Ukraine and hypocrisy

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Sherlock Holmes

Ukraine and hypocrisy

Post #1

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Take any mainstream broadsheet newspaper over the past few weeks and Ukraine is the front page, same on the TV news, BBC, CNN and so on, we are swamped in news about the plight of the victims.

This is a fine thing too but not at the expense of other hapless victims surely?

Read this from today's Guardian:

More than 3m Ukrainians will need food assistance, says World Food Programme

But not a peep about Yemen or Afghanistan in the news, so:

What’s happening in Yemen?
Unicef wrote:Yemen remains one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, with around 21 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, including more than 11 million children.

Since the conflict escalated in March 2015, the country has become a living hell for the country’s children. Less than half of health facilities are functioning, and many that remain operational lack basic equipment. Many health workers have not received a regular salary in several years.
and
Unicef wrote:At least 10,000 children have been killed or maimed since the beginning of the conflict, and thousands more have been recruited into the fighting. An estimated 2 million children are internally displaced. The damage and closure of schools and hospitals has also disrupted access to education and health services. More than two million children are out of school, leaving them even more vulnerable.

Meanwhile, Yemen has been plagued by one of the world’s worst food crises, with nearly 2.3 million children under the age of five suffering from acute malnutrition. Of these, 400,000 are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition and could die if they do not receive urgent treatment.
And Afghanistan:
The country of thirty-eight million people heavily depended on foreign aid before the Taliban came to power in August. Now, experts say it has been devastated by the international response to the hard-line Islamist group’s seizure of power: halting billions of dollars in assistance and enforcing sanctions that have impeded relief work.
and
WFP wrote:KABUL – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is rapidly ramping up humanitarian operations in Afghanistan to assist more than 23 million people facing severe hunger in the country in 2022, as inflation and currency depreciation make it even more difficult to feed themselves. WFP has assisted 15 million people so far in 2021, with 7 million assisted in November alone – up from 4 million in September.
and
“Afghanistan is facing an avalanche of hunger and destitution the likes of which I have never seen in my twenty plus years with the World Food Programme,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, WFP Country Director in Afghanistan.

“I’m proud of what we’ve been able to achieve so far, but the needs are enormous, and we have a huge amount to do to stop this crisis from becoming a catastrophe. We urgently need US$ 220 million a month in 2022 to assist 23 million Afghans,” she warned.

According to the latest WFP phone surveys, an estimated 98 percent of Afghans are not consuming enough food – a worrisome 17 percent rise since August. The spiraling economic crisis, conflict and drought has meant the average family can now barely cope.

Families are resorting to desperate measures as the bitter winter sets in; nine in every ten households are now buying less expensive food, eight in ten are eating less, and seven in ten are borrowing food to get by.
Even more sickening is the Saudi demands for US support in the bombing of Yemen, they are also refusing to consider releasing more oil reserves to the US unless the US provides that military assistance.

So are the media hypocritical? are our governments hypocritical?

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Re: Ukraine and hypocrisy

Post #2

Post by Purple Knight »

Yes, we have to forget about Afghanistan, go and help Ukraine, so we can ultimately get bored of it and abandon them too.

When your country is worse than a little kid that fails to take care of its puppy and brazenly wants another.

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Sherlock Holmes

Re: Ukraine and hypocrisy

Post #3

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

The term "genocide" is starting to appear with an increasing frequency, it's almost as powerful a slur to hurl as "pedophile" once thrown forever smeared.

"Russia-Ukraine war latest: strike on children’s hospital ‘ultimate evidence that genocide is happening’ – Zelenskiy"

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Re: Ukraine and hypocrisy

Post #4

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 7:14 pm The term "genocide" is starting to appear with an increasing frequency, it's almost as powerful a slur to hurl as "pedophile" once thrown forever smeared.

"Russia-Ukraine war latest: strike on children’s hospital ‘ultimate evidence that genocide is happening’ – Zelenskiy"
I didn't know what to think of this story at first because it was reported by the Ukrainians. President Zelensky has exaggerated or lied many times when it comes to the extent of damages. Some of it has been war propaganda and I'm sure the Russians have engaged in the same behavior. In Zelinksky's case, I suppose the motive to exaggerate things would be to guilt trip the West into helping him more.

What I question is if the hospital was even operational given that some places were evacuated. So far I've found reports of people being "injured" but none dead as you would expect from a missile strike.
The Donetsk region's governor said 17 people were wounded in the incident.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ru ... 022-03-09/
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Re: Ukraine and hypocrisy

Post #5

Post by alexxcJRO »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 10:35 am Take any mainstream broadsheet newspaper over the past few weeks and Ukraine is the front page, same on the TV news, BBC, CNN and so on, we are swamped in news about the plight of the victims.

This is a fine thing too but not at the expense of other hapless victims surely?

Read this from today's Guardian:

More than 3m Ukrainians will need food assistance, says World Food Programme

But not a peep about Yemen or Afghanistan in the news, so:

What’s happening in Yemen?
Unicef wrote:Yemen remains one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, with around 21 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, including more than 11 million children.

Since the conflict escalated in March 2015, the country has become a living hell for the country’s children. Less than half of health facilities are functioning, and many that remain operational lack basic equipment. Many health workers have not received a regular salary in several years.
and
Unicef wrote:At least 10,000 children have been killed or maimed since the beginning of the conflict, and thousands more have been recruited into the fighting. An estimated 2 million children are internally displaced. The damage and closure of schools and hospitals has also disrupted access to education and health services. More than two million children are out of school, leaving them even more vulnerable.

Meanwhile, Yemen has been plagued by one of the world’s worst food crises, with nearly 2.3 million children under the age of five suffering from acute malnutrition. Of these, 400,000 are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition and could die if they do not receive urgent treatment.
And Afghanistan:
The country of thirty-eight million people heavily depended on foreign aid before the Taliban came to power in August. Now, experts say it has been devastated by the international response to the hard-line Islamist group’s seizure of power: halting billions of dollars in assistance and enforcing sanctions that have impeded relief work.
and
WFP wrote:KABUL – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is rapidly ramping up humanitarian operations in Afghanistan to assist more than 23 million people facing severe hunger in the country in 2022, as inflation and currency depreciation make it even more difficult to feed themselves. WFP has assisted 15 million people so far in 2021, with 7 million assisted in November alone – up from 4 million in September.
and
“Afghanistan is facing an avalanche of hunger and destitution the likes of which I have never seen in my twenty plus years with the World Food Programme,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, WFP Country Director in Afghanistan.

“I’m proud of what we’ve been able to achieve so far, but the needs are enormous, and we have a huge amount to do to stop this crisis from becoming a catastrophe. We urgently need US$ 220 million a month in 2022 to assist 23 million Afghans,” she warned.

According to the latest WFP phone surveys, an estimated 98 percent of Afghans are not consuming enough food – a worrisome 17 percent rise since August. The spiraling economic crisis, conflict and drought has meant the average family can now barely cope.

Families are resorting to desperate measures as the bitter winter sets in; nine in every ten households are now buying less expensive food, eight in ten are eating less, and seven in ten are borrowing food to get by.
Even more sickening is the Saudi demands for US support in the bombing of Yemen, they are also refusing to consider releasing more oil reserves to the US unless the US provides that military assistance.

So are the media hypocritical? are our governments hypocritical?
The little guys(Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Vietnam) always get in between the fight for power, profit, supremacy and hegemony of the big bullies.
Countries get destroyed. Millions of innocents suffer and die for nothing.
It’s a sad reality we live in. :|
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Re: Ukraine and hypocrisy

Post #6

Post by IM1959 »

I hate what is happening for so many years. Either we help very inefficiently by leaving an even bigger mess, or we don't do anything at all. I feel so sorry for people from Ukraine and yes, from Russia too. Most people don't want this war. I hope it will end very soon.

Sherlock Holmes

Re: Ukraine and hypocrisy

Post #7

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

AgnosticBoy wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 8:20 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 7:14 pm The term "genocide" is starting to appear with an increasing frequency, it's almost as powerful a slur to hurl as "pedophile" once thrown forever smeared.

"Russia-Ukraine war latest: strike on children’s hospital ‘ultimate evidence that genocide is happening’ – Zelenskiy"
I didn't know what to think of this story at first because it was reported by the Ukrainians. President Zelensky has exaggerated or lied many times when it comes to the extent of damages. Some of it has been war propaganda and I'm sure the Russians have engaged in the same behavior. In Zelinksky's case, I suppose the motive to exaggerate things would be to guilt trip the West into helping him more.

What I question is if the hospital was even operational given that some places were evacuated. So far I've found reports of people being "injured" but none dead as you would expect from a missile strike.
The Donetsk region's governor said 17 people were wounded in the incident.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ru ... 022-03-09/
https://www.msf.org/kunduz-hospital-attack-depth
Starting at 2:08am on Saturday 3 October [2015], a United States AC-130 gunship fired 211 shells on the main hospital building where patients were sleeping in their beds or being operated on in the operating theatre.
Our patients burned in their beds, our medical staff were decapitated or lost limbs. Others were shot from the air while they fled the burning building.

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Re: Ukraine and hypocrisy

Post #8

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Thu Mar 10, 2022 8:40 am https://www.msf.org/kunduz-hospital-attack-depth
Starting at 2:08am on Saturday 3 October [2015], a United States AC-130 gunship fired 211 shells on the main hospital building where patients were sleeping in their beds or being operated on in the operating theatre.
Our patients burned in their beds, our medical staff were decapitated or lost limbs. Others were shot from the air while they fled the burning building.
Well besides bringing up something that shows hypocrisy, I would have also expected for the same type of damage and injuries that you describe to be found at the maternity hospital that Russia bombed in Ukraine. Yet, I've only been able to find reports of 17 people being "wounded".

Here's according to Ukrainian officials:
"We don't understand how it's possible in modern life to bomb a children's hospital. People cannot believe that it's true," Mariupol Deputy Mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60675599

My question to this is if the hospital was operational or are officials trying to have us believe that Russia bombed a facility full of children? It also wouldn't help the Ukrainian side if Ukrainian troops were also set up near or in the hospitals because then civilians will get caught in the crossfire.

If anyone is interested in first listening to both sides before drawing conclusions, then here's the Russian side:
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations, admitted on Twitter Thursday that the structure was bombed by Russian forces but said that it was no longer operating as a hospital but was being used by the Ukrainian military to house forces.

"That’s how #Fakenews is born," the Russian diplomat said in the tweet, sharing a report with supporting evidence. "We warned in our statement back on 7 March that this hospital has been turned into a military object by radicals."
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/russia-de ... -fake-news

If I go by more than just statements, then I'm leaning more towards the Russians on this particular incident. And that's my tentative conclusion pending any further evidence. If Russia struck a FULLY operational children's hospital with the type of damage that the video showed, then there would be plenty of dead bodies, especially that of pregnant mothers and children. Again, so far, reports only mention 17 people "wounded" (any of them children?).
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Sherlock Holmes

Re: Ukraine and hypocrisy

Post #9

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

From today's Guardian:

The US supports illegal annexations by Israel and Morocco. Why the hypocrisy?
The Guardian wrote:Last December, as Russian forces encircled Ukraine, the Biden administration and its allies delivered a stark warning to Vladimir Putin: “Any use of force to change borders is strictly prohibited under international law.” In January, as Russian troops massed even in even greater numbers, Secretary of State Antony Blinken added that “the inviolability of frontiers” was among the “guiding principles for international behavior.” Last month, after Russia’s parliament recognized the independence of two self-declared republics Moscow had cleaved from eastern Ukraine, Blinken called this infringement upon “Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” a “gross violation of international law.”

All this is indisputably true. Remaking borders by force violates a core principle of international law. Which is why the Biden administration must do more than resist Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. It must stop violating that principle itself.

In 2019, the Trump administration made the United States the only foreign country to recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 War. Tel Aviv University Law Professor Eliav Lieblich noted that the decision – which contradicted a unanimous United Nations Security Council resolution supported by the US itself – constituted a “significant departure from the bedrock legal prohibition of unilateral annexation.” Yale Law School’s Oona Hathaway called the move “outrageous and potentially destabilizing to the postwar international order.” The Russian government called it an “indication of the contempt that Washington shows for the norms of international law.”

Sherlock Holmes

Re: Ukraine and hypocrisy

Post #10

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

AgnosticBoy wrote: Thu Mar 10, 2022 10:43 am
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Thu Mar 10, 2022 8:40 am https://www.msf.org/kunduz-hospital-attack-depth
Starting at 2:08am on Saturday 3 October [2015], a United States AC-130 gunship fired 211 shells on the main hospital building where patients were sleeping in their beds or being operated on in the operating theatre.
Our patients burned in their beds, our medical staff were decapitated or lost limbs. Others were shot from the air while they fled the burning building.
Well besides bringing up something that shows hypocrisy, I would have also expected for the same type of damage and injuries that you describe to be found at the maternity hospital that Russia bombed in Ukraine. Yet, I've only been able to find reports of 17 people being "wounded".

Here's according to Ukrainian officials:
"We don't understand how it's possible in modern life to bomb a children's hospital. People cannot believe that it's true," Mariupol Deputy Mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60675599

My question to this is if the hospital was operational or are officials trying to have us believe that Russia bombed a facility full of children? It also wouldn't help the Ukrainian side if Ukrainian troops were also set up near or in the hospitals because then civilians will get caught in the crossfire.

If anyone is interested in first listening to both sides before drawing conclusions, then here's the Russian side:
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations, admitted on Twitter Thursday that the structure was bombed by Russian forces but said that it was no longer operating as a hospital but was being used by the Ukrainian military to house forces.

"That’s how #Fakenews is born," the Russian diplomat said in the tweet, sharing a report with supporting evidence. "We warned in our statement back on 7 March that this hospital has been turned into a military object by radicals."
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/russia-de ... -fake-news

If I go by more than just statements, then I'm leaning more towards the Russians on this particular incident. And that's my tentative conclusion pending any further evidence. If Russia struck a FULLY operational children's hospital with the type of damage that the video showed, then there would be plenty of dead bodies, especially that of pregnant mothers and children. Again, so far, reports only mention 17 people "wounded" (any of them children?).
I'm inclined to agree, the images we've seen so far seem totally inconsistent with the dramatic claims being made by Ukraine.

I've seen many examples of this where the "victim" (from the West's standpoint) is subject to all kinds of crimes and barbarities but only later, sometime years later, does the truth emerge that none of it was true, by that time the damage has been done and nobody even cares any more.

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