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Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

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Re: Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

#71

Post by enriquto »

esperent wrote: post #42
enriquto wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You mean, if I (a person that lives in the US) sees someone lose a human right, I should shut up, because some other guy who also lives in the US, who I've never met did something that I never approved of or endorsed? No, of course! I agree with you: individual citizens should have the right to talk about anything, there's free speech after all. What I mean is that if you are too focused on the (truly horrible) inj…

Can you please for just a minute stop trying to make everything about the US? It's exhausting. Every single discussion on the internet, no matter what country we're talking about, there's always some American guy (usually several) that comes in and tries to change the topic to focus on the US. Other countries exist, and deserve to be discussed and criticised on their own merits. It's not always about you Americans.

I'm not from the US, not even from the American continent. It was the OP that introduced this country to the conversation, but what I say applies mostly unchanged to France (where I live).

Re: Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

#72

Post by brobdingnagians »

baybal2 wrote: post #53
oefrha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question I always ask when people suggest warfare, especially an invasion: will you personally fight in it?

The predominant part of HN demographic are young military age men. In case of any real conflict US will get dragged in, you will all be drafted, want you or not. Becoming a soldier after being a freewheeling young man with 6 digit income, and effectively loosing everything you put into your career, business, education, relationship with your woman is not a pleasant thing. But think, sooner or later US will be dragged…

The dirty secret is that the US will probably lose either way.

Instead of absolute dollar amounts, if you compare China's military purchasing power with the US, adjusting for different labor costs and the fact that they don't include things like R&D in their military budget, then China is much closer to US spending than it appears.

Having a supply line to Asia versus China fighting close to home, that is a recipe for disaster.

Re: Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

#73

Post by throwaway0a5e »

djohnston wrote: post #61
cheph wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sanctions won’t work. They will just punish businesses that were stupid enough to work with Americans and Europeans. > This is a giant fuck-you to the West, and it’ll work, because the West has zero leverage. They won't work to fix Myanmar, but at some point the West has to ask itself if trade with China is worth it, for the future of both the West and all other countries that are not already in the grasp of China.…

TBF it isn't Germany that lacks a backbone but rather the entirety of the EU. Even if Germany wanted to make a statement I don't think they would risk dragging eastern EU members into a spat since they are already busy buddying up to China.

Someone has to get off the porch first. My bet is on one of the eastern EU members saying "screw it, we're already poor" and then the big players using that as their excuse.

Re: Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

#74

Post by enriquto »

leesalminen wrote: post #62
gtufano wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is currently probably way better (USA vs. China). Especially when seen from Europe (or USA)... looking at it from the point of view of a South-American citizen probably don't give the same result... and it's not self-hate, just history

In Chile, there has been a growing anti-China sentiment over the past several years as they began dominating the retail sector, pushing out many locals’ jobs.

As opposed to the USA for, you know, actually staging a military coup in there?

Re: Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

#75

Post by bitcharmer »

eznzt wrote: post #55
bitcharmer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which tweet seems biased?

All of them? The whole profile seems pretty much anti-coup.

Would you expect any sane person to celebrate another coup from a military junta that has a history of killing whole villages and skinning people alive?

Re: Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

#76

Post by finnthehuman »

baybal2 wrote: post #31
myanmarthrow wrote: post #10

Posting this throwaway because I don’t want my residency canceled. That should give you a hint that I might know way more than the armchair experts. Any article that talks about Myanmar and doesn’t include the word “China” all over it, is probably propaganda of some sort. I won’t go more into this and I will allow people to do their homework and make up their own minds about the good and the bad of all of it, but Mya…

> Sanctions won’t work. They will just punish businesses that were stupid enough to work with Americans and Europeans. At the end of the day, Myanmar is going to come out of this period looking more like China than like the British colony it was before — guess what that’s meant to prepare us for, in terms of the way the world looks by the end of this century? Sanctions won’t work, but tanks would. The entirety of Mya…

>3-4 marine heavy brigades can easily stomp all tank battalions in Myanmar's disposal

And once that's done, how many years of U.S. occupation will it take when they can't get the locals to support a government run the way the US wants? Who will give up first, the US or the occupied country?

Re: Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

#77

Post by Fordec »

sandworm101 wrote: post #63
baybal2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sanctions won’t work. They will just punish businesses that were stupid enough to work with Americans and Europeans. At the end of the day, Myanmar is going to come out of this period looking more like China than like the British colony it was before — guess what that’s meant to prepare us for, in terms of the way the world looks by the end of this century? Sanctions won’t work, but tanks would. The entirety of Mya…

>> Sanctions won’t work, but tanks would. Southeast asia + tanks = bad mojo. Study the history. Tanks are white elephants in areas dominated by mountains and rainfall (both are tank kryptonite). Sure, US air power could dominate. They can use the same flightpaths they used in Vietnam, to the same ends. Myanmar is a country where light soldiers, guys with AKs and flipflops, are far more capable than a dozen tanks sink…

If the recent Armenia Azerbaijan crisis was anything to go by, in mountainous terrain a drone/artillery combination is quite effective but a relatively new combat style on the scene.

Re: Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

#78

Post by dnautics »

enriquto wrote: post #35
rgbrenner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "moral ground" mean? You mean, if I (a person that lives in the US) sees someone lose a human right, I should shut up, because some other guy who also lives in the US, who I've never met did something that I never approved of or endorsed? Like we should all be ok with an individual being victimized because anyone who wants to say something is guilty of something else by association... I guess the victims sh…

> You mean, if I (a person that lives in the US) sees someone lose a human right, I should shut up, because some other guy who also lives in the US, who I've never met did something that I never approved of or endorsed? No, of course! I agree with you: individual citizens should have the right to talk about anything, there's free speech after all. What I mean is that if you are too focused on the (truly horrible) inj…

Technically the last US president didn't start any wars (as far as I can tell). Even presided over a net drawdown in US military presence around the world. Still did extrajudical killings, though. Previous president to that did start wars, presided over a net drawdown, and did extrajudicial killings.

Re: Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

#79

Post by notahacker »

baybal2 wrote: post #70
sandworm101 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Sanctions won’t work, but tanks would. Southeast asia + tanks = bad mojo. Study the history. Tanks are white elephants in areas dominated by mountains and rainfall (both are tank kryptonite). Sure, US air power could dominate. They can use the same flightpaths they used in Vietnam, to the same ends. Myanmar is a country where light soldiers, guys with AKs and flipflops, are far more capable than a dozen tanks sink…

Yangon surroundings is a plain, with a lot of roads, and agriculture, and it is situated on the coastline. The same is much with the rest of South Myanmar, where most of country's population, and economy is.

Saigon and Hanoi are on flat coastal plains too, but you don't decisively win a war by only controlling part of the country, and Myanmar's economy is propped up by gas reserves and other resources in the wild northeast. Myanmar's army is less likely to inspire devotion than North Vietnam's, but can easily be propped up by China if it fancies a proxy war. The likely result of conflict would be everybody being a loser.

Re: Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

#80

Post by anglercut »

myanmarthrow wrote: post #10

Posting this throwaway because I don’t want my residency canceled. That should give you a hint that I might know way more than the armchair experts. Any article that talks about Myanmar and doesn’t include the word “China” all over it, is probably propaganda of some sort. I won’t go more into this and I will allow people to do their homework and make up their own minds about the good and the bad of all of it, but Mya…

> Any article that talks about Myanmar and doesn’t include the word “China” all over it, is probably propaganda of some sort.

And every article that does include this word is still most likely propaganda.

> I won’t go more into this and I will allow people to do their homework and make up their own minds

One of the least useful things one can say on a controversial topic.

China alarmism is in vogue these days; people are supposed to have made up their minds and to nod along sagely. But your assumption that an incredibly unstable and violence-ridden country with powerful military cannot undergo a military coup without Chinese meddling sounds like Western projection.

Current (well, previous I guess) regime has been convenient to China, being, for example, a signatory to letter in support of Uyghur treatment in Xinjiang [1].

Why would China need to foment a coup is beyond me. They'll surely try to capitalise on it, strengthening their positions, but are in no way certain to succeed ahead of India and even US. Both Chinese drive and aptitude for "hegemony" are widely, incredibly overestimated by the West, largely through the efforts of think tanks on MIC payroll. South-East Asia is a highly complex region and not merely setting for another round of Great Game.

1: https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/which-countries-are-for-or-a...

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