Well it's not black and white. Sometimes doing the right thing even if you have ulterior motives is better than doing nothing.
Africa is tricky due to historical reasons, though. Any western power that would intervene there without the explicit invitation of the local government would be accused of neo-colonialism etc.
So there are no circumstances where armed rebellion is justifiable and the only legitimate type of resistance to state violence is literally trying to drown the state forces in bodies of non-violent protestors?
At a certain point there ceases to be a middle path between violent resistance and complete surrender.
> Protesters which foreign states (China or Russia)
This type of relativism is dishonest. Of course US is speed running the path to authoritarianism but its not quite there. e.g. morally it would be perfectly acceptable to support weapons to protestors in Russia and not the other way around.
The Iranian regime is objectively evil, period. Regardless of what honest or dishonest motives foreign actors might or might not have.
> with western countries also openly declaring their intent to destabilize Iran
As opposed to standing idly by when the regime 'stabilizes' the country by murdering thousands of people? It's well past the stage where non violent protest or resistance stopped being a viable option..
> and unlike you, I don't trust my offhand estimates.
Yet you're fine with handwaving probably the biggest issue Ukraine is facing (besides the risk of losing western support/Trump winning the election and making a side-deal with Putin).
> However I will trust the Ukrainians to know,
The government probably does. Of course due to perfectly understandable reasons they will not share that information with the Ukrainian population at least until the war is over.
> while for Russia (as a country, apart from its leadership) it is very much optional
Hopefully. But underestimating the resilience of authoritarian/totalitarian regimes (compared to more free/democratic societies) isn't necessarily particularly wise. e.g. the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s was just as senseless (from the perspective of both sides) and even more bloody yet it went on for 8 years with hardly any significant dissent in either country (besides the Kurds the Iraq).
The casualties and overall cost US sustained in the Vietnam war, especially if we adjust by the duration of both conflicts were almost miniscule compared to the cost the Russian society is seemingly willing to pay.
At a certain point (probably to a large extent already) Ukraine will simply run out of manpower. Demographically it was in a very poor state to begin with to such a degree they had to keep the MINIMUM age of conscription at 27 and lowered it to 25 a few months ago.
There were only ~2.6 million men aged 15 to 30 and another 3 million in their 30s back in 2022. Around 0.6-0.8 million Ukrainian men have left the country for the EU (18-60, but I assume it's highly skewed towards lower ages).
A significant proportion (probably the majority) of those that remain in the country are not particularly motivated, capable or otherwise keen about going to the frontline. It's hard to tell but looking at estimates > 150k have died or been severely wounded and presumably a several times more suffered lighter injuries.
This isn't WW1/2. Poorly trained and/or highly unmotivated men are not very combat effective and mobilizing such a large proportion of population as back then is not feasible (especially considering that men in their 30s and 40s have been doing most of the fighting). So how long do you think Ukraine can hold out if we extrapolate the casualties rates from the last 12-24 months or so? By the time the West fully ramps up military production it might be too late.
You can't because the only people remaining (or the overwhelming majority) in those communities are people who are actually religious and take the whole thing pretty seriously.
In the past (of course it depended on the exact time and place) occasionally going to church even if many treated it mostly as a formality was the default for most people. Even if you didn't, chances are that you couldn't ignore it entirely because you still had some links to the community surrounding it through family members, various organizations, events etc.
> Turkey are separatists which every nation, even European ones, has to fight.
Generally only undemocratic/oppressive countries have to do that. e.g. violence in the Basque country, Northern Ireland etc. was solved by giving the local people a voice and stopping previous abuses. Escalation of violence was always the outcome of failures by the state rather than started by the "separatists".
Also Turkey only had or has "open democracy" to a very limited state. It was never more than a deeply flawed democracy at best.
> Iraq after brutal military occupation?
I don't think the occupation was even remotely more brutal than Saddam's reign in the 80s and 90s. Most of the casualties were the result of the civil war/conflict between Shia/Sunnis/other factions and general lawlessness. Much of that could have been prevented had the occupation actually been more brutal/oppressive (of course far from ideal either..).
> Afghanistan was relatively open during US and USSR occupations
Coincidentally in both cases the administrations propped up by US/USSR were thoroughly corrupted, incompetent and abusive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi) so that even the Taliban became relatively appealing to most people.
> Iraq after occupation was relatively open, yet ISIS ideology took off
That was to a large degree just the extension of the whole Shia vs Sunni conflict/civil war which began immediately after the invasion.
Also I'm not sure what do you mean by "open" in all of the cases (besides post 2001 Afghanistan) the countries we ran by semi-secular authoritarian dictatorships which kept the Islamists in check. Most of the population would have (and eventually did) supported them if they were given a choice (like in Egypt).
Why? What would change in those years? I'd bet that he would be still extremely likely to commit fraud or other financial crimes (if presented the opportunity) after he got out. Maybe letting him keep a few billion would entice him to retire early (not sure if that's the most reasonable option).
> then 30 years won't be enough either
But it's not about deterring him. It's about preventing him from doing any more damage to the society and potentially deterring other people from committing the same crime. IMHO this is one sector where draconian sentences might be actually very effective, people in finance tend to be more rational and calculating than average. If you get a to steal a few billion and maybe somehow stash a proportion of that spending 5 years in prison might seem like a reasonable deal, that's pushing it but maybe even 10, not > 30 though.
How can you rehabilitee someone like him? It can work even with violent criminals, whose crimes was strongly related to the circumstances they were in. A guy like him who stole billions? What could anyone ever do to convince him to not commit fraud again if given the opportunity...
I'd argue it's still quite predatory. Basically, they reel in users with other services/products and then charge extortionate prices for egress specifically with massive margins just because they can.
In certain use cases it becomes all or nothing, either you host everything on the cloud or nothing at all which is certainly abusive and highly anti-competitive.
That's not that obvious considering all the illegal settlements. I'm sure they want the land just not the people living there.
But yes, no clear solution especially considering that the only (non-Hamas) option for self government, the Palestinian Authority/Fatah is thoroughly incompetent and corrupt.
Considering how reliant Netenyahu's political career was/is on Hamas continuing to exist it's likely that's going to happen anyway. An actual long-term solution would be a huge blow to all of the right.
> chapter in their country's respective histories and a major cultural movement against the possibility of those kinds of atrocities happening again
It's true that that's the case today. But it took a while for this transition to occur. Basically, the entire wartime generation had to retire/die out. In the 50s and 60s Germans were still very keen about downplaying the atrocities (even if they of course recognized that they occurred) and especially being very lenient towards war criminal and even protecting them from foreign governments (e.g. Heinrich Boere).
Africa is tricky due to historical reasons, though. Any western power that would intervene there without the explicit invitation of the local government would be accused of neo-colonialism etc.