Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

gist.github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 891 posts

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#711

Post by amirmi78 »

tgma wrote: post #299
lukan wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am positing perhaps they are a democracy." Then maybe take a closer look into how their system works. Every candidate has to be approved by the Mullah's. So the Mullah's are effectivly in control. Still, there are differences with the candidates. Would I vote under such conditions? No idea, I am struggle to find a party representing my views and I am in a western democracy.

The Democrats in the US have Superdelegates effectively vetoing candidates. So is the media and funding apparatus and the deep state by holding potential blackmail material. To be clear, I am not defending their system. I am suggesting democracy is not a panacea that automatically guarantees prosperity. Far from it.

You're muddling the line between democracy and dictatorship.

In a democracy if you control all the votes of people you should be able to make changes in the government that the incumbent may not want. You can't do this in Iran.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#712

Post by tgma »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #708
tgma wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not a democracy, by design. It’s a Constitutional Republic.

A democratic constitutional republic. Often simply referred to as "a democracy" as a shorthand. The key distinguishing factor being that in a democracy powers are derived from the consent of the governed, as opposed to other forms of government (including some "constitutional republics") which do not allow open democratic elections.

Citation needed. Where did you get that additional term in front of it? Which United States founding document suggests that?

Democratic Republic, just like People's Republic, is actually a euphemism for communism.

What you are describing is "representative government" and "self government" not necessarily democracy. The will of the people is an abstract concept that is, depending on the issue, not always accurately measurable by equally weighted vote of a subset of the people that are enfranchised.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#713

Post by michtzik »

varjag wrote: post #554
michtzik wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your parent comment is correct. Germany buys millions of tons of "Kazakh" oil via the Druzhba pipeline, arriving at the PCK refinery in Schwedt. This oil is "blended" with Russian oil, and in any case is transported by Russia. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/kazakhstans-january-...

Most of the oil from Kazakhstan is transported via the Caspian pipeline. Druzhba had been defunct for couple of months too. I think some figures of Kazakh oil imports from Russia would be in order.

Here's a news story about how Druzhba supplies to Germany weren't particularly interrupted by recent attacks you may be alluding to: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germanys-kazakh-oil-...

And here's KazTransoil themselves reporting how much they supplied through Druzhba recently: https://www.interfax.kz/?int_id=21&lang=eng&news_id=75303

> ASTANA. Sept 4 (Interfax-Kazakhstan) - The volume of Kazakh oil transportation to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline system in August of this year amounted to 190,000 tonnes, which is 18.7% higher than the level of July 2025, Interfax-Kazakhstan was informed by the national company KazTransOil (KTO).

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#714

Post by 542354234235 »

lazide wrote: post #596
542354234235 wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has had to sell oil at a steep discount, which has cut into their revenue significantly. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been frozen/seized that can't be used to fund the war effort. Modern war is not just "beans and bullets”, and Russia pays upwards of 10 times the price for key components it needs for missiles, aviation, UAVs, tanks, artillery, air defense, etc. as well as quality manufacturing equipmen…

I’m not saying the sanctions haven’t hurt, rather that when the war was at its decisive point (the first few days) they did not exist/were immaterial. Now they’re just doing more damage in an already damaging (and unwinnable) situation.

I have seen no serious analysis saying that Russia losing the war has been basically inevitable since the first few weeks of the war. Russia is fighting a war of attrition now and has been for most of the war. Most analysis still assess Russia can attrite it's way to victory. Sanctions are important because even if Putin is willing to throw wave after wave of his own men to the slaughter (a million Russian casualties and counting), if they run out of vehicles or artillery barrels, they are kind of screwed.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-battlefield-woes-ukrai...

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#715

Post by cess11 »

miningape wrote: post #608
cess11 wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is a member of WIPO, so that's mostly something the US does to trample on the UN. Why should India change its policies around sanctions and start implementing them because the US thinks they should, instead of leveraging the UN sanctions system, which India adheres to? Same thing there. The US dislikes diplomacy and international institutions that treat states as equals, and prefers overtly or covertly hostile…

> China is a member of WIPO China's issue isn't so much the laws / treaties they've agreed to on paper. The issue more the actual implementation and enforcement of said rules. > Why should India change its policies around sanctions and start implementing them I'm not saying India has to, they're perfectly within their rights to ignore requests from the US, but neither does the US have to tolerate that (as they have b…

WIPO and it's relevant treaties provide a range of mechanisms for dispute resolution through diplomacy. The issue is that the US does not engage in diplomacy.

I think most scholars of international law would disagree on the legality of unilateral economic sanctions, since they are likely to amount to interventions and as such violate sovereignty, and, of course, human rights of the people affected. You also seem to think of US sanctions as if they were in a vacuum and not a preamble to aircraft carriers, narcoterrorism and other JSOC responsibilities, and possibly nuclear warheads, or less commonly, explicitly genocidal actions.

Right, so you meant that South Africa disagreeing with the ongoing genocide in Palestine in which the US is a main offender amounts to sabotage of diplomatic relations. As for refusing to "negotiate [...] about tariffs", why would anyone? If I punch you in the face, shoot a kid in the face, and then tell you to sit down by a table and negotiate how much you should pay me for that service, would you sit down and act as if I'm a reasonable, rational actor?

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#717

Post by simianparrot »

somenameforme wrote: post #704
simianparrot wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sanctions are not war crimes by any definition. I am fully aware of the US' history in the middle east, as well Europe's role and my own country within Europe. But that doesn't mean we should accept this kind of rhetoric from enemy states. If you go down this rabbit hole of "historical rights", where does it end? The truth it it never ends. You go far enough back and we're all the assholes. So all we can do is move f…

This doesn't require any lengthy history. We're still killing Iranians regularly and pretty much arbitrarily, as well as backing Israel doing the same in a borderline psychotic fashion. And you're here fear mongering about them saying 'Death to America' which is pretty much the equivalent of waving a stick at somebody after they just burnt down your house with your family in it.

And Iran has waged proxy wars on Americans, civilians and military personnel alike, for four decades.

The countries are at war. It's just not kinetic, ie. with troops on the battlefield. That is reality. I know it sucks, but you can't expect the US to just let the threat be. It's not like US is alone in wanting to suppress Iran's threat anyway; you can blame most European countries for aiding in that suppression.

I won't get into the religious underpinnings but they are significant. This isn't resolved by the US just letting Iran be.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#718

Post by deanishe »

smcl wrote: post #325
drstewart wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it interesting? I thought the common people aren't responsible for the actions of their government?

From our perspective common people aren't responsible. But from the perspective of the person who wrote the "your decision to arm Russia" on their website it is. So what is interesting is that this person is fully able to assign blame to individual Iranians for their government's actions but, one would imagine, is able to separate themselves from the actions of the US government. I wrote "one would imagine" because t…

There's a certain irony in holding North Koreans or Chinese responsible for their governments' actions, but denying any responsibility for your own democratically-elected government's.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#719

Post by lazide »

dh2022 wrote: post #634
lazide wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia lost (in a real sense), when their blitzkrieg of Kiev failed. From that point on, it’s just how much they turn the crank on the meat grinder that is trench warfare. It’s the nature of the bet that is inherent in Blitzkrieg. Ukraine/Russia is about who is going to lose more after that, not who can win. No one can win anymore. Sanctions or lack thereof definitely impacts quality of life, but Putin put everything…

How can Russia be economically stronger under sanctions? Before the war they were able to manufacture some goods (Volkswagen had a couple of factories. I think Unilever was making some washers/ dryers). This is all replaced by manufacturing of some weapons (which proven themselves so shitty in the war that no outside buyers want to buy them). Russia went from selling their oil on the world market at competitive price…

It depends entirely on what you mean by ‘strength’, and ‘better’. Russia is ramping up its military industrial complex like no one’s business, for instance.

Manufacturing in general, actually.

Something which had essentially collapsed previously. Also, mining and other resource extraction - they’re necessarily rebuilding domestic production and becoming more independent.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#720

Post by johnisgood »

breppp wrote: post #702
figmert wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi I'm Kurdish. I'm 100% aware, heck my mother still cries in front of me remembein some of the horrors she saw. I'm also aware that we, the Kurds, have arguably benefited the most from that war. But that does not negate the fact that the US lied about Saddam having WMDs.

A New York Times investigation by C.J. Chivers revealed that the dismantlement of Iraq’s CW program was not as clear-cut as originally thought. The investigation revealed that approximately 5,000 chemical warheads, shells, or aviation bombs were recovered following the 2003 Iraq war. [15] Although all of these munitions were produced before 1991, they did pose serious hazards; at least 17 American soldiers and seven…

Gotta save face so they could say the war was justified. No news here. I will never know the truth, and nor will you.
Post reply on HN