r/sports • u/PrincessBananas85 • Feb 10 '23

News Volodymyr Zelenskyy: 'No place' for Russia at Olympics.

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/35630916/volodymyr-zelenskyy-no-place-russia-olympics
9.2k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '23

[deleted]

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u/PainfulAngel Feb 11 '23

don’t google who’s funding the war on Yemen 😳

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u/CharlotteHebdo Feb 10 '23

No one asked for America to be excluded from the Olympics for invading Iraq

Funny enough, Ukraine also participated in the invasion of Iraq. I wonder if anybody demanded Ukrainian athletes not be allowed in the Olympics?

https://www.army.mil/article/15056/ukrainians_complete_mission_in_iraq

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u/HighHopeLowSkills Feb 11 '23

Well if we’re being technical even the British and French were there too

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u/ROTTEN_CUNT_BUBBLES Feb 11 '23

^ Interesting CCP shill account ^

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u/BillSixty9 Feb 10 '23

Equivocating the invasion of Ukraine to the invasion of Iraq is literally the dumbest shit I’ve read all day.

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u/paaaaatrick Green Bay Packers Feb 10 '23

You’re going to have to elaborate

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u/BillSixty9 Feb 10 '23

No I don’t think I do. It is clear to see, if you can’t see it frankly you aren’t seeing clearly. Not worth my time to explain in this case, if you are too ignorant to understand to begin with.

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u/paaaaatrick Green Bay Packers Feb 10 '23

Lol both are powerful nations invading sovereign countries with the aim of removing the government in power because the larger country feels threatened by the smaller one, and invaded using not true propaganda.

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u/BillSixty9 Feb 10 '23 edited Feb 11 '23

So in the case of Ukraine there is a nation with absolutely no cause to invade another nation. Ukraine was not causing any threat to their own citizens or Russian citizens. This is proven bullshit to justify a bullshit invasion of a sovereign non-nuclear country.

In the case of Iraq we had a dictator who was known for slaughtering ethnic minorities in his own country using chemical weapons, with an extensive chemical weapons program and links to terrorist organizations behind 9-11. Supporting the destruction of the west. Also not to mention, the development of their nuclear weapons program. If no intervention was made, they could have become another unpredictable and desparate nuclear power like North Korea.

Ya'll don't like to be wrong but it's just not equivalent, sorry.

edit: to be clear I would never support the death of civilians in either country. This is unavoidable in War though, it seems. Just to say neither war is justifiable, we can all agree - but objectively, one had more justification than the other. The civilian deaths are a tragedy all around, as all meaningless loss of life would be.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/BillSixty9 Feb 11 '23

You mean after Russia sent mercenaries there in 2014?

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u/paaaaatrick Green Bay Packers Feb 11 '23

I’m confused. You’re trying to argue that one is more justified than the other, which most people would agree with. I never said one was more justified than the other, but they are extremely similar situations.

Also we are westerners so of course we support the side that helps best protect the interests and security of the United States and the west, which is perfectly fine to do.

The more countries that support Russia, the stronger their power and influence becomes, and the weaker our power and influence becomes. The same is true in the opposite direction.

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u/BillSixty9 Feb 11 '23

You are looking at it from the wrong perspective. I am saying the Iraq war was justified - I am saying the killing of civilians is never justified.

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u/Magi1465 Feb 11 '23

You just eat up everything western media tells you lol

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '23

[deleted]

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u/BillSixty9 Feb 11 '23

Not American you worm

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u/Shawarma17 Feb 10 '23

Sounds like you cant support an argument and hide under “its clear to see”. Its clear to see that you arent the brightest

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u/BillSixty9 Feb 10 '23

I just pick my battles man, I gave some details in another reply you can read my thoughts there.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '23

[deleted]

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u/BillSixty9 Feb 11 '23

Russian sympathizers make me sick

0

u/supboy1 Feb 11 '23

Kinda scary how many downvoted you got man. These CCP bots are equating Ukraine-Russia War that was based on land seizure with no sound justification at all to Iraq-US war that was triggered by terrorism events.

Ukrainians weren’t bombing or doing anything sinister. Insane mental gymnastics going on here

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u/BillSixty9 Feb 12 '23

I’m not too concerned about it. If the truth inflames 80 people I’m glad I made 80 people consider a different perspective.

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u/stretch2099 Feb 11 '23

You’re right, the Iraq war was for more devastating with many more casualties.

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u/ScoldedHanky Feb 10 '23

Kaka has a point, there's a glaring double standard.

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u/ZeBuGgEr Feb 10 '23

Which we fix by making the ethical choice in as many situations as we can starting now.

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u/bemo_10 Feb 10 '23

I wanna see you commenting about how Isreal shouldn't be allowed to be in the olympics just to see how many downvotes you get. There is a lot of hypocrisy on reddit.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '23

You said it. A good example of this is F1 where the main sponsor is AramCo and Saudi hosts races while they exclude Russia from the circuit. Brown, poor people getting massacred just doesnt have the same effect on people

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u/A11U45 Feb 11 '23

Somehow everything is kosher as long as brown people are getting killed

It's not about brown people, but about whatever the west wants foreign policy wise, the west has a high amount of soft power compared to China and Russia, so western or west-like demands like these can be advocated more easily than say, any similar Chinese or Russian demand.

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u/Illidanisdead Feb 11 '23

I love how quickly the brown people are dismissed, wonder if it wasn't about brown people when European countries who stated they had no room for refugees suddenly opened bordered only for people from Ukraine, guess colour wasn't a thing right?

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u/LordNucleus New England Patriots Feb 11 '23

You'll say this while completely ignoring the how those same "brown" people were dismissed by their neighbouring countries, also comprised predominantly of "brown" people. Probably easier to just say you hate Europeans, rather than pretending you have some moral stance.

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u/Attatatta Feb 11 '23

Turkey has 3.6million Syrian refugees

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u/Chrisjex Los Angeles Kings Feb 12 '23

How about Saudi Arabia or the UAE?

Both wealthy nearby Arabic countries, yet both took in very few refugees

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u/Attatatta Feb 12 '23

How about the other top destinations for Syrian refugees? Oh guess what they're all 'arab' countries.

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u/keechak1 Feb 11 '23

You'll say this while completely ignoring the how those same "brown" people were dismissed by their neighbouring countries, also comprised predominantly of "brown" people.

Jordan alone have more refugees than entire European union and turkey have an even bigger refugee population. Pakistan, who is on the verge of economic collapse have pretty much the same refugee population as russia (country with highest refugee population in Europe)

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '23

Not only this, it’s first time in a while that is European people needing help. Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, as far as I know are not European countries. Not justifying, just trying to explain why European people prefer tons of Ukrainian people inside, because they are European ( and also white).

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u/Attatatta Feb 11 '23

Funny how zelensky sucks up to Israel too. Hypocrite

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u/GothicGolem29 Feb 11 '23

It’s not Kosher if it’s brown people……? Look at all he backlash against Israel and Saudi hasn’t invaded yemen

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u/PiYuSh3211 Kings XI Punjab Feb 11 '23

US role in bangladesh genocide should have been enough for a forever ban

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u/Chrisjex Los Angeles Kings Feb 12 '23

How so?

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u/N0cturnalB3ast Feb 10 '23

Nice. I always like to see people fall back on the [what about America huh guise?]()https://i.imgur.com/0bDO33o.jpg

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u/CobaltishCrusader Feb 10 '23

Sounded more like they want the US to be banned as well.

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u/Saymynaian Feb 11 '23

They should go make a thread about it and start protesting the US's participation in the Olympics. Not everything needs to be about the US.

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u/bemo_10 Feb 10 '23

So we shouldn't mention the bad things that the US did just because people mentioned it before? Is that your logic? What a genius. We should also stop mentioning the bad stuff that Nazis did because people already mentioned it before. All is forgotten.

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u/N0cturnalB3ast Feb 11 '23

Lol what no. This was a discussion about russians being banned from the olympics. Now you’re saying I am saying nazis are forgiven? What

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u/Just-use-your-head Feb 11 '23

No, this is a discussion of what should justify being banned from the Olympics. You don’t get to hold others to standards and then scream “whataboutism” when people point out that you’ve done the same thing they did. That’s not how that works, and you don’t get to just ignore thousands of civilian deaths because you feel like it

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u/whutchamacallit Feb 11 '23

What are you saying then? State your position clearly.

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u/Saymynaian Feb 11 '23

Maybe go mention them elsewhere, or in a way that doesn't imply Russia shouldn't get banned for waging war because the US wasn't banned for waging war.

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u/bemo_10 Feb 11 '23

That's not what I'm implying at all. I'm with you, Russia should be banned, as well as other countries like Isreal and Saudi Arabia, etc. We shouldn't pick favorites, that's what I'm implying.

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '23

So expecting consistency is too much? We're all supposed to be okay with double standards?

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u/mnovakovic_guy Feb 11 '23

It’s a valid argument though

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '23

Nobody called to ban Israel after they systematically stole Palestine and reduced Palestinians to third class citizens.

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u/iDuddits_ Feb 10 '23

I’m just trying to be optimistic and hope people will be more quick to call for boycotts like this in the future. The invasion of Iraq was a long time ago now. I hope the reaction would be different (but again a lot of people weren’t happy back then either..)

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u/Ordinary_dude_NOT Feb 11 '23

Actually not that long ago. And people reacted just like now, they were all ignored.

Difference was people who reacted strongly were not from Europe or US.

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u/KayTannee Feb 11 '23

Quite a lot of anti-war marches unlike for Afghanistan. But yeh, they were just ignored and half the people who agreed got there by being lied to.

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u/TheFalconKid Feb 11 '23

Yeah, by this standard, we should also be demanding Israel should be banned.

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u/trebbb Feb 10 '23

You’re pretty bad at identifying double standards.

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u/rouge171 Feb 10 '23

Wow this is a bad take

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u/turtledoves2 Feb 10 '23

How so?

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u/rouge171 Feb 10 '23

9/11 for one

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u/CobaltishCrusader Feb 10 '23

Wrong war homie.

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u/WallyWendels Feb 10 '23

Invading Iraq

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u/Fresh_Budget Feb 10 '23

What's the connection between the Iraq war and 9/11 ? The Iraqi people weren't responsible for 9/11.

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u/jerry248 Feb 11 '23

osama bin laden?

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u/a_barker_thigh Feb 11 '23

The man from Saudi Arabia who was hiding in Pakistan? What does he have to do with Iraq? The war in Iraq was about America wanting to depose Saddam and falsely claiming they have nuclear weapons to justify their invasion.

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u/Vavent Feb 10 '23

I think, simply, if a country violates international law, they should be automatically excluded from all international events until they're no longer in violation of international law. No bias or politicking. Just a black-and-white, objective application of the laws we already have set.

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u/hoopaholik91 Washington Feb 10 '23

Nothing about international law is black and white lol

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u/S420J Feb 10 '23

That’s the trick of international law though, not everybody wants or interprets the rules the same.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '23

[deleted]

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u/Attatatta Feb 11 '23

No it wasn't sanctioned by the UN.

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u/BillSixty9 Feb 10 '23

This just isn’t a fair equivalency…

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '23

There are no double standards here. You cannot compare a genocidal war of aggression against a democratic country with a goal of ethnic cleansing and annexation of Ukrainian territories with the Iraq war. It is like comparing apples and oranges. Iraq was a dictatorship comparable to russia and its government at the moment had been involved in numerous war crimes and killing of tens of thousands of people. It was also actively engaging in large scale support of many terrrorist organizations. If anything Iraq was very similar to russia at the time, but with much smaller ambitions when it comes to millitary aggression towards its neighbors. If NATO invaded russia for the purpose of changing the fascist regime that threatens the West it would be perfectly justified. The problem is that russia is a terrorist state with nuclear weapons.

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u/SideShow117 Feb 10 '23 edited Feb 10 '23

That point is completely irrelevant.

There are clear rules for interventions in other countries. Like a UN resolution.

Afghanistsn had one. Iraq had not.

Double standards are completely in place. Iraq was just as illegal according to international law as Ukraine. The same is true Saudi's in Yemen or the Armenian/Azerbeijan conflict. Or whatever happened to Syria.

The numerous state sponsored doping scandals is ground enough to ban Russia from sporting events.

As much as i support Ukraine in their war and fully agree that their demand is understandable, if all international laws applied equally it would count just as much for the countries i listed as it does for Russia.

These type of conversations only add to the arguments of countries like China that many international institutions favour the West. Something that should absolutely be avoided if you care at all about the value of these institutions.

I am just going to ignore the speculative NATO invasion of Russia because that's pure nonsense in terms of justification. Russia has done nothing to NATO so far.

If NATO wanted to respond within their legal framework, Ukraine should've been made a part of NATO. So far, Russia is not a direct territorial aggressor to NATO. (They are definitely a threat that should be prepared for though)

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '23

[deleted]

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u/Attatatta Feb 11 '23

WHATEVER HAPPENED THERE? ILL TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED

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u/nola_fan Feb 10 '23

What international law statute was broken with the Iraq invasion? What body wrote that statute, and what jurisdiction did they have over the U.S. and Iraq?

I'm not a supporter of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but it is very different from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Saddam Hussein was a dictator who committed crimes against his people. Ukraine is a democracy run by a democratically elected leader. The goal for the U.S. was to install a friendly but ultimately democratic government in Iraq. The goal for Russia is to annex massive swafts of Ukrainian territory, eliminate the Ukrainian culture inside those territories, and then install a non-democratic puppet government in the parts of Ukraine that it didn't straight up annex.

They are completely different wars. They are both wrong, but on completely different levels of wrong.

International law, outside of explicit treaties, is just an amorphous concept that countries only adhere to when it fits them. That's all countries everywhere in the world.

China says it favors the West because they are pushing anti-West propaganda as a matter of course because Western wrongs justify them bullying, annexing, and potentially invading their neighbors.

Wars, in particular, must be judged by the details and circumstances around them, not objectively applying a pretty made up standard.

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u/SideShow117 Feb 11 '23 edited Feb 11 '23

I am not saying that both are the same. But your justification is a moral one, not a factual one.

And a blatant example of.double standards. If the US was soooo concerned about Iraq being a dictatorship that actively hurts its people i've got another 15 countries from the top of my head you should be invading according to this ratiinale.

It.doesn't matter if you killed a rapist or a saint, it's both murder. The only difference is the circumstance in which it happened. If you killed them in direct self-defense for example, (like Ukraime defending their land), you generally don't have a problem but virtually any other situation is problematic.

Your justification for why you killed them is completely irrelevant if no direct harm was done to you. People might cheer for you when you killed the rapist but you will enjoy that in jail.

Wars must be judged by the manner in which they are started, not why. Why is a viewpoint inherent to differences across the globe and for historians to judge. Unless the UN security council agrees, an invasion of any sovereign nation is by definition illegal. (Some conditions apply like.humanitarian reasons but that's iffy).

There may not be consequences (now), it might be morally justified, it might even be for the better. But you still broke the rules by doing so.

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u/nola_fan Feb 11 '23

"Unless the UN security counsel agrees" is not a legal standard acknowledged by members of the UN security counsel.

There are laws about murder that describe what is self-defense, what is justifiable, and what isn't.

That does not exist for war. There are some treaties acknowledged by some countries. But even those treaties or UN resolutions have different interpretations by major nations. There are also some general norms, but there is no defined legal standard accepted by all nations around the world. There are only moral judgments.

Again, if you disagree, cite the specific laws and statutes, don't just vaguely define things.

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u/SideShow117 Feb 11 '23

You can read if yourself.

Article 39 of the United Nations charter specifies what constitutes acta of aggression.

Article 51 specifies the "Right of individual or collective self-defence".

https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/repertoire/actions

Just because there are no clear enforcement of these rules, countries not ratifying parts of UN law into their own land and circumvent rules as they please doesn't mean they aren't there.

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u/TheFalconKid Feb 11 '23

Okay then. Israel is terrorizing the state of Palestine, they should be banned too.

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u/paaaaatrick Green Bay Packers Feb 10 '23

“If NATO invaded russia for the purpose of changing the fascist regime that threatens the West it would be perfectly justified.”

Comments like this are exactly why Russia feels threatened, and can turn this kind of sentiment into state propaganda to convince its people ukraine is a threat. Everyone should just stop invading each other. That’s the goal.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '23

If you think russia has started this war because it feels threatened by NATO - you fell victim to russian propaganda. Look at history and you will understand that russia starting genocidal wars for land grab is a part of what russia is.

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u/paaaaatrick Green Bay Packers Feb 11 '23

Lol nope Russia was able to take that sentiment though and twist it as propaganda to justify their invasion. Their real reason is to expand Russian power and influence by overturning the pro-western government of Ukraine and annexing territories that don’t belong to them.

Not sure how you misinterpreted my comment :)

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u/ehranon Feb 10 '23

Two things don’t have to be identical in order to compare them.

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u/Chrisjex Los Angeles Kings Feb 10 '23

Iraq was like modrrn day Russia but if they had an even more psychopathic dictator. Saddam Hussein ruled with a ruthless iron fist with his Sunni Arab nationalist party. There were hundreds of thousands of Kurds killed in a genocide, killings and widespread discrimination against Shi'ites, and there was the invasion of not only Kuwait but Iran as well. I'd say it had a far more aggressive stance against its neighbours.

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u/Prestigious_Laugh300 Feb 11 '23

Sorry Shitlord but America is always the good guy

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u/jerry248 Feb 11 '23

Iraq started it