Geopolitics around major sports events

[prasen9]

Yes, not all ratings are sound or accurate. They reflect the biases of the designer and some are corrupt. We must look into the basis for these numbers. But, at least, these are some efforts to measure things. Things that are incredibly hard to measure. I am sure if you run these surveys with different base assumptions the numbers could look significantly different.

[Kumar]

Do u all think Putin will survive? If he isdethroned, would it make a difference or it will be case ofanother Putin like person taking over? That wagner guy seems to be more corrupt than Putin

[jayakris]

This is all looking very murky right now, in Russia. Is the Russian military this much in disarray? It is hard to believe that an outsourced military outfit can challenge the Russian military. Yes, the Wagner guy seems worse than Putin. I think Putin can survive this, but I think he will have to end the Ukraine war and basically accept being less powerful in optics and reality. If he is not willing to do that, then this will be an all out civil war or something in Russia because there are a lot of people in Russia unhappy with Putin now.

[jayakris]

Looks like Prigozhin has just announced a halt to the march to Moscow, and will turn his mercenary troops around to go back to the border. Deal brokered by Belarus, it seems. So, no immediate coup or anything in Russia. So it seems for now.

[Saffron Lenin]

Looks like Prigozhin has just announced a halt to the march to Moscow, and will turn his mercenary troops around to go back to the border. Deal brokered by Belarus, it seems. So, no immediate coup or anything in Russia. So it seems for now.

That 's very good news...

[srini]

I think western media mis read the scale of mutiny and in the process influenced people who consume only it and no other sources into assuming it would result in a change of guard for Russia or that Ukraine war would end. Some Indian media got it correct right from the beginning ,one of the military analysts in a TV show here was mentioning this thing will fizzle out. The hypocritic western media in the meantime started calling some of the Wagner forces as "Liberators", mind you the same media called it mercenaries for entire course of war. I am calling that media hypocrite because, it never retrospected enough on what was done in colonial rule. World is witnessing Wagner mercenaries only now, but India saw all this 300 years back. East India company which started as spice trade "merchants" ultimately ended up as "mercenaries" by providing cannons and cavalry to Indian Kings, acquiring territories, making decisions to wage wars or create peace deals. So i ask, "Is British Raj" not the 1st mercenary that world ever saw in its "Merchant-to-Mercenary" transformation? Show me one reference in western media which called its own "East India Company" as mercenaries. No they would be called reformers who risked their lives to proselytize the pagans who were rotting in their superstitions. Well i agree Indian society had its share of evils like Sati but "Middle ages" is not exactly a Utopian era and whole world including Western world had rotted with its own share of practices like slave trade in that time.

Now there is more to this Wagner mutiny than you may ever suspect! Last month i chanced on a CNN news stating that the accounting error of 3 billion on Ukrainian aid (as they would call it), was revised to 6.2 billion. The timing of the news (June 20th) makes me suspect the so called "Accounting error in Ukrainian aid" is meant to fund the Wagner rebellion. The final result is Putin and Prigozhin have an understanding and use all that US direct transfer of 6.2 B against Ukraine. There goes all your Tax payer money for a toss. Now if you ask me to provide references to any independent organization findings on it i can't...you just have to connect the dots using common sense. Unfortunately democracies can also go rogue and US is one such government that i suspect which has been involving itself in many acts of wars, inciting coups in foreign countries that it considers as enemy and acts of sabotage like "Nord stream blow up" which can increase dependency of European nations on USA. That's why i think democracy (which is just a few people representing a lot) is too outdated form of governance not suiting current needs of world which can actually bring in a new way of governance with direct participation from people by means of technology. But this requires independent organizations/watch dogs which can monitor such nefarious activities of democratic governments and bring them to book. Wikileaks did just that and we all know how Julian Assange is being persecuted by the so called "Beacon of Free world" USA on espionage charges. "Espionage"...any takers for that? Is he spying representing another country? that is the question to be put to those "Free world" hypocrites!

[prasen9]

The question really is: How do we do more of the direct democracy stuff? Decision-making by committee does not work. We need to get as much transparency as we can. The U.S. is not a democracy, btw, it is a republic. The Senate is undemocratic by design violating the one person one vote. The states also decide on whom to send to Congress and can decide to do that by voting in their state legislatures instead of direct democracy. There are various shades of democracy. Anyway, transparency is orthogonal to democracy. The U.S. media is only partially free and the democracy is only partially democratic. But, maybe we need to again move these somewhere else if there is a suitable thread. Maybe into the politics thread since Srini's response and my addendum ... actually, going back several posts ... do not really talk about sporting events per se.

[srini]

Here is a recent update (on 13th July) from IOC detailing its deliberations on this ban of athletes. IOC as it always did wants to be seen as taking middle ground between the Russian and Ukrainian sides.

It shows as evidence by citing the actions it took of moving the sports events for example like in Fencing "European Fencing championship was moved from Poland to Bulgaria because the Polish government had interfered in the autonomy of sport by refusing to issue visas for individual neutral athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports".

I tend to disagree. The action IOC took is just not enough and is "loads of hogwash". Why couldn't it just suspend the recognition for the Polish Fencing federation apart from moving the event to another country since the country is rejecting visas to neutral Russian and Belarussian athletes?

IOC is not planning to send invitations to federations from Russia and Belarus on July26th. I would not have questioned its decision and its neutrality if IOC has also not extended Olympics invitations to US, UK, Australia and Poland which invaded Iraq illegally in 2003 which didn't have UN sanctioned approval and this was just one year prior to 2004 Olympics at Athens.

[prasen9]

IOC is captured by the West.

Having said that, I would not want the Polish federation to suffer for the policies of its government. I also do not want Russian or Belarussian athletes to suffer due to the ills of their government.

I want these athletes to represent themselves in the Olympics not the Russian federation. I would want the same if the U.S. invades Country X in the future. And, would have been fine with the same during Iraq invasion, etc.

In essence, I do not want individuals punished due to the sins of the countries. And, I do not believe in strong nationalism anyway. So, I find it troubling when the IOC limits participant by country. I would rather have the top X players by ranking play in any sport. Not all this country quota business.

Wherever possible, I want open borders. Implemented in a controlled fashion, meaning abrupt opening of borders will create a lot of movement and upheaval and receipient countries may not be able to cope. So, controlled.

[srini]

Yep, i agree with you that no athletes should suffer for their country's actions. But you said you wanted the athletes of USA to represent themselves even when US invaded Iraq in the past or in future invades X country. But there is more granularity to that on which i ask clarification... Are you okay to let these athletes represent their country USA (even if it wages illegal wars) or are you okay to ONLY let neutral athletes from USA who sign they don't support they country USA's illegal wars and US flag is not raised when they make it to podium?

[prasen9]

Yep, i agree with you that no athletes should suffer for their country's actions. But you said you wanted the athletes of USA to represent themselves even when US invaded Iraq in the past or in future invades X country. But there is more granularity to that on which i ask clarification... Are you okay to let these athletes represent their country USA (even if it wages illegal wars) or are you okay to ONLY let neutral athletes from USA who sign they don't support they country USA's illegal wars and US flag is not raised when they make it to podium?

The athlete will represent the IOC and there will be no flag. Those are my terms. Take it or leave it. No country flag or anthem. Wrt signing a document denouncing the war, it is a very difficult question. Regimes across the board will prosecute such athletes. If I want to go back to Mars, I need so make sure that the Sultan of Mars will not put me to the guillotine. Or my parents if I seek asylum. So, it is not that easy. I will not want them to sign a document denouncing the war.

You participate as yourself under IOC flag. This would not be available to anyone who has supported wars publicly. In that case, they have to denounce their past statements.

I would allow this for teams to but they will be called IOC_Apolitical-Team-1, etc.

[srini]

I would agree 100% with everything you said, but i guess we both know that athletes from US being asked to compete under IOC flag has never happened in the past(including in 1948 just 3 years after US dropped 2 atom bombs) and will not happen anytime in the future, just because US has become smarter in giving reasons that befits its narratives. The reason given in 1945 was the continued war would have taken more lives than the atom bombs took...US can get away with such wild reasons because in any war only immediate causalities are counted with no consideration for radiation induced cancers, birth defects or all other health hazards faced by survivors.

I think democracies(including the partial democracies called republics or the most democratic ones on democracy index from Nordic nations which are now vying to be part of NATO) do not seem to be acting in the interests of the people of those countries also. For example the only beneficiaries from US aid for Ukraine war are the defense companies located in US, not the general US population or the tax payers. Democracies do take care of their lobby better than the people they represent. I personally saw the general population in US was not for war, anti war rallies were led by American students back in 2003 in the US university i studied, they didn't want to be perceived as supporters of invasion by foreign students like me.

btw, Polish federation being banned for not granting visa to Russian athletes has nothing to do with Polish athletes suffering anything right? They can still compete under IOC flag...isn't it?

[prasen9]

Well they can. But, in this case, the government of Poland is responsible and not the Polish federation per se. The Polish government is within its rights not to grant visas. The IOC shoudl respond by simply moving the event out of Poland. No sanctions on any federation.

[srini]

Rejecting Visas for an individuals is prerogative of governments. But a blanket ban on all athletes from a county sounds racial and discriminatory in my mind...If IOC has no problem with that and thinks such discriminatory measures are well with in its charter, then God help but IOC has gone the extra mile in the past when it came to banning and moving any planned Olympic events to be held in India when Indian embassy rejected Visa of Pak shooters (in the aftermath of Pulwama if i remember right!) . Now can IOC at least do that for Poland? Poland didn't suffer any terrorist attack from Russia like India was affected in Pulwama incident. So just can 't we expect IOC to say that "We are planning to move out any future Olympic events from Poland"...Its a different thing if they actually follow up and do it. But fact of matter is IOC is not neutral but they would like to be seen as taking middle ground..Hypocrites!

[prasen9]

No, what I said was the IOC should move the event and in the future not grant events to that country until it changes its policy.

I agree fully that IOC is not neutral. I just want proportional retaliation.