I know athletes that would have competed for the USA in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow - which the US boycotted to protest Russia's invasion of Afghanistan. They always wonder "what if I had a chance to compete", and rue their missed opportunity, and also didn't like being used as political pawns. I'm sure it further salts their wounds that the US military was in Afghanistan a few decades later.... As much as possible, let's keep international politics and sports separate. Many use sports as an alternate escape/entertainment from the everyday world - I've seen very little good coming from mixing sports and international politics. For me, sports should be, and is, a rare way to pull separate peoples/countries together through commonality - Sports should not be another excuse amongst the hundreds of other common ones to further pull nations apart.
Ridiculous. I hope the mods move this to the politics board. @bungadiri @Friedel'sAccent Does this thread belong here? This is a politics thread disguised as a sports thread.
The problem is, once you start here, where do you draw the line? How many deaths, from how long ago, with what level of proof, from what causes (e.g. the environment in China has killed way more people then were on MH-17, maybe someone is against Capital Punishment in the USA) would merit moving a sports event out of a country? Qatar might be different because the reported exploitation of workers is a "direct consequence" of building stadiums for FIFA's World Cup. But if you start trying to morally rationalize a WC host site beyond that.... Do you want to set up FIFA (one of the most corrupt organizations around) as the "arbiter" of which country is "good/moral" enough to host a tournament? No thank you.
We shall fight for your right to have babies brother, even though you don't have a womb and that's no one's fault not even the Russians.
Well the incident was inside of four years from the date of the WC. The downing of MH-17 was a pretty heinous act. The Russians had to be involved. Capital Punishment (which I am against) is a policy. MH-17 was an action. Interesting.
Difference was the USS Vincennes was under attack in the Strait of Hormuz from four Iranian war boats. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/flight801/stories/july88crash.htm IR 655 repeatedly ignored requests from the US ship to change course.
I'm sure Russia will have similar excuses regarding MH17. I also suggest you do a bit more research on IR655 past a day-later press report that seems largely to be the an attempt at damage limitation by a Reagan Administration official.
That's an assumption. I wouldn't believe everything our media says. There's reports internationally suggesting it was Russian rebels and also reports suggesting the missile was fired from inside Ukraine and it was rebels or soldiers dressed as Ukrainian military who did it. Our government has said there's no evidence at this point linking Russia to the attack. We're at least partly responsible as the initial separatists in Ukraine were backed by American and EU interests. It's far more complicated than Russia did it. We have a long and rich history of pushing to destabilize and overthrow regimes. It's not like the US hasn't committed heinous acts ourselves where innocents are killed. Should we be boycotted too?
Russia boycotted the Olympics in 1984. Anyone can boycott anyone. Maybe the mobile missile launcher going back to Russia minus two missiles? The Ambassador to the UN for the US has been pretty forceful. From what I have gleaned most experts agree that Russian rebels in the Ukraine would have needed help to launch those rockets. Interesting.
Really, it's not hard to find info on IR655 that's rather more "complete" than those day-later quotes of that Reagan Administration official. If the US wants to boycott, I'm sure there are plenty of other countries that will happily take their place.
They quoted President Reagan and the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. Two guys pretty high up in the food chain. Your argument. The burden of proof is on you. Maybe the US, the Netherlands and other European countries withdraw and have their own tournament?
Well, I expect that from the UN ambassador, there's pro-Ukraine/EU and anti-Russian interests here. Ukraine is very valuable given its location. Our media came out blaming Russia about as soon as the plane went down, absence of evidence. They've since had to backtrack and say there's no direct evidence linking Russia but they created the situation. There's an agenda here. Does it mean Russia is innocent? Of course not. But we need some tangible evidence and a greater understanding that both sides are at fault for how things have gone. What I find most interesting is if there's clear evidence Russia did it, then why haven't the satellite images been released? There's more to this than meets the eye.