Belarus being Belarus

BigZ said:
Here's a fascinating "read between the lines" read for a similar issue in 2016 that somehow didn't cause any outrage due to being aligned with the policy

en.interfax.com.ua

Ukraine returns passenger jet en route to Minsk back to Kyiv airport under threat of scrambling fighters

Ukrainian authorities forced a Belavia passenger jet en route from Kyiv to Minsk to return to the Zhuliany airport in Kyiv under the threat of scrambling fighters, Belavia said in a statement.
en.interfax.com.ua en.interfax.com.ua




And the SBU "We would never!"

Point being, it's like normal ops over there, except only 50% causes the outrage
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Yes that sucks, but it's not apples to apples, this incident was a flight between two EU countries, by an EU reg. aircraft, that overflew Belarus. So it's nuanced but an important distinction.

It would be like an American flight from MIA to Puerto Rico being diverted to Cuba by their air force.
 
WacoFan said:
Honest question to you and anyone else. Given the Russian appetite for murdering civilians via shooting down civil airliners (KAL 007, MH17) and you are flying over Russia, or a Russian puppet state and see a Mig off your wing - would you doubt they'd shoot you down?
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You know what’s funny Is that when they put out the propaganda video about the Russian soldier “doing all that cool stuff”, some of my ex-milbro colleagues basically fellated themselves and embroiled themselves into some “OMG, Russia is so much cooler than our military”.

*screen capture*
*file*
 
BigZ said:
He is a dictator. So happens, a dictator that managed to prevent a whole bunch of nastiness that befell the rest of the ex-USSR countries and still manages to maneuver between the east and the west. Give the man some credit.
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All the rest of the of the former SSR’s had “a bunch of nastiness”? Especially compared to a multi-decade dictatorship?

Just going down the list, I can pick a few out that didn’t require decades of authoritarian rule to get to a pretty good place...
 
zmiller4 said:
All the rest of the of the former SSR’s had “a bunch of nastiness”? Especially compared to a multi-decade dictatorship?

Just going down the list, I can pick a few out that didn’t require decades of authoritarian rule to get to a pretty good place...
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Oh yeah. 90s were peachy. People (like just about almost all of them) lost their pensions, savings. Regular mob shootouts, racketeering. Industries falling apart few at a time, paychecks that are behind for over a year and paid out sporadically. Few waves of currency devaluation and financial crisises (is that how you spell it? Caffeine hasn't hit yet).
The countries that didn't do that were the ones fed by the west (I'll let you decide on the humanitarian and propaganda split in the reasoning there). Some of them have been left hanging over the edge of the nightstand since then - Moldova being a great example.
Again, like I said, not my circus, but do give the dude some credit. He would have been dethroned many years ago if he didn't have the support of a very good chunk of population.
Same thing in Kazakhstan - their Nazarbaev guy stepped down due to age a couple of years ago, 29 years in the office before that.

Big point is - I don't really care about any of that, but be consistent. US has a bunch of middle-eastern allies that are, at the very least, not better (realistically some are much worse in human rights and freedom departments), but that's cool, because they are our SOBs.
 
BigZ said:
The countries that didn't do that were the ones fed by the west (I'll let you decide on the humanitarian and propaganda split in the reasoning there).
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I mean, if I had to pick between living the last 30 years in Lithuania vs Belarus...I don’t know, I just have a hard time giving an authoritarian credit for anything in 2021.

BigZ said:
Big point is - I don't really care about any of that, but be consistent. US has a bunch of middle-eastern allies that are, at the very least, not better (realistically some are much worse in human rights and freedom departments), but that's cool, because they are our SOBs.
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I don’t think that “our SOB’s” are cool at all...?
 
Skåning said:
Yes that sucks, but it's not apples to apples, this incident was a flight between two EU countries, by an EU reg. aircraft, that overflew Belarus. So it's nuanced but an important distinction.

It would be like an American flight from MIA to Puerto Rico being diverted to Cuba by their air force.
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So it's cool to turn around an airliner, threatening fighter intercept as long as the said airliner is Belavia and the threat is by a US ally. Neat, noted :)
 
zmiller4 said:
I mean, if I had to pick between living the last 30 years in Lithuania vs Belarus...I don’t know, I just have a hard time giving an authoritarian credit for anything in 2021.
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Eh. Financial crisis of 2008 you could rent an office downtown Riga in Latvia for utilities. And that's in countries that were babied. Also back in the 80s Baltic states produced electronics, and now they can sprats, same for Bulgaria (bell peppers there), but that's a deeper conversation and I gotta go fly.
G'day y'all
 
zmiller4 said:
That’s not what he said, at all. But I think you know that.
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Aight, I'll play
Scenarios:

1. Belavia flight is forced back into Kiev
(All good)
2. Delta still flies KBP-JFK. Same deal, forced to come back
(Quiet WTF, Kiev?)
3. Same thing, but Moscow - what do you figure the response would have been?
 
Here's another fascinating read re forcing an airliner in your airspace to land

Ukrainian Reverberations of the Wagner Arrests in Belarus: Russian Disinformation?

A scandal surrounding the alleged “betrayal” by a high-ranking official of the presidential administration is rapidly gaining momentum in Ukraine. The situation curiously concerns the detention of 33 mercenaries from the Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group, in Belarus, on July...
jamestown.org jamestown.org
 
NovemberEcho said:
I think the big thing here is the WHY the person was wanted. If he had been a wanted murderer, sure I got no problems with what happened. A dude who wrote bad things about the government? Different story.
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He's wanted for being a co-creator of a social media channel that riled up and organized the protestors from what I gather. That's a bit different than "writing bad things about the government".
 
BigZ said:
He's wanted for being a co-creator of a social media channel that riled up and organized the protestors from what I gather. That's a bit different than "writing bad things about the government".
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Still no crime there, at least not according to Western understandings of concepts like freedom of speech, assembly, press, and the right to petition. Key word is “protestors,” not “insurrectionists.”
 
Derg said:
You know what’s funny Is that when they put out the propaganda video about the Russian soldier “doing all that cool stuff”, some of my ex-milbro colleagues basically fellated themselves and embroiled themselves into some “OMG, Russia is so much cooler than our military”.

*screen capture*
*file*
Click to expand...

Ted Cruz, my Junior Senator, was making such comments up to calling the military "pansies". My response got me suspended from Twitter for 7 days ending in 3 more days. But yes, that was disturbing.

Shadow Ban.png
 
WacoFan said:
Ted Cruz, my Junior Senator, was making such comments up to calling the military "pansies". My response got me suspended from Twitter for 7 days ending in 3 more days. But yes, that was disturbing.

View attachment 59274
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I got banned from twitter when I egged on my governor to run for President so I can see him beaten like a drum in the primaries.

Banned for 14 days! :)
 
WacoFan said:
Ted Cruz, my Junior Senator, was making such comments up to calling the military "pansies". My response got me suspended from Twitter for 7 days ending in 3 more days. But yes, that was disturbing.

View attachment 59274
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That's somewhat rich. Though I suppose that they suddenly do care about violence/etc. being incited upon their platform, which is nice, but I would really consider all of that to be legitimate political speech, because Sen. Cruz is, in fact, trash, and a pansy.

Ironically, Twitter have historically done a very good job standing up to governments (ours, and others) regarding overreach about political speech.
 
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