ZenoMarx wrote:
How do you apply all that to Syria and Russia turning it to dust? That's a genuine question, too. It's not rhetorical. I guess I could answer my own question and recognize that your hatred for the US is so strong that you can arrive at coddling remarks about Russia. I can feel the hate in your words for the US, but I'm not feeling that towards Russia. You border on making excuses for Russia. I could be wrong, or at least out of line, but it's difficult to recognize such an argument with any integrity when it's fueled with such an emotional and excusatory angle.
Why do I feel like I'm replying to a troll? I hope not.
I'm actually hoping for the opposite - i.e. that this is just trolling, because if it is not, then it's very sad.
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Syria was often mentioned during the war in Ukraine in the context that, after the bombing of the city of Mariupol by Russian military, there are so many deaths of civilian people and destructions of numerous civilian objects (including hospitals) in the city that it's comparable to Aleppo.
There was also an informative video (with information+instructions about survival tactics) for Ukrainian civilians made by the Syrian volunteer organization "The White Helmets".
I read about this organization that they saved and helped many civilians during the war in Syria, but there were also notes that Russian propaganda waged their information warfare campaign against the White Helmets:
Information warfare campaign
According to investigative journalists and analysts, SCD became a target of a systematic information warfare campaign by the Russian government, the Syrian government, alt-right personalities, and their supporters, who have accused the organisation of taking sides in the Syrian Civil War, carrying arms, and supporting terrorist groups. The Russian-funded RT television network and Sputnik news agency have made controversial claims about SCD, and multiple sources have found issues with the veracity and credibility of the claims. In an interview with Reuters, Facebook claimed that a hacking group based out of Syria targeted the White Helmets.
Olivia Solon from The Guardian speculated that SCD was targeted because they document their activities with handheld and helmet cameras. This footage often shows the aftermath of airstrikes, and has been used by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre.
According to The New York Times, Assad's claim that the White Helmets are "Al-Qaeda members" was "without evidence". Assertions made by RT contributor Eva Bartlett that the White Helmets stage rescues and "recycle" children in its videos were reported by Snopes and Channel 4 News as being false "beyond a reasonable doubt". In December 2017, The Guardian newspaper commented that it had "uncovered how this counter-narrative is propagated online by a network of anti-imperialist activists, conspiracy theorists and trolls with the support of the Russian government ... [which] ... attract an enormous online audience, amplified by high-profile alt-right personalities, appearances on Russian state TV and an army of Twitter bots." A study by Tom Wilson and Kate Starbird, published in The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review in January 2020, found that anti–White Helmet discourse dominated postings on Twitter.
(On a side note, I also read that the White Helmets received charitable funding from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other western governments)
lord_kexasthur, based only on this information/or in case you know more details about the White Helmets, is this organization (or at least some of its members) trustworthy, or are their activities rather questionable for you, or they are not worth trusting at all and all the help that they did for the civilians in Syria is not considered/is not taken into account?
Now, I apologize in advance if it seems totally inappropriate to mention/compare the White Helmets' case with the Azov Regiment case in this context, I just want to explain how I personally perceive it/what I feel about it as a resident of Ukraine, and how Russian propaganda might work (and, from what I have been read/heard/seen during the war, is actually works):
I fully agree that the story of the Azov Regiment itself is very questionable/disturbing, and I am one of those people who find it necessary for Ukraine to make changes/amendments/additions to national legislation in a way that there would be much stricter responsibility/liability (and in certain cases - up to imprisonment / deprivation of citizenship of Ukraine / deportation) for the offense when it comes to cases of making racist statements / manifestations of racism in any form by a citizen of Ukraine or by a citizen of other country who lives on the territory of Ukraine (And given that now Ukraine is led by persident Volodymyr Zelenskyy (+who is supreme commander-in-chief during wartime) who is a Jewish person, the Security Service of Ukraine also should take care of this / or it can be Ukrainian military prosecutor's office if such racist statements were made by a military person), but at the same time for me this does not negate a quite high probability that Russian propaganda might add many extra "pseudo-facts"/"fake news" and their own narratives to it in order to exaggerate it to such an extent to use it in their information warfare/campaign (and not only abroad; from what I have read/seen, those narratives about "the need to fight with the Ukrainian Nazis/making 'special military operation' on denazification of Ukraine in general" have also been actively used for internal propaganda in Russia - as their explanation to people in Russia of the main reasons for the war in Ukraine and as military propaganda in order to force people in Russia to go to the war here).
And, last but not least, this whole story does not negate the fact that the Azov regiment actually tried to save/to protect and to help civilians in Mariupol.
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lord_kexasthur wrote:
... as arabs we had to shut up and suck it, but in ukraine after one hour of war, headlines of genocide and mass murder and whatever you can imagine were spread everywhere..
Yes, it is a fact that the war in Ukraine is the most "loud" and well-covered war in the media space, and I still hope and want to believe that this will have an effect on international journalism in general and that people in the world and international organizations will pay more attention to such tragic events as wars, war crimes, deaths/injuries of civilians and humanitarian crises during wars + the importance of supporting and protecting civilians (including refugees from those countries) of any nationality and protecting their rights, wherever a war takes place (and not only in words but also in actions).
Unfortunately, in the realities of the world, such an active presence of information about the war in foreign/international media does not always guarantee that all civilians during a war will be protected and that all war criminals will be judged for their crimes.
Yes, people in Ukraine have been said a lot about that this war has signs of genocide, and also many people abroad said this (and several individual countries have officially documented this), but to prove "Genocide" as an officiall fact in general - for an international court to conclude it - it is very difficult/seems impossible, and many people in Ukraine are still being very skeptical that this will ever happen;
a similar situation with "Russia is a state sponsor of terrorism" - there is a huge amount of documented evidences (including a use of modern technologies (such photos of certain places in Ukraine that were made by space satellites) by other countries, as well as work and conclusions of foreign experts - directly from some of those places in Ukraine) that the Russian military have been attacking civilian targets in Ukraine, often using weapons that are not available in Ukraine at all (such as ballistic missiles (such as Kh-22) and the Ukrainian military still does not have the systems to shoot down those missiles, and there is also evidence (internationally found out) that Russia was buying Shahed drones from the Iranian government to use them to attack civilian targets in Ukraine, and both the Ukrainian leadership and ordinary people (as well as many people from other countries who support Ukraine) made active and large spreading of information about all of this during the war - with many photos and descriptions, actively using social media and "tagging" foreign politicians / international organizations, but, despite all of this, the United States has not recognized Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism - they say that this will not change anything and will not help, and that this can only harm Ukraine because there is a risk that it can push certain countries (such as China) to provide more active and direct (military) support for Russia.
In fact, officially recognizing Russia as a "State Sponsor of Terrorism" would mean that, according to their official laws, the USA would have to impose "secondary" sanctions on those countries that would then continue to conduct economic relations with Russia, and it seems that the USA leadership is trying to avoid this - due to some US own reasons or there is some informal agreement between USA and some other countries, - so yes, in this regard, I agree with you that it seems the US leadership has the ability to behave whatever they want when it comes to things like these (whether it is dictated only by precaution and "good intentions" or also by their own possible benefit).
And all of it in general looks like one of the most disgusting aspects of trade/capitalistic-oriented international relations where doing "business as usual" often can be more important than human lives, human rights, and actual law and justice.
(I've posted about it before, just will re-post it in this context, - at least, European Parliament had declared it, so in general it was worth "the informative fighting", even if it's rather "formal" when it comes to European legislation.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/ ... -terrorism)
One more fact: as this war proved, the imposition of certain sanctions/a ban on export of certain equipment/machine parts/electronics - especially microchips from other countries to Russia - of what its military can use directly as a weapon / or for manufacture of weapons - does not guarantee that this will stop / significantly slow down the Russian war machine - because there have been evidences that many different foreign equipment/details/electronics that were made in other countries (including the USA and Europe) were used by Russia to make weapons, and this stil happens even these days - because it seems some of those people / companies simply do not care to whom they sell all that stuff, and that Russia will be able to continue the genocidal war in Ukraine and that people will die.
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I understand things like these very well because I and a lot of other ordinary Ukrainians also face these kinds of injustices, as well as we also have these feelings of helplessness, giving up and despair in situations like these - where it seems that there is nothing anymore you can do and there is no way to change anything.
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