4.5 Million but yeah, glad that the USA and the UK got sanctioned after leading such a genocidal war. This restores my faith in the rules based order.
Sorry, you're right. In the absence of specific genocidal intent, the US and UK are only guilty of crimes against humanity, the crime of aggression, and various sundry war crimes.
Yes, correct. Now Saddam Hussein on the other hand..
Edit: oh you're one of the hexbear people, jesus you people are insufferable
I agree with you and you resort to whataboutism in response. Somehow I'm the insufferable one?
Yikes.
Literally justifying the Iraq war while acting like we're the assholes here, right
Saddam Hussein didn't literally genocide kurdish people? Not saying that justifies a country halfway across the world to brutally occupy them, but it's not like that didn't happen.
Holy fucking shit.
After hand wringing the word in context of the US killing millions of people.
And we're insufferable.
In the former instance there was an actual concerted effort to specifically murder people of a certain minority. In the latter there was a misguided attempt to squash an insurgency and build a new government at all costs. This is documented history and I can only assume you've been drooling on some communist furry subs for the past decade and just left adolescence. You can't just change word's definitions for your own childish deranged goals.
The fucking nerve of you to invoke the idea of 'documented history' when you're as ignorant as a fucking toddler about that very history is absolutely fucking infuriating. And for someone who puts so much goddamned effort into your affectation of intelligence you have absolutely no fucking critical thinking. The US, this hapless buffoon of a country. Accidentally murdering several million people over the course of three decades. Whoopsie! I deleted the only pharmaceutical factory in the region. D'oh! I bombed a baby food factory and all the civilian power and water infrastructure! How does this keep happening??
And the fucking chauvinism. It's genocide when our enemy uses chemical weapons during wartime in an area with a lot of insurgent fighting (compare us killing another several million people in Vietnam with our own chemical weapons for the exact same reasons except deliberately targeting their food supply but that's not considered a genocide somehow). They killed about 3k people but they did it with animal bloodlust. But we're good. We killed A THOUSAND TIMES THAT MANY PEOPLE but with good intentions. Promise.
People like you are mathematical proof that the west needs to be fucking destroyed.
Honestly writing off America's involvement in the Iraq war as just "misguided" has me fucking FUMING.
whoopsies i did yet another imperialism killing millions in the process
You see the double standard you're using here, right? Awful things done by natos geopolitical enemies are genocides, war crimes,... Yet when nato does it it's at most a misguided atempt at doing the right thing?
Awwww poor Bush and his administration, just poor misguided rubes with no ill intent at all. :(
You're agreeing with my comment and have 10 upvotes but mine has 2? Curious
It's because you've been a petulant, condescending little fancylad while
your watering down of the term genocide and accusing the people with actual documentation on their side of doing what you're doing. To paraphrase someone else, you guys have your Wrong and Smug sliders completely maxed out, to the point where you (not you personally, at least yet) quickly get solipsistic and start dehumaizing people with different opinions as bots as soon as the notion that your views are obviously correct, good and widespread is even slightly challenged.
Yeah killing millions of people was totally worth getting one man!
Now let's bomb Washington DC to rubble and kill your family so we can get to Bush, the even bigger war criminal.
Did I say I think we should have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan?
Nah you just pearl clutched when we called Western Powers bad names.
I'm loosely in favor of restricting the use of the word genocide to when it's definitionally appropriate myself, but that's in the context of effective communication and clarity. So long as "genocide" is going to be used exclusively to refer to US State Department desginated enemies only, then it's perfectly reasonable to liken the US/France/UK's horrific foreign interventions genocide as well. Western interventions, both formal and clandestine, have killed many more than anyone else those imperialist fucks have accused of the word, so in the interest of showing just how absurd their usage is yes, we should and can call Western powers genocidal too.
Thank you for your well informed comment, the whole thing was indeed a clusterfuck and you know more than me. What are you doing on that godforsaken instance?
Post shit get hit. We welcome informed folks, well meaning curious questions, and fellow travelers with open arms. Sanctimonious liberals get the hog.
Also you: https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/1081955
When you say it like that sure, except they also deny the Uyghur genocide and ignore the fact that China has their internet walled off and heavily censored/policed.
Basically they’re so pro-communism that they looped back around and are now pro-fascists and drink the Kool aid. Not to mention the fact that China is only communist in name lol
Yes this is me, thank you for advertising my accurate comment. China is indeed targeting and concentrating minorities into camps. Words have meanings.
Does not seem like words have meanings. All the nuance in your tank is reserved for the constant America-led warmongering in the middle east with a death toll in millions, many more displaced, and known torture sites like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and god known how many more black sites. Meanwhile the Uyghur are unequivocally being genocided despite ZERO CONFIRMED CASUALTIES four years into the news cycle. So your litmus test for genocide seems to be
despite the emphasis on words having meaning.astral_avacado said elsewhere that the Iraq Invasion was just "misguided" so its definitely a case of
with how they decide what is and isn't a genocide.
Calling that genocide is holocaust denial.
Stop hiding behind pathetic labels, you are in bed with fascists.
The UN disagrees with you
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf
lets call it unsolicited special underage child pregnancy operation
You're not wrong, but just because the USA and UK got away with it doesn't mean we should continue to let others get away with it. We can't go back in time and fix it but we've got to start somewhere.
Can you even manage in a fever dream to think that this would set a precedent that would result in the US ever getting punished?
Punished for what? Throwing money and military support towards everyone when they need it? Oh, that. Right. As always, hating the USA is what the cool kids do these days. Until they need taxpayer money or military support. I’d love to see us cut off every ounce of support we give to other nations and see how that works out.
I’d love to see us cut off every ounce of support we give to other nations and see how that works out.
Me too! It would be an incredible turn of events that would massively benefit the world. Could you throw in removing the blockades on Cuba and the DPRK and others while you are at it?
I’d love to see us cut off every ounce of support we give to other nations and see how that works out.
COOL. GO AHEAD.
Lmao, the US, simultaneously the strongest and coolest country in the world and a cucked nation that can be bullied by even the smallest african country into giving away free protection.
What support do you think you give? The "support" you give is either A) The cost of running your own propaganda, and paying target-nation actors. B) Weapons you buy from your own capitalists. C) Bribes in exchange for target-nation puppets to exploit their own people for the benefit of your capitalists. There is no fourth category.
"Not arresting this black man for possession of 0.01 grams of weed isn't going to go back in time and punish all those white guys we let go despite possessing much more weed. Cuff him, boys."
Russia competes with neutral flags because they can't stop doping. It has nothing to do with us vs them. They literally can't stop cheating.
I've tasted all their piss and it all tastes the same.
Common sense?
Have you played sports before? Even at the high school level teenagers are pumping their body full of steriods. I saw them do it myself, I've heard the stories from my friends who played rugby. Just look at top high school rugby or american football teams physiques, or at the cardio capacity of teenage track and field athletes. You really think that level is attainable without performance enhancing drugs, at such a widespread level? You really think that stops once these athletes become adults? How about the fact that all of Usain Bolt's competition got caught doping? You can't be this gullible. Seriously, read the article I've linked below.
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/bernstein-usain-bolt-is-probably-doping-and-you-know-it/
Russia's sin here was official state involvement, not doping. As long as you pass the drug tests, nothing matters. Remember that Lance Armstrong never failed a drug test. Does that mean he's a clean athlete? Of course not, and neither was any of his competition. The same applies to the Olympics, the same applies to almost all competitive sports.
So no proof? That's what I figured.
I did play sports. None of us took anything.
I'm going to assume you follow one or both, and that you're aware of the high prevalence of PEDs in both.
Now how are Olympic sports different than those leagues? Is there less of an incentive to cheat? Is the IOC more interested in preventing cheating? Do the athletes not care as much?
If anything, there is likely more doping in the Olympics because you have the resources of state actors backing athletes, see, e.g., Russia.
I'm not the jackass who claimed every Olympian is doping. You guys are pathetic when trying to justify hyperbole. Lol
So you understand it's hyperbole but still take it literally just to argue? Take that shit back to reddit
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_cycling
There is nothing that makes cycling significantly different from any other sport in terms of the advantages of doping, the testing for it, or the means of evasion.
Why make such a stupid comment? "Oh you mean literally every athlete is doping, well show me the piss of literally every athlete ever, oh that's impossible? Fucking rekt"
You should be directing that comment to the dingus who literally claimed every athlete is doping in response to me. Try reading previous comments before acting like a dipshit while deep in the thread. Lol
the dingus who literally claimed every athlete
He didn't. That's not how language works and you know it -- you told me you knew it was hyperbole in another comment! Maybe try and have a conversation instead of this pedantic 🤓 "ummm ACKSHUALLY your statement is not LITERALLY 100% correct and backed up by six sources of my liking" garbage.
The United States are the GOATs of state sponsored and planned doping at the Olympics. Many of the involved doctors have talked about it in the decades since the '84 Olympics.
Why are we letting the people responsible for Iraq and Afghanistans current state get away with it? Like if the US wants to arrest a war criminal Bush and Cheney are right there. Same for Blair, or Harper, or any of the other architects of the invasions.
I'm not saying they should get away with it, I'm just saying that we shouldn't let Russia get away with it because the United States and the UK got away with it. It's like the Boomer argument that it's not fair to them for student loans to be forgiven because they had to pay.
Would you support a policy of student loan forgiveness for only white people?
Do you not understand why I said that? I would not support student loan forgiveness only for white people because, while I like student loan forgiveness, I can recognize that such a program would ultimately just be in the interest of white supremacy. I wouldn't pull the disingenuous liberal line of "you've gotta start somewhere" as though the policy was tethered to some imaginary future state that it is nominally more similar to but practically much further from.
Likewise, saying "well, at least by holding Belarus to account some countries will be held to account, which gets us closer to all countries being held to account!" is absurd. It promotes western dominance, not the abstract idea of "holding countries to account". Striking only one side saying that it's closer to both sides being struck than striking zero sides would be is sophistry.
I’m not sure where in the world you live, but for myself, I’m in a western country. It would be far more easy for my country to hold the architects of the Afghanistan invasion to account than Putin. The fact that my government doesn’t indicates that all the talk of punishing Russia has nothing to do with punishing aggression, it’s just about punishing a rival
You're trying to say by implication that the ship has sailed on Bush and Obama, but they're still alive. The USA Olympics team is still around. Even if you should've banned them in 1890 doesn't mean you still can't. They haven't apologised, paid reparations, or ceased any of their human rights violating projects.
Why are we letting China get away with it? Why are we letting Saudi Arabia get away with it? The IOC is a toaster and it's like you're asking it to make you a whole roast dinner. It can't even make toast properly...
I’m not asking for anything, I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy in calling for punishing Russia for war crimes when in every respect the US and her vassals have committed and are committing orders of magnitude more violence in the last couple decades
*his. Come on, the US is not a motherland, it's a fatherland.
This is spiraling into whataboutism and I'm disengaging. Have a nice day!
You realise by targetting an official enemy state of the most powerful of the lot, we're essentially rewarding them? And making them more powerful on the world stage? So a fixation on CN and RU is inherently going to become counter-productive to goals of stability and human development etc.
"Just because we let the world's most prolific serial killer get away with it doesnt mean he shouldnt be allowed to keep murdering if he pinky swears his victims really deserve it this time."
We can't go back in time and fix it but we've got to start somewhere.
We are in total agreement here, and we can start by seizing the levers of power, purging the government of capitalists, withdrawing all troops from everywhere and using them for reforestation work, dismantling the IMF, paying reparations to every country we've victimized, and putting every fossil fuel executive and lobbyist against the wall for their omnicidal crimes against all terrestrial life.
but we've got to start somewhere.
Somehow we always seem to be starting with US geopolitical enemies, never the US itself, despite literal centuries of heinous crimes.
Curious how that works.
Y'all will take the most lukewarm, neutral, fair takes on topics related to this issue and call it "support for Russia" is incredible. |
Nowhere, anywhere in op's comment did she say that she supports Russia.
Ukraine is a fascist state. You are a fascist for supporting it.
The last several Olympics haven't they competed under a different flag because all the cheating they keep getting caught for? Sure, everyone knows they're Russian, but it wasn't the Russian flag or anthem. They competed as the Russian Olympic Committee.
Ukraine should perform under the flag of Bandera
correct, if a state allows for the hosting of fascism it is inheritly fascist.
Putting a lot of trust in some notion of integrity on noted good organisation, the IOC, here
Is that a big bargaining chip or something? The presence of the Ukrainian Olympic team?
No serious athlete will want mickey mouse medals if the real competition isn't there.
Now we’re up to $900 per US household for this Ukraine stuff. Let’s throw a few more bucks at it to buy flags. Great use of taxpayer dollars. Sure, Jan.
Most of which are armament that the US government already had in its arsenal. You've spent the money and now those missiles are actually in use instead of being hold in storage. I'm actually more interested in that 900 USD amount, where did you read or hear that exact number?
- Missiles being used to kill people in an endless stalemate is actually worse than them sitting in a box
- The people sending those missiles to Ukraine are going to buy more to replace them
- They're also going to charge Ukraine for the missiles and insist the country sell off state assets for pennies on the dollar to make payments
Maybe it's high time to overhaul that thinking and stop having a ridiculous military budget.
Holy shit, it’s so high because it gets used constantly.
You’re literally here supporting the use of it
Liberal thinkers are epic
I don't know how this brain genius talking point got so popular.
So things don't cost money when you already spent money on them? ...You don't think those stocks are going to be replenished having been depleted?
Wonder why they never apply that logic to housing…
Then it suddenly costs money!
Because it has a point, albeit not perfect. Wouldn't you rather the US not have a ridiculously big military budget and can divert spending to, say, education and healthcare?
Sure, it's great that the US arsenal can obliterate any country in the world should the political powers will it, but this is not the best version of the world, honestly. As you said, it's your money. Are you okay with it?
Sure, it's great that the US arsenal can obliterate any country in the world should the political powers will it
Wouldn't you rather the US not have a ridiculously big military budget and can divert spending to, say, education and healthcare?
Yes? But this seems like a non sequitur.
You see, we will reduce our military budget by using more weapons. This makes sense in the liberal mind
And now we have to replenish those arsenals… they absolutely will be replenished.
Like, if you give all the food in your cupboard to someone, no one would consider that “free”. You have to buy more food!
This argument seems so foolish I can hardly believe anyone actually thinks this way.
I'd rather the companies in my country stop selling those armaments to the US, actually. Maybe this is a good time to review your military budget and ask your government why you have it in the first place?
The same imperial government that lied to its people and provoked a land war in Europe?
The same one you’re legitimizing in fueling that conflict by implying it’s free?
Yeah let me call up my boy Biden and tell him no more bombs while you point and laugh at me from behind
This conflict has the potential to cause real change in Russia. We're talking about potentially getting rid of Putin's regime and it's being done without sending any of our troops to die. The help Ukraine is getting isn't charity, look at the bigger picture.
without sending any of our troops to die
what about all the people from other countriesIf foreigners are people then why can't they vote in our elections?
Checkmate tankie.
This person just outing themself as craving the sending of Ukrainians into the fucking meatgrinder. The sheer disregard for human life is disgusting
Why are they sending hundreds of thousands of working class people of both Ukraine, Russia and third countries to kill each other then, if it's really about the governments' wrongdoings?
Why not support revolutionaries within Russia, helping the Russians to dispose of their own government? Why does NATO have to be involved as an actor in the first place? Why do workers have to murder each other on front lines? The governments' and militaries' support should be constrained strictly to humanitarian support and help, not weapons.
Both governments and their national capital are the enemy. It is a war between two economies over geopolitical control over Ukraine, fought by and written in blood of people who don't profit from either side of the war. No Ukrainian soldier or Russian soldier wins at the end of the day. Whichever side wins, it is going to end in a bloodbath and further oppression. Sure, a Russian win would be worse in the long run, but the Ukrainian government and NATO countries ain't no saints either, and is certainly not the side I would like to die for.
Though I personally don't know who of the two evils would be the worse win in the long run, yes, agreed, very much this.
Russia would certainly impose its oppressive social stances on the territory including its homophobia, sexism, racism, patriarchal order, lack of freedom of press and so on. This would probably not be as bad under a NATO-aligned European government (although the West has been known to bring fascists to power if necessary), which uses its slight edge in progressivism as a useful propaganda shield.
Both would however use it as a geopolitical pressure point for further aggression, stationing nuclear weapons, economically colonize the war-torn ruins by "helping rebuild", and subduing the local population and labor rights. Zelensky disbanded unions and the right to strike, abolished gay marriage for the duration of the war to prevent gay refugees from taking their husbands with them, banned socialist movements and is draconic against draft dodgers and peace activists (even those without Russian ties). The Ukrainian army stations troops in civilian places to hide them, endangering their own people, incorporate and welcome neo-nazis into their military as part of some kind of popular front, and use banned weapons. On the other side, Russia does all of these too and commits war crimes left and right, so it is not like they are any more welcome in my eyes.
Either outcome would (in the long term) be worse for the people of Ukraine, Russia, the rest of Europe and probably the world. The war would not stop after Ukraine.
As long as our economy is steered by the whims of wealthy people seeking to maximize their profits and not by any democratic process, we will have these issues over and over again as at some point the only direction the economy could grow is into other countries. It's no coincidence that China and Russia are the "enemies" of the West when they are the two biggest economies that mainly act in competition to the Western economies. For instance, Amazon would literally kill to get the entire Chinese market, let alone all other American multinationals. And with the power that money and capital has, a war is possible to incite based on that desire to expand to "enemy countries". Same with the Chinese and Russian economies. Tencent and Gazprom would love to control their respective Western markets.
Absolutely fair point, you may well be right. I pretty much agree on all points.
If Putin is overthrown the people most likely to overthrow him are hardliners who think he's being a cuck by not immediately nuking Kiev and Washington.
So it's a good thing that there's basically zero indication of major internal political stability in Russia. Even the Wagner "coup" only asked for Shoigu and Gerasimov to be removed, not Putin.
You do realize that America already overthrew Russia's government once, and that is how Putin came to be in the first place, right? You expect cycle #2 to go better?
Putin has more support than ever…
For gods sake try to imagine this from a Russian perspective. NATO bombs are killing their people.
Like, seriously, imagine how your average American would react to this. Treat the Russians as human for one fucking second.
They are not going to fucking blame Putin for that. They will blame NATO!!!
We're talking about potentially getting rid of Putin's regime and it's being done without sending any of our troops to die.
The people surrounding Putin who are most likely to replace him are hardliners who think Kiev should be glassed. Part of the motivation behind the Wagner mutiny is Prigo thinking Shoigu isn't going hard enough in Ukraine. Contrary to liberal bots who only listen to what CNN tells them, it's good for everyone involved that the Wagner mutiny was completely deflated. There wouldn't be much of a Ukraine left if Prigo was in charge, and Prigo is not the only one.
the only change I want in russia is the return of the soviet union
This conflict has the potential to cause real change in Russia
time is a flat circle
The help Ukraine is getting will go to nill when these fascists finally lose
We’ll see what comes first, Zelenskyy getting deposed or the Olympic games
They should just be banned entirely. How many doping scandals does it take? The presence of their athletes is all Russia cares about. They'll Photoshop in some flags and parade it around state TV.
They are not allowed to represent their birthplace because the birthplace actively financing and supporting systematic doping. That is not the same as they are being banned.
I have no understanding for why you want to represent that.
Why should doping even be illegal? You sound a lot like chuds talking about trans athletes
Competition will never be perfectly fair, Michael Phelps is a genetic freak who's just better at swimming than most people due to his insane lung capacity but he's still allowed to compete
Doping is illegal because it represents a serious risk to the health of athletes to get into a PED arms race
To be fair doping is literally cheating and causing further damage to already exploited athletes, where as being trans just makes you cool as hell
Countries and contestants have all agreed that doping is not allowed. If you promise something and have no intention to keep the promise you are in fact a liar.
There has been, and probably still is, a government funded doping program in Russia. So not only have their contestants been proved to be cheaters, Russia has been caught sponsoring it all too.
So while you like to derail this discussion towards on whether doping should be allowed or not it still doesn't change the fact that Russia actively promoted cheating.
We should also ban Russian cats from Cat Beauty Pageants while we’re at it because fuck them cats.
Just ban Russia and Belarus from participating FFS. Don't even let them in under neutral flags.
Hard disagree. Ukraine should be prevented from participating and Russia and Belarus should be treated like normal countries
In principle I agree but considering the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel are participating in all competitions without any sanctions I don't see why we should be making a special case for Russia.
I was thinking more along the lines of how the burger regime could use it as a part of a full spectrum warfare strategy. I'd much rather see the burger regime get burnt by something like this, but I suspect it and its NATO pawns have more influence over such things than Russia or Belarus do.
Like in ancient Greece when the city states would join together only if they didn't have any conflicts and participate in the games to build a commonality between those who were allies
Go Ukraine, but it's official, this worldnews community has become ragebait, like the original one :/
It's particularly upsetting because lemmy.ml is a major instance. IMO, moderation in this c/ is infrequent and underwhelming. I don't mean to hang the mods out to dry; it would take a big team to wade through this effluent and tame the trolls. The hostile "Here comes the Reddit refugees" and "OMG Tankie brigade" shit is just the easy stuff. A rule on lazy whataboutism would help the signal/noise ratio as well. This post is from RT, about Ukraine/Russia/Belarus but the biggest thread in here is rehashing the Iraq occupation. Can we just discuss the original topic? Is that so hard?
"My post is about black crime, stop mentioning other things like white crime. Yes, I only post about black crime, are you trying to say black people never commit crime? That they should be allowed to commit crime? Thought so."
Sometimes bringing up context is important for discussing issues that some people would like to keep in a vacuum. The US competing at those same Olympic games under no penalty would be fucked up and makes it obvious that if Belarus was penalized here, it would be due to western politicking and nothing else (Russia already has the doping issue, so idk about that one)
No, you're not helping. At all. It's flamebait that can only derail the topic and turn into a circle jerk or verbal fistfight.
Here's an example that may help: Why is China allowed to participate in the Olympics despite their genocides and brutal crackdowns? Why the double standard?
See? You're demonstrating my point, it's not just indifferent, it has a motive.
Though I don't think you're helping since Russia did invade while China is doing zero genocides.
https://xinjiangahr.carrd.co/
This post is from RT, about Ukraine/Russia/Belarus but the biggest thread in here is rehashing the Iraq occupation.
the 'punishment' of russia is night and day to what we saw happen to the US and its western allies after the invasion of iraq. you can go and cry about 'whataboutism' as much as you'd like, but those of us who live in a world not shrouded by a willful amnesia of a past historical events can see the gross display of hypocrisy for what it is—namely a confirmation by the western world that some victims (of war) are worth more than others
Boring bullshit
GOOD post
