This is way too swift and easy a dismissal. Things are bad in Xinjiang, but there is undeniably also a lot of bullshit floating around on the topic. Even the UN concedes there is no mass killing or organ harvesting. A lot of claims come from known bullshitters like Adrien Zens, the folks at Radio Free Asia, the NED, and other sources connected to the US state department. Xinjiang is a complex topic and should be discussed in a complex way, not just "anyone who disputes any aspect of the prevailing western narrative is a genocide denying monster."
A million Iraqis died because Americans believed a fake story in 2003. More died in the 90s because Americans believed the Nayirah testimony. But if you had gone on an internet forum in 2003 and tried to debunk the Iraqi WMD reports, you would have looked like Charlie from IASIP with the red strings all over the wall.
There were forged documents showing Saddam had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. There was testimony from a fake Iraqi nuclear scientist named Khidir Hamza. There were accounts of stockpiles of chemical weapons in glass capsules. There were diagrams of mobile chemical weapons manufacturing systems. There were the aluminum tubes, alleged to be parts for uranium enrichment equipment. There were names and dates and purchasing records, interviews, witnesses, I mean the list goes on, I'm scratching the surface. And the politicians and the media for both parties all vouched for the information and relentlessly pushed the case.
It seems trivial now, but the story was persuasive at the time, and debunking it was no easy task. If America didn't drag multiple countries into an expensive war based on that story, the details never would have been scrutinized to such an extent, and we would probably still believe it.
But if you had gone on an internet forum in2003and tried to debunk the Iraqi WMD reports, you would have looked like Charlie from IASIP with the red strings allover the wall.
I was there back then and people were calling bullshit. Heck, even Canada's Prime Minister called bullshit and found an excuse not to join the USA while not pissing them off by calling them liars.
And even a majority is Muslim nations calling bullshit! I can't say the majority of nations, because I am not sure of sources for this outside of UN votes
Two points: First, the US engaged in a war of aggression and probably not specifically genocide in Iraq. This is a real difference of kind. Still criminal state activity and of course the US got away with it free (mostly) just like how it gets away with all its crimes against humanity or whatever. A better example would be the US commiting genocide on the native population, which was one of the most intense and successful ethnic extermination campaigns in history.
Second, it was pretty obvious at the time that all that shit was made up. I called it hard and was right. So did many, many others. They were just afraid to say it out loud because the county was very, very rapidly being pushed toward turning into a fascist nightmare. (Seriously, people forget how fucked up it was.) After Colin Powell'a speech to the UN my father and i had a conversation and made a bet. If what Powell said turned out to be false then my father would leave the Republican party and stop supporting that kind of crap. If it turned out to be true i would join. Now i really didn't want to vote Republican, had no intention of doing so, but i knew i wasn't going to lose that bet. My father, for his part, stayed true to his word.
The point of the Iraq lie isn't simply a redirection that "the US also does it." it's that the empire is capable of widescale deception to manufacture consent when the need arises. you may have realized it was a crock, but enough people were fooled the wholesale destruction of multiple sovereign nations went off without a hitch. "Bush lied, people died" only became the majority opinion after they had gotten away with it. Even now the popular consensus is that "mistakes were made," not that there was a wilful deception for the sake of expanding US global military hegemony.
first, the US engaged in a war of aggression and probably not specifically a genocide in Iraq. This is a real difference of kind.
The other difference is that one actually happened and the other did not.
Also, if we were about to go to war with China, I bet it would suddenly become obvious to a lot of people that the US has been making shit up since the trade war started.
pretty obvious
iirc around 76% of Americans supported the Iraq war.
first of all, props for organizing.
This is way too swift and easy a dismissal. Things are bad in Xinjiang, but there is undeniably also a lot of bullshit floating around on the topic. Even the UN concedes there is no mass killing or organ harvesting. A lot of claims come from known bullshitters like Adrien Zens, the folks at Radio Free Asia, the NED, and other sources connected to the US state department. Xinjiang is a complex topic and should be discussed in a complex way, not just "anyone who disputes any aspect of the prevailing western narrative is a genocide denying monster."
A million Iraqis died because Americans believed a fake story in 2003. More died in the 90s because Americans believed the Nayirah testimony. But if you had gone on an internet forum in 2003 and tried to debunk the Iraqi WMD reports, you would have looked like Charlie from IASIP with the red strings all over the wall.
There were forged documents showing Saddam had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. There was testimony from a fake Iraqi nuclear scientist named Khidir Hamza. There were accounts of stockpiles of chemical weapons in glass capsules. There were diagrams of mobile chemical weapons manufacturing systems. There were the aluminum tubes, alleged to be parts for uranium enrichment equipment. There were names and dates and purchasing records, interviews, witnesses, I mean the list goes on, I'm scratching the surface. And the politicians and the media for both parties all vouched for the information and relentlessly pushed the case.
It seems trivial now, but the story was persuasive at the time, and debunking it was no easy task. If America didn't drag multiple countries into an expensive war based on that story, the details never would have been scrutinized to such an extent, and we would probably still believe it.
But if you had gone on an internet forum in 2003 and tried to debunk the Iraqi WMD reports, you would have looked like Charlie from IASIP with the red strings all over the wall.I was there back then and people were calling bullshit. Heck, even Canada's Prime Minister called bullshit and found an excuse not to join the USA while not pissing them off by calling them liars.
similarly, there are people now, calling bullshit on the xinjiang organ harvesting narratives
And even a majority is Muslim nations calling bullshit! I can't say the majority of nations, because I am not sure of sources for this outside of UN votes
Two points: First, the US engaged in a war of aggression and probably not specifically genocide in Iraq. This is a real difference of kind. Still criminal state activity and of course the US got away with it free (mostly) just like how it gets away with all its crimes against humanity or whatever. A better example would be the US commiting genocide on the native population, which was one of the most intense and successful ethnic extermination campaigns in history.
Second, it was pretty obvious at the time that all that shit was made up. I called it hard and was right. So did many, many others. They were just afraid to say it out loud because the county was very, very rapidly being pushed toward turning into a fascist nightmare. (Seriously, people forget how fucked up it was.) After Colin Powell'a speech to the UN my father and i had a conversation and made a bet. If what Powell said turned out to be false then my father would leave the Republican party and stop supporting that kind of crap. If it turned out to be true i would join. Now i really didn't want to vote Republican, had no intention of doing so, but i knew i wasn't going to lose that bet. My father, for his part, stayed true to his word.
The point of the Iraq lie isn't simply a redirection that "the US also does it." it's that the empire is capable of widescale deception to manufacture consent when the need arises. you may have realized it was a crock, but enough people were fooled the wholesale destruction of multiple sovereign nations went off without a hitch. "Bush lied, people died" only became the majority opinion after they had gotten away with it. Even now the popular consensus is that "mistakes were made," not that there was a wilful deception for the sake of expanding US global military hegemony.
The other difference is that one actually happened and the other did not.
Also, if we were about to go to war with China, I bet it would suddenly become obvious to a lot of people that the US has been making shit up since the trade war started.
iirc around 76% of Americans supported the Iraq war.