this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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It's true, there are significant differences. One is a response to ethnic cleansing and NATO expansion,while the other is a genocidal regime invading its neighbour.
What ethnic cleansing? I'm asking this in good faith, I genuinely don't know who Ukrainians were trying to eliminate. I've vaguely heard that many Cossaks in Eastern Ukraine were pro-Russia because they'd let them have more autonomy, is that what this is about?
Ukraine consists of a number of different ethnic groups. The eastern part of Ukraine used to be Russia before the revolution, and is largely populated by ethnic Russians. After the 2014 coup, eastern parts of Ukraine rebelled and it's been in a civil war ever since. The slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 provide a good background. First, here's the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
here's how the election in 2004 went:
this is the 2010 election:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:
The civil war has been going on for the 8 years since the coup, and the goal of subjugating the people of Donbass has been openly stated by the regime. For example, here's Poroshenko saying openly saying that the goal was to terrorize the people into submission. Here's a clip of CNN reporting on the regime attacking civilians. There's also a whole documentary with lots of interviews of civilians.
In 2022, LPR and DPR appealed to Russia to intervene, and that's how the current war started. Incidentally, it's pretty much modelled on how NATO invaded Yugoslavia when they recognized the autonomy of the separatist regions and intervened on their behalf.
mh .. that almost sounds like two different things ...
didn't russia promise ukraines independence?
Ukraine had independence until the west overthrew their democratically elected government in a violent neofascist coup.
Didn't Israel promise a bunch of similar things to Palestine?
They're liars
yes, Israel is a bad state and russia is also a bad state
They still do, if the rest of the original treaty is upheld.
and what might that rest be? because I'm not interested in hearing some whining about ukraine buying weapons from the west or some shit, nato didn't expand into ukraine or something and even if they did it wouldn't be russias decision to make
and what might that rest be? because I'm not interested in hearing some whining about ukraine buying weapons from the west or some shit, nato didn't expand into ukraine or something and even if they did it wouldn't be russias decision to make
Oh there's ethnic cleansing happening all right...
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/russia-ukraine-a-decade-of-suppressing-non-russian-identities-in-occupied-crimea/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_in_Donbas?wprov=sfla1
now do Ukraine 🤡
no, you should do it, because ukraine didn't invade russia
You're right, Ukraine was just doing some light ethnic cleansing in Donbas that the west was cheering on. At least you lot are consistent in your support for ethnic cleansing and genocide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_in_Donbas?wprov=sfla1
I love it how people still trot our wikipedia as a source of truth, go read at the sources I've provided in this thread
The Wikipedia article is a summary of many cited sources. There's academic ones like The Journal of Genocidal Research. There's a UN report from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. There's news reports from Reuters and the BBC. There's a report from the International Court. Though I'm sure you checked the sources before dismissing the article out of hand.
No one is saying that there was zero conflict in Donbas leading up to the invasion. But to label it as "ethnic cleansing" without even acknowledging that this claim is widely disputed internationally is at best irresponsible and at worst deceptive
Buddy, they weren't even hiding it. Here's Poroshenko saying precisely what the goal was. If you had a shred of integrity you'd be deeply ashamed of trying to white wash this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWHqj8g7Bk
Buddy, what he said was reprehensible and I am not trying to defend his actions or statements. But does it meet the standard of "ethnic cleansing?" The International Court and most of the world says no.
Trying to eradicate culture, use of language, and subjugate a population certainly does meet the intent. The fact that they weren't able to do it the way Israel is doing in Palestine is entirely due to the fact that LPR and DPR manage to mount effective resistance.
You're free to form a different opinion. But when yours is different than the majority of the world's and the International Court, but won't even admit that yours might be the hot take, it's not a good look
It's not different from majority of the world, it's different from 13% of the population in western nations who are using Ukraine to fight a proxy war with Russia. What's not a good look is pretending what everybody can see is happening isn't what it is.
The International Court of Justice does not just represent the West, it represents all UN countries. And while it did find evidence of human rights abuse it did not find evidence of genocide, because that is a high bar.
Furthermore, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, representing 300 genocide experts, condemned Russia's use of the term to justify its own violence, as cited here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2022.2099633?scroll=top&needAccess=true
Again, the intent is very clear and indisputable. The only reason it's not a full on genocide the way it is in Gaza is because Ukraine lacked the means to follow through. Meanwhile, it's funny how these same genocide experts never condemned the US for making completely unfounded genocide claims against China.
they're not completely unfounded
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China
Yes, they absolutely are. The whole conspiracy theory started with a claim of millions of Uyghurs being supposedly imprisoned story is based on two highly dubious “studies.”.
However, this claim is completely absurd when you stop and think about it even for a minute. That figure 1 million is repeated again and again. Let's just look at how much space would you actually need to intern one million people.
This is a photo of Rikers Island, New York City's biggest prison. The actual size of a facility interning ten thousand people.
According to Wikipedia, "The average daily inmate population on the island is about 10,000, although it can hold a maximum of 15,000." Let's assume this is a Xinjiang detention camp, holding ten to fifteen thousand people. How many of these would it take to hold one million people?
Let's do some math:
In reality, one million people would probably take more space; all the supposed detention camps we see are much less dense than Rikers.
For comparison, San Francisco is 47 square miles. Amsterdam is 64 square miles. You'd literally need detention camps that total the size of San Francisco or Amsterdam to intern one million Uyghurs. It'd be like looking at a map of California. There's Los Angeles. There's San Diego. And look, there's San Francisco Concentration City with its one million Uyghurs.
Literally visible to the naked eye from space.
CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, but their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals. Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million, CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that “at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.” Furthermore, it doesn't even make sense from logistics perspective.
Practically all the stories we see about China trace back to Adrian Zenz is a far right fundamentalist nutcase and not a reliable source for any sort of information. The fact that he's the primary source for practically every article in western media demonstrates precisely what I'm talking about when I say that coverage is divorced from reality.
Zenz is a born-again Christian who lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible to be the ultimate foundation and the final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.”
Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it's clear that the methodology of his "research" doesn't pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
It's also worth noting that there is a political angle around the narrative around Xinjiang. For example, here's George Bush's chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED recently admitting to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here's an excerpt:
US has been stoking terrorism in the region while they've been running a propaganda campaign against China in the west. In fact, US even classified Uyghur separatists as a terrorist group at one point https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-was-at-war-uyghur-terrorists-now-claims-etim-doesnt-exist/276916/
Here's an interview with a son of imam killed in Xinjiang https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-19/Son-of-imam-assassinated-in-Kashgar-s-2014-mosque-attack-speaks-out-RqNiyrcRuo/index.html
Here's an account from a Pakistani journalist who has been all over Xinjiang (which borders Pakistan) claims that western media reports on "atrocities" are lies. https://dailytimes.com.pk/723317/exposing-the-occidents-baseless-lies-about-xinjiang/
It's also worth noting that the accusations originate entirely from the west while Muslim majority countries support China, and their leaders have visited Xinjiang many times.
Also notable that whenever western media actually deigns to visit Xinjiang, which is not often, they're unable to produce support for any of their claims of mass imprisonment and oppression, so they opt for insinuations instead https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-china-health-travel-7a6967f335f97ca868cc618ea84b98b9
There's a further list of debunking here if you're interested https://redsails.org/the-xinjiang-atrocity-propaganda-blitz/
The whole thing is very clearly a propaganda blitz that US is cynically using to manipulate impressionable people in the west.
Lol, Wikipedia as a source
wikipedia is a summary of multiple sources, just pick one of the listed sources and complain about it
Ok.
Lol, Adrian Zenz as a source
Lol
I'm sorry that well documented facts upset you NAFO
would you mind showing me some credible sources?
already have in this very thread