Russians, No more Boshoi Mac for you....

tell it to joe?

 

@hkmb #20 "Yet what Saudi Arabia has been doing for years in Yemen dwarfs Russia's actions in Ukraine..."' That may dwarf, but I do not think we'd hand it over without some quantification.

Saudis have recently harmed others, and Russians (by no means in competition) now harm others in UKR. This is not some freaky anti-Olympics competition; all this is "what advances can we get away with, being nuclear, or expecting that a small brown country does not merit global attention".

==

If other galaxy civilizations exist, and can cross vast interstellar distances, and have time to visit Earth, I wonder what they might say to us. Maybe, that treating all Humans fairly and kindly offers long-term benefits. Maybe, that conquering Earth only works with a local gang expanding their current 'better than others' theme can act as proxies for (evil) externals.

You are only hearing my dreamings here. Best to ignore, I suppose, unless such things actually happen.

 

they may have already happened...

 

Watterson's Law:




BTW....
Slogan of the Houthi movement

 

Joe's not in charge of Coke or Pepsi or Starbuck's or McDonald's. And he's definitely not in charge of Bank of China or Ikea or Toyota.

He wasn't even in charge of America from 2015 to 2020 while the Saudis were bombing Yemen with impunity. \

My point isn't a criticism of the US, or of the US government. It's a criticism of pretty much everybody.

 

Obviously the Russians have only just got started. But as at March 10, the figures for Ukrainians killed by the Russian attack and Yemenis killed by the Saudi attack and its aftermath are 546 vs about 250,000.

Yes. And they are both right. This is what I find intensely dispiriting.

And while race and religion are clearly factors (see #24 above) in our even slightly giving a s--t about the mass-murder of civilians, I think the bigger factor is whether the perpetrator or victim is an ally of ours.

We've spoken elsewhere about Putin's strategic errors. Given the swift (if limited) action against Russia in comparison to the total inaction against Saudi Arabia, it seems to me that Putin's biggest strategic error was continuing to develop the Russian arms industry. If he'd been bombing the Ukrainians with weapons he'd bought from the British and the Americans, we'd be absolutely fine with it. Not just our governments; our corporations and our people too.

Perhaps China should start buying some British and American weapons. Then they can do whatever they want to Taiwan.

I've mentioned elsewhere in the past Brian Cox's answer to Fermi's Paradox. Just before civilisations get to the stage that they could develop interstellar travel, they develop Twitter and Facebook and blow themselves up.

Honestly, though, if there are civilisations that are aware of us, I suspect they are strongly of the position that we are not worth bothering with. If the Vulcans were sailing past us now, it would be a hard no. TBH, for all of Zefram Cochrane's tech wizardry, I'm surprised they even bothered with us on April 5 2063. We're awful.

 

The Middle East moves through a scale of 'it's complicated' to being a mess. The war in Yemen started when Saudi Arabia was part of the coalition against ISIL, and US ally on other issues in the region.

Biden is shifting the US's stance, and we may not be directly supplying SA with weapons for attacking Yemen.
Biden ends support for Saudi’s Yemen war in foreign policy shift | Joe Biden News | Al Jazeera
US ending aid to Saudi-led forces in Yemen, but questions persist | Joe Biden News | Al Jazeera

There was an episode of Enterprise that took place in an alternate timeline where Cochrane just shot just the Vulcan explorers, and Earth established an empire.

 

I do not agree that we (humans of Earth) are awful. I think we pay continuing homage to primate relatives that did and do very well by violently opposing other tribes impinging on resources.

SciFi posits many things. That civilizations are many and that some develop technologies to cross vast interstellar distances. SciFi then diverges - there may be singing of Kumbaya across that vastness, with primate aggression mostly left behind (Star Trek). Or, that future tech will just be a better way to dominate at distance, and that 'the overs' will battle endlessly against 'the unders' (Star Wars). Neither could be declared more probable, but optimism (my weakness) draws me to the former.

 

i've lost the thread...

 

Re: conjecture as to West's greater interest in Ukraine vs. Yemen, would add the following possibilities to those already mentioned:

-physical proximity of Ukraine to the West (Europe), being a "border" of the West, with the West's strong preference for a more democratic form of governance at the European geopolitical border (Russia attempting to impose an opposing form of governance in line with their preferences)

-optimist might say more similar culture and connections in Ukraine to Europe (less than optimist might suggest other less happier terms ); Ukrainians more likely to have have family/friends in rest of neighboring Europe, do business with them, perhaps continue to want to move closer to adopting their form of governance...

-West feels better chance of Ukraine having an outcome it would prefer vs. Yemen, which does not have a Western orbit and therefore not compelled as much to the physics of Western geopolitical gravity

 

Who are the Houthis, and why are we at war with them?
^ for those interested in more info on the ‘Houthi Coup’

Personally?
I’m fresh out of rats to give about the Houthi.

Our Nation’s traditional motto is: E pluribus unum – Latin for "Out of many, one"

The Houthi’s motto is: "Allah is Greater, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam"

When a Nation’s stated purpose includes “Death to America!” I tend to take them at their word.

 

One could also say it started when Saudi Arabia was part of the coalition with ISIL.

But, yes, the Saudis and the Americans are kind of allied on both hating Iran. The difference, I think, is that the Americans have a problem with the Iranian government and would like to get rid of it, whereas the Saudis have a problem with all Iranians, and would like to get rid of them.

Yes, we can only hope.

Yes - it built on an episode from the original series where Evil Kirk was fighting Good Kirk, but it made it all a lot more interesting. And Hoshi....

Discovery plays on it too, for most of a series. And it looks {SPOILERS - HIGHLIGHT THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU WANT TO BE ABLE TO READ IT AS I HAVE MADE THE TEXT WHITE], from the latest episode, like Picard is in something very similar now. OK. YOU CAN READ AGAIN NOW.

Unfortunately, I fear the mirror universe may reflect rather better who we are and where we're going, if we are to make it into the future at all.

 

Ballistic missiles hit Iraq’s Kurdish capital, Iran claims responsibility | Reuters

 

'more companies exiting russia'

'russian metals oligarch says putin will set back russia a hundred years'

 

Seems like may get his wish in more ways than he desired with plans to return to 19th century adventures in Europe.

 

This is a valid point. But do remember it was us - and our astroturfed "orange revolution" in 2004 - that imposed the current form of governance that wasn't in line with Russia's preferences.

I'm not defending Russia here: there's no excuse for what they're doing, and it is appalling. Just saying we need to remember that this isn't happening in a vacuum. I'm all in favour of all the sanctions we've seen so far, and I think there should be more.

Yes. By that definition I'm very much not an "optimist".

Also, come to think of it, by many other definitions.

I'm not sure this is necessarily the case.

In Yemen, we have the outcome that much of the West would prefer - lots of dead Middle-Eastern people; continued Saudi dominance; and continued Saudi funding of our politicians and our arms industry. It's not that we're letting the Saudis murder hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians because there's nothing we can do about it; we're letting the Saudis murder hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians because we're fine with it.

In Ukraine, there's a strong chance of an outcome that is pretty hideous for much of the Northern Hemisphere. Not an outcome most people would prefer.

 

perhaps a middle eastern thread would bring a more lively debate, rather than trying to compete with ukraine sympathies

 

There are many potential ways this could play out, including by action and inaction of the West - beyond Ukraine, the West and Russia, and others far peripheral.

Many bad potential scenarios, even those short of apocalyptic, but sometimes a relative "win" is influencing a course of events wherein one substantially less bad scenario plays out.