In further pursuit of its heroic war against doctors:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Russia is now repeatedly bombing quite intentionally Doctors Without Borders.

Back when the USA did that all of once the hue and outcry was evident and there was much handwaving.

Meanwhile Moscow quite cold-bloodedly pursuits one of the most literal types of terror bombing there is to very muted protest from the people who reliably protest these actions when a Republican in the USA did them.

I suppose civilian lives are only political footballs worth throwing around when the USA does it. Certainly bombing hospitals is only a war crime when the United States does it. I did predict back when this started that it would be a chronic pattern and the so-called anti-war press that's all up in arms over Obama's intention to continue US presence in Afghanistan would be decidedly quiet about it. Well, it's still going on. So where are the protests against Russians blowing up hospitals and civilians as an intentional strategy?

Does pacifism even exist as an actual concept without scruples or is it a nakedly partisan set of blinkers specific to specific ideologies within specific countries?

http://www.interpretermag.com/multiple-russian-airstrikes-hit-doctors-without-borders-hospital-and-refugee-camp-in-syria/#12384

Where were the 10 million people who screamed and protested about Bush when Putin's blowing up doctors as a first resort and deliberately causing the refugee crisis Europe claims to want to end? I fully expect anti-war protestors in the USA like Cindy Sheehan only care about war when a Bush starts it, but where are all the French, British, Spanish, and other protestors in other countries? Why was the mere prospect of a US invasion of Iraq worth so much of an outcry and the evident reality of Russia throwing its weight around, suspending the not-really followed all that well but nominally acknowledged rule against not challenging boundaries by force not?

Surely it couldn't have all been one glorified reaction to a man primarily because of who his father was? Why perish the thought. There is no such thing as partisanship and hypocrisy in pacifism, especially not from a continent that massacred the last group of religious minorities of any real signifiance, has political figures stating the only thing Hitler did wrong with the Romani wasn't killing enough of them, and is witnessing sluggishly progressing revivals of dictatorship outside the former Soviet sphere? As I said, American pacifism is always hypocritical at best. But if pacifism actually exists, surely opposing the evils of warfare is unconditional if anything would be?

http://world.time.com/2013/02/15/viewpoint-why-was-the-biggest-protest-in-world-history-ignored/

Comments

(frozen) (no subject)

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

This is getting rather old. "US does bad: outcry; Russia does bad: silence. Why?"

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I'd like to see you do the reverse at least once, you know, for a change.

(frozen) (no subject)

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

You have a problem with a topic being covered more than once here?

Simple. Skip the read. But do spare us the ad hominem.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

This is truly terrible. I think, short of bombing Moscow, there should at least be sanctions against Russia.....


Oh wait.


Back to tweeting the outcry, then.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, and as with the Iranians negotiating their way right out of sanctions they are completely effective means of browbeating a country into changing its mind-oh wait.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Right.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Russia is also able to rely on China to bail itself out of the sanctions. Generally speaking, if people are willing to use guns to settle an issue, they've probably passed the point where using the pocket book does more than piss them off.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Aha.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Like I've said each time in those two hundred occasions when you've brought this up before, if you're willing to hold yourself to the Russian moral standards, be my guest.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not at all, I'm asking why anti-war movements only manifest at specific times since opposing war is something that really should be consistent. If you're opposed to very bad things done by soldiers to civilians, as most people should be, then why is it that these very bad things only matter with a specific subset of US politicians? Likewise, if people really care about the refugee crisis treating the people who are deliberately boosting it as allies is a damn fool mistake.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Why are you asking me all this? You seem to have made up your mind about it already.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Because I'm curious as to what others think, and because I haven't actually made up my mind on anything other than refusing to treat Russia as a causal agent in the refugee crisis being a moronic concept.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Somehow I doubt your intention is inquiry rather than assertion. Certainly didn't seem that way from your phrasing in the OP, which was full of rhetorical questions. But nevermind.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Pacifism can be hypocritical, yes. It could be selective as well - as in, selecting to hold your own to the higher standard it claims to be espousing, compared to some particular others. That could explain the greater outrage in the West about Western atrocity. Frankly, a West where the public is less outraged by their society's own atrocities than about others', is not a West I would like to be a part of.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So by what standard is Russia not the West?

And that aside, actions like this are directly causing the refugee crisis. So before we cheer Russia resurrecting the spirit of the Black Hundreds, maybe we should try to stop them causing the crisis they react so brutally to in their own country?

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

In many respects, Russia is not the West. Mentality, to begin with. The way they conduct politics. Their geopolitical mindset. Even personal relations. I have seen it first-hand (the latter part).

How do you propose to stop a big country from doing whatever they want from the position of power?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

1) Mentality in what way? If Poland and Hungary are duplicating the Putinist route, are they not Western? Were Robespierre and Danton Western?

2) In what way is Russian politics not Western? The West has seldom had problems with wholesale political executions when they've felt them justified.

3) Geopolitical mindset in what way? The West's self-proclaimed defenders are as paranoid that the West is menaced as Russians are to Russia.

4) Call their bluffs and send actual soldiers to do it. If that were done the oligarchs would do in Putin with a shovel and there'd be no more of that..

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

It is not easy to describe the Broad Slavic Soul in one paragraph. =)

So you want a full-scale war. Easy to wish that when it is not you or your close people you will be sending.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

By almost any standard. Ever been to Russia? I have. Over a dozen times. Don't be fooled by the posh looks of the central Moscow streets, or the cars they drive. If Russia is Europe then I'm a Martian.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Who says Europe defines the West? Most definitions of the West I've seen rely more on what things aren't than what they are.

I'm curious...

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

If not West, then what?

This seems to be a case where a defining of terms would help the discussion.

Not a bad post at all. Hey, it's even got a Hitler!

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

That bad, bad, evil continent that created Hitler and massacred the last group of minorities of any real significance! Shame on it.

For a moment I thought you were talking about the Native Americans, but then I spotted Hitler being mentioned in there so it can't be that.

RE: Not a bad post at all. Hey, it's even got a Hitler!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The point about Native Americans is valid, yet nonetheless European protestations about anti-Semitism on the part of Muslim immigrants would be somewhat more convincing if their grandfathers hadn't deliberately murdered almost the entire Jewish population of Europe. And then proceeded to blame Hitler and/or Stalin for their gleefully collaborating in killing their neighbors and stealing their stuff afterward to add insult to injury.

RE: Not a bad post at all. Hey, it's even got a Hitler!

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

By that logic, almost no one has the moral right to call out anybody else on anything, because chances are the one calling out has some skeletons deep inside their closet. The moment they open their mouth to express some valid criticism, they'd be made to shut up with the tu quoque argument.

Doesn't foster an open debate of issues much, does it.

Really, what's the expiry date that a Hitler or a Stalin argument might have? Or are some nations forever prohibited from having a position on some issues?

RE: Not a bad post at all. Hey, it's even got a Hitler!

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Oh, and by extension to my remark above about strawman, tu quoque is the second most prevalent fallacy that's been employed around political talk-rooms.

RE: Not a bad post at all. Hey, it's even got a Hitler!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

On some things, especially where only one country makes any effort at all for accountability, there is no statue of limitations. The USA already is relearning that after nullifying the Civil Rights Act. The Arabs aren't any different from Europe as it was. If anything they speak more to the real West than all the pious enabling of dictatorship in Hungary and Poland and rehabilitation of Holocaust perpetrators combined. The argument is still relevant when dictatorship is in an upswing and grandchildren of butchers rewrite them into heroes.

Or is it that Poland, Hungary, and the Baltic States are irrelevant because handwaving and Economics Uber Alles?