I still don't think its accurate to say planes with age greater than 10 years undergo "many many many major overhauls, to include electronics"

United's 777's were mostly delivered between 1995-2000 and I bet the only major electronics upgrades were to the passenger entertainment systems.

https://sites.google.com/site/unitedfleetsite/mainline-fleet-tracking

That's the point, isn't it? Hopefully citizens in those countries will wish that they weren't embargoed and put pressure on their government to change.

I understand that not everyplace has a representative democracy with regular, free elections like the US, but except for the worst dictatorships that rule by force, the government must remain popular with the people!

I second that.
I learned on regular Basic...I know they are an anachronism but line numbers really helped me - they help bring some order into a bizarre coding universe. GOTO 100 is pretty easy to understand...and once you "get it", getting rid of line numbers in favor of subroutines, etc. is not too tough.