7.7 million people have left the country since Maduro came to power, the largest refugee crisis in the Americas. Polls show that in a free and fair election, Maduro would have struggled to stay in the double digits. Colectivos actively worked to interrupt the opposition’s recent primary election via armed disruption of voting. Whatever that book is basing its research on, Maduro simply no longer represents the vast majority of Venezuelans and the Venezuelan diaspora.

I wonder what changed in the last 8 years.

The video shows easily hundreds, and it’s clear there is a larger crowd behind them.

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There’s a reason that countries started agreeing on a set of laws of war, and it wasn’t the goodness of their hearts. It means if your own soldiers get captured by an enemy working under the same rules, they should ideally be treated with at least a minimal standard of care. But every incident like this or Abu Ghraib weakens those protections and norms.

Sometimes it feels like certain parts of humanity just didn’t really learn all the lessons that they should have from the Holocaust about dehumanizing people.

Oh? Do you know details on how it’s going to work? All I can find is the BRICS Pay site with a very high level overview. They’re talking a big game, but as of now all that seems to be public is just talk.

Mission Accomplished!

There are lots of details left to hammer out. This is like an announcement that there will be a committee to commission a study to hire a contractor to change a light bulb. The process will likely take a while and may not complete at all.

No, they were harassing them just for being friendly with the West. Exiting the Russian sphere of influence, not joining NATO, was the cardinal sin.

Did you miss the bit where Russia kept harassing Georgia? It was going to invade sooner or later. Russia likes its former imperial conquests to be kept under its thumb.

The August 2008 invasion of Georgia was just the culmination of years of Russian provocations towards Georgia. Georgia’s leaders knew Russia was itching for a fight. As for Ukraine, many Ukrainians realized that if they ever adopted a more pro-Western stance then Russia would invade. I’ve heard one account of Ukrainians fighting in the Georgia-Russia War because “we’re next.”

They could have waited or tried to make a deal with the new government. They did neither and immediately invaded without making an attempt at an arrangement.

Why did Russia invade Georgia?

Are you trying to get me to say NATO? Because that conflict far predates NATO involvement.

Bullshit. Crimea was invaded mere days after the change of power in 2014, far before anyone of note was seriously talking about Ukraine joining NATO. Support for separatists elsewhere soon followed. It was about Russia exerting a “sphere of influence” that it felt entitled to. The Russian leadership can’t seem to get that countries are joining NATO because of Russian imperialism, past and present.

I’m going to say the same thing that I said about the Polish incident. That incident only happened because Russia chose to attack Ukraine in an area directly bordering on another country. Izmail is also right across the border. I’ll wait on more dependable sources for an investigation, and I’m certainly not agitating for an escalation on NATO’s side. At the same time, if Russia’s bombing campaign ultimately results in foreseeable casualties outside of the country, I put the blame on Russia. Ukraine has the right to defend itself.

Hong Kong was always going to happen because that was an agreed upon conclusion. China violated promises that it made (one country, two systems my ass), but Hong Kong was a part China. Taiwan has never been under the control of the current government of mainland China. At this point Taiwan would likely be a separate country if it didn’t have China’s dagger at its throat telling it that even a breath of declaring independence will result in immediate invasion.

Yeah, it was super fucked.

Nazi Germany, we pass law, now super safe for Jews!

Blahaj cannot speak, therefore Blahaj cannot give consent.

Why you torture blahaj?

And the Tories were coming in for criticism for it. They basically did a run around the courts, which previously told them in no uncertain terms that Rwanda did not qualify as a safe country for asylum seekers.

Why do you list these three, they didn’t govern under democracies? Saddam wasn’t operating under a democracy at all, besides a couple of fake elections. Gaddafi had some elements of a democracy, but most power was in his hands with no way to vote him out. Sankara rule started in a coup (or revolution if that’s how you want it) and was ended in a coup when he was assassinated.