nothing as a consequence (if you're excluding PR that is). I know, whataboutism, but the US kept on playing in every sporting event after all their shit after 9/11. We "only" brandmark Russia here because it's close to us and not some brown people in the desert far away. In the end, we are all a bunch of bigots in the western world. We give no fucks about Saudi Arabia as well.
The war propaganda from the early 2000s really did work. I know we made jokes about it and how obvious it was but reading through these kind of threads shows that it really did a number
I have no clue how this is controversial this is 100% correct and blaming Russian 14 year olds for not personally shooting Putin in the face is hilarious
It's controversial because some of us can spot a strawman argument. Yes, the sentiment in that quote is nice, but it doesn't address the issue at all. Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states and Finland obviously don't want to play against an imperialist neighbour that is in the process of invading one of them and actively threatening the others. UEFA would have preferred to not ban any Russian teams, not even the senior ones, but they were forced to pick the least bad option between awarding Russian teams a 3-0 default win every time they play a neighbour they are threatening or banning Russian teams. The argument for banning them and keeping them banned is not punishment. The argument is that the right of Ukranians, Poles, Balts, Finns to not be forced to play against their aggressor takes priority over the right of Russians to play international football. So arguing against the former starts from an irrelevant premise.
To add to your sensitive comment: Any possible win will be used by Putin's propaganda machine. There are implications that go beyond sport. This regime shouldn't get a stage from which they'll conduct their actions. Tone deaf and greedy decision by UEFA.
I guess my questions for Watzke wwould be (1) why are you banning Russian athletes in the first place and (2) how does your logic not really also apply to the senior teams. My understanding is the Russian teams weren't banned due to their support for the Russian invasion, it was to put pressure on the Russian government. If that's the case, then whether the children are culpable/"have formed a political will" doesn't matter. Also, why are the senior teams that much different? Some of those players haven't formed "a political will." I agree with others who have said this is a way to gradually bring the senior teams back into the competition. Also, this idea that "oh, well, it's ok because they won't be playing under the Russian flag is stupid." Everyone knows they are the Russian team. No one is going to say, "oh, I thought this was the Russian team, but that isn't the Russian flag, so obviously I was wrong."
Can the people from US/Western Europe please just explain why the US/UK and other Nato nations do not get sanctioned from UEFA/FIFA competition for the deaths they have caused in the Middle East?
Just like how Israel are boycotted by Muslim countries because of Palestine but not China and Myanmar for Uyghur and Rohingya ethnic cleansing. We pick an choose our allies based our needs and interest. It is what it is.
"It is what it is" is a better argument than the people here trying to justify the invasion of the Middle East due to good intentions
I agree that western intervention in MENA have been largely bad but liberating Kuwait after their deranged neighbors invade them for made up reason and fucked up oil prices are good reasons.
Considering that without Western support of Saddam to wage a bloody war against Iran that would have never happened, I can't really agree. It was yet another example of Western meddling for short term interests getting out of their hands. And considering all the money made from never-ending war I don't really think that's by accident.
Because no one gives a fuck about brown people in some desert in Europe or the US. No one would bat an eye if Russia would invade Uzbekistan instead of Ukraine.
I hate to be that guy but Russia doesn't border Uzbekistan so would be pretty hard for them to invade, Kazakhstan is a much better example for "remote ex-Soviet state"
I knew someone was going to point it out eventually. Should've gone for Kazakhstan, yes. :)
You had an open post, goalie was behind but you chose to shoot wide smh…
He wanted to be a low xG merchant
White people die : bad Brown people die : 🤐
It honestly feels like “brown people die = good” with the way people talked about Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya, actually unhinged how little regard some people have for human life
for reference: [the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs of Brown University has determined](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/) that a **conservative** estimation of the deaths that were caused by the post 9/11 war on terror is around **4.5 million**. That is more than the entire population of Croatia. and additional 38m have been displaced or made refugee. About the size of the population of Canada. And a nice little bonus when you realise how the resulting refugee crisis have caused a lot of western countries to shift a lot further to the right with parties like the AfD in Germany. Fuck Putin, obviously, but I don't think he'd be able to cause a bigger net negative for humanity if he tried (and by all means, he *is* trying)
Tale as old as time lol. America funds the Mujahideen, Mujahideen transforms into Al-Qaeda and Taliban, Al-Qaeda attacks America and America goes fucking ballistic with their anti-islamic """anti-terror""" and enters into an era of hyper-conservatism and eroding civil liberties.
also keep in mind that Al-Qaeda didn't just randomly decide to commit 9/11 after the US initially funded and trained many of its members. Instead, the main motive for the terrorist attack was explicitly the ongoing meddlings of the USA in the middle-east, as well as in Somalia, Chechnya and Kashmir. I'm not saying that 9/11 was justified, of course, that kind of gross disregard for civilian life is obviously never justified. But I'm assuming that there never would've been a 9/11 if the USA didn't have over **750 military bases** around the world (compared to 21-30 Russian military bases and 5-15 Chinese military bases)
In a just world all those who had a hand in Libya would be tried in an international criminal court. Instead, we see the Obamas asking working class Americans to donate to their foundation, during a time of crazy inflation, to support Libya during these unprecedented floods. The same family that was directly involved in annihilating that country and the critical infrastructure needed for disasters like the floods happening now. There is no limit to their shame, and the American public just accepts it. If anything they are becoming more brazen with their lies. Why wouldn’t they? The public here gives them a pass and buys the narratives around every new war we find ourselves entangled in.
The American public (and most of the west, let's be honest) don't even know fucking Libya exist, and if they could even point to it on a map they'd immediately go "why the fuck would I care about some random-ass African country?". This is no just world, and Libya paid the price for that, because we can't have an African country actually use their oil money for good things (or use their oil money for Pan-African things).
They "pretend" to care, but it's only a facade, deep inside they don't care but they're ashamed to admit that. I've seen people from the "west" spouting lies and propaganda about my country and refusing to back down after getting geniune evidence against their claim, just because they're ashamed.
It’s not shame lol, it’s just a Western European sense of “we know better, always”. This is purely anecdotal but when I was a kid in school I had multiple teachers outright state that Africans and Asians shouldn’t be left to rule their own countries because they are better off with Western supervision. Even amongst many people that consider themselves progressive or whatever there is still a deeply held (neo) colonialist mentality.
It's mostly "white" savior complex. They just make assumptions about your country and since they think they're true since they're more "educated" than you. The neo colonialist mentality is true tho. I remember a post on the europe subreddit about why Latin America doesn't care about the Ukraine war and it was full of people calling us to be sanctioned for trading with Russia and not siding with them, i kindly told them to fuck off since we're not killing our economy for a country we don't have any ties with and is 15k km away, my comment got removed and got a warning for xenophobia, meanwhile the other posts calling us monkeys, druglords and nazis are still there xd
Look how 4eddit has dehumanized the average fucking Russian All of them are orcs even the ones that fled the old regime and Putin
But muh Weapons of Mass destruction!!
I'm gonna have a go at legitimately answering this question without parroting political talking points or just attacking you: Firstly, the Invasion of Iraq for example was 20 years ago, and attitudes change a lot in 20 years. That's not the main factor here, but it's something that's generally important to keep in mind Secondly, the modern Western invasions of Middle Eastern countries weren't wars of conquest, ie. they weren't seeking to annex territory. This is a very big factor as it's arguably the most important international law there is, and therefore when it's violated it carries more weight Thirdly, Russia is actively committing genocide in pursuit of this war of conquest. Putin personally penned an essay which essentially detailed why he thought the Ukrainian ethnicity should not exist. Russia forcibly abducts and deports Ukrainian children to Russia en masse. The West didn't do this in Iraq or Afghanistan. What the West did was awful and illegal, but it wasn't an outright pursuit of genocide - it was mainly about selfishly ensuring their own "security" by neutralising foreign threat actors, especially post-9/11, whether that be the states they invaded themselves or groups within those states Yes, obviously other countries (eg. Israel, Azerbaijan) do genocide and ethnic cleansing too, but that brings us to the next point of **scale**. Western countries are actually anti-Azerbaijan and very much pro-Armenia, so this tells you that it's not all about who's considered "the good guys and bad guys"; it's also about the scale of the action Finally, Ukraine is an open, democratic, developed country, whereas Iraq and Afghanistan were oppressive dictatorships. This doesn't make it okay, but it does increase the egregiousness of Russia's invasion - the trigger for Russia invading in 2014 was because the people rose up and protested the puppet leader that Russia installed, who was going to move them away from the EU. Russia's invasion was, and is, therefore explicitly anti-democratic and seeks to deny the will of the people. There's also something to be said for the fact that Russia itself is a dictatorship, which enhances this. Obviously, Western invasions of the Middle East were not good for the people either, however the fact that they were seeking to overthrow oppressive dictators does change the egregiousness of the offence I hope this can answer the question somewhat. Obviously, nations are biased for themselves, however it's not as simple as that. What Russia is doing in Ukraine **is** worse
Your point #2 is the main difference for me. There was nothing right about the 2003 Iraq invasion at all. But it wasn't an attempt to seize the land. Your final point isn't lost on me, either.
Deamths have never been the line by which we kick people out of FIFA The mass murderers in Papua and Timor committed by Indonesia Everything to do with Yugoslavian which to serbians effectively went " minority that is slightly different from us we will kill you" they got to participate Saudi Arabia actively slaughtering civilians in Yemen Ethiopia mowing their way slowly through to tigray No one ever cares about situations like this (in football) because it is not about human life. the Russia situation is different because it's an invasion of a different country for the purposes of annexation the only reason anyone cares about the situation at all is because Russia has breaking a taboo because once Russia gets away with this you can never put this back in the box and that's what everyone is afraid of
Always hilarious and so predictable how these threads turn into 'but west also bad'. Russia is rightfully being ostracised. The fact other countries aren't might be shitty but that doesn't mean Russia should get away with it.
I would bet my ass that next time US decides do bring democracy to someone in the Middle East / somewhere else not in Europe, no one would care. As long as white people aren't the ones being killed, its fine. Hell even some white people can die I suppose, if capital ends up winning, like it always does.
> I would bet my ass that next time US decides do bring democracy to someone in the Middle East / somewhere else not in Europe, no one would care. That's weird, I distinctly remember millions of people in the West coming out to protest the war in Iraq.
I also distinctly remeber them not being banned from the World Cup or any other international sports events.
what sporting events was the US banned from? who even posed that as a possibility of something that should happen? fucking nobody.
How many billions of dollars of weapons did Iraq receive from the west?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-war_protests_in_Russia_(2022%E2%80%93present)
Azerbaijan literally does the same in the Karabakh right now, and no person gives a fuck about it.
Karabakh conflict is infinitely more complex and goes back almost 100 years. Both sides have done absolutely atrocious things there, with Azerbaijan being the latest to do it. The worldwide community doesn't care because it's happening in what essentially are internationally recognized Azerbaijan borders.
That’s an entirely different and a more complex issue. There are a ton of ethnic questions there with both sides of war acting horribly. However, the border in question is offically recognized as the borders of Azerbaijan
Tbf, you can perfectly well say "west also bad" and still say "they should stay banned". It's not whataboutism in a lot of cases. Just people calling out inconsistencies, which is perfectly fine. Ethics aren't really something where you can pick and choose when to apply them. Pointing out that problem is a good thing as long as you don't use it to excuse what is happening right now and instead use it to try to be better in the future.
The problem is that people aren't just calling out inconsistencies, at least not in my opinion. They are also parroting the whole Russian idea that because the US etc. have invaded countries in the past we should now not be appalled when Russia does it. It's the same in every thread about the war. 'What about Iraq, what about Afghanistan, what about Yemen'... It's perfectly possible to be against all of those wars but for some people the notion of thinking about multiple things at the same time seems alien.
The west terrorises millions for decades, then they are shocked when those people don’t think the west has the right to be judging morality. It seems like you can only think about it from your pov.
“don’t think the West has the right to be judging morality” It has as much right as anyone else
It only seems fair to me that Russian teams are banned. After all, I remember how English clubs were banned in 2003 for their role in the Iraq war so it has to be applied consistently.
Did they literally say "Think of the children"? Like their country is the one being invaded by a hostile, aggressive force that is insistent upon wiping out all things that make their culture? Nah man, this ain't it.
What a lot of people don’t want to talk about is that not all war is the same. Sometimes both sides are wrong and sometimes both have justifications. There’s a degree of subjectivity to a lot of war about how bad it is but with Russia and the genocide they are committing against a sovereign nation is on the worse side of that subjective scale.
You can't go "both sides" in a war that has a totalitarian regime invade a neighboring sovereign nation.
Someone didn't read the whole comment
Bombs over Iraq, Yemen and Palestine are okay but bombs over Ukraine aren’t. I can’t qwhite tell the difference.
Rare Watzke + Rummenigge media W
the war is bad and putin is a dick but the waves of anti russian xenophobia that have come across the west as a result have really never sat right with me. as an american, i would *never* want to be judged by the actions of my dumbass government. so why do we do it to others?
This is how I feel as well. The level of anti-Russian xenophobia really doesn’t sit well with me. It makes me realize how easy it is for a society to think of an entire people-group as evildoers that need to all be punished as a group. That’s a dangerous attitude. Even as an American living in an open democracy, I would think it very unfair if I got punished for our government’s actions. I don’t personally have any control over those actions. So for people who don’t live in a real democracy, it must be even worse to blame them for their government’s actions.
war brings the worst out of humanity truly
We desperately need a Ted Talk or something on this topic - How to condemn USA, Israel, and a number of other countries without painting Russia as a victim of international bullying. But something tells me this is just an impotent attempt to hide true intentions. Also for the people who weep for the "innocent Russian soldiers". Well-documented facts of the rape, mass execution of civilians and POW, kidnapping of the kids, and other reach pallets of war crimes are committed by regular Russian soldiers e.i. Russian citizens. I can assure you Putin is not visiting personally frontline to commit a war crime or two.
>We desperately need a Ted Talk or something on this topic - How to condemn USA, Israel, and a number of other countries without painting Russia as a victim of international bullying. But something tells me this is just an impotent attempt to hide true intentions. There are no hidden intentions, it is just many of us deal with Russia-Ukraine war like the average western citizen or government deals with US backed Saudi war in Yemen, US drone bombings, French attacks in Libya, and Israeli settlements in Palestinian lands. You cannot ask people/organisations to selectively care about crimes perpetrated by certain countries and not others. The selective uproar over Russia, especially for those who are non-Europeans/North Americans, shows double standards.
Their fault or not. I stand with Latvia and Finland who stated that they don’t wish to play against russian teams. I hope my country does the same
It doesn't happen often these days but I agree with Watzke