Fired FBI official authorized criminal probe of Sessions, sources say: EXCLUSIVE - Polidicks

I know that people anecdotally report that there is widespread support for Putin in Russia, but on the flip side of that, their elections are pretty blatantly rigged and I'm sure polling is no different, so the extent to which we can blame the Russian population for Putin's misdeeds is really murky. Plus, it definitely is unfair to everyone in Russia that doesn't support Putin, which I'm sure is not an insignificant portion of the population. Maybe not the majority or even close to it, but still a significant number of people. The principle of "innocent people shouldn't suffer for their leaders actions" is admirable, it's just fundamentally opposed to how the real world works. If Putin sends a bunch of slave-soldiers to the US and we kill them, is the moral burden on us because they were just innocent farmers forced to execute Putin's will? No, I'd say it's on Putin for putting the US in a position that were had no choice but to retaliate. The same is true of these sanctions; it's unfortunate that the Russian population has to suffer the consequences of the sanctions and their impact on the Russian economy, but we don't really have any other choice and as a result I think the moral burden lies on Putin for wanting to play "world domination" in a time of peace, putting the United States in a position where we have no choice but to retaliate. It would be really nice if we could retaliate without affecting anyone but Putin, but we don't really have any way of doing that short of just assassinating him, which even then would probably negatively effect the Russian population during the instability and chaos that would ensue. It's nice that you acknowledged you don't know what the alternatives are, but I think it's a bit shit you completely ignored me pointing out to you that these sanctions aren't just some broad-strokes attack on Russia, they're specifically targeted at Russia's military and energy sectors, so at the very least maybe give the US and NATO some credit for trying to avoid fucking over regular Russians.

So what, we should just let Russia's leaders do whatever the fuck they want without any repercussions?

No, we should delay indefinitely and just trust that Trump will get it right. Somehow.

I just don't really agree with this idea that people are being "too quick" to support sanctions. It's pretty much our last resort, there is clearly no other way for the world to retaliate and signal to Russia that they can't just go around doing whatever they want without repercussions other than sanctions. The only other thing we have available is some kind of military action which is obviously much worse. Nobody is applauding the fact that because of the sanctions, average Russians' lives are getting harder, but again, we don't really have a choice. It's either punish Russia in a way that will incur the least collateral damage (sanctions), or do nothing and let Putin continue flaunting the fact that nobody is willing to throw down the hammer and attack a nuclear power. Yeah I agree, I'm not in the "hold the voting population accountable", not only because the election/poll results aren't necessarily a good indicator of what Russians really believe, but because most voters are stupid and make poor decisions out of ignorance rather than malice. Again, in principle I agree with you that it'd be nice to have something better than sanctions.. I just don't think there is, and I don't think accusing people who support sanctions of somehow condemning the Russian population to a living hell out of pure tribalism is justified. We have no other recourse at this point, if you want to blame somebody for the suffering of Russia's populace as a result of the West's retaliation, blame Putin for forcing the West's hand into retaliating.

I mean, if we're trying to sanitize Putin's misdeeds by saying he's just invading Crimea, rigging his elections and interfering with ours because the West wronged him, we're going to need to establish what exactly the West did to wrong him, whether or not they were justified in doing it, and how invading Crimea and interfering in our election was a reasonable response. I see it as a pretty obvious false equivalency trying to put the United States and Russia on the same moral standing tbh. You could call me biased as an American, but I'd at least say I fully acknowledge the fact that America does awful things around the globe in order to promote their own interests. I just think overall, the United States is more a force for good than Russia is.

The Russians have had almost 20 years to fix their government. The USA might have almost put their country back on track after just 2 years of crisis. I understand it's not easy to fix a failed state once it's turned into a criminal oligarchy, but they haven't really tried. They're just stuck in this daze and the only thing that brings them comfort is being tribal and trying to feel relevant. We should squeeze the country dry and accept promising refugees until the oligarchs are weak enough for it all to reboot as a functioning democracy. I don't see why we'd ever release the sanctions until something very significant changes.

> I don't see why we'd ever release the sanctions until something very significant changes. Especially since that is the point of sanctions to begin with.

Oh good lord, Newpunch will give rise to rating alchemy.

Russia is a relic of a bygone era. Their interests run against the rest of the world, and their agenda is only harmful to humanity.

If the mixing system is anything like Magicka's, it's only going to end in disaster...