There were enough photographic evidence of armed bandits attacking the police, trashing and robing property, setting it ablaze, and even a few videos of thugs raiding a police department's armory.
People had died. This is no longer a joking matter, sorry.
Both of your posts have an aggressive tone that is condoning a government killing citizens with very brief reasoning given for justification relative to the extreme seriousness of that stance. They also contain sarcasm. I'm not merely criticizing you - I'm just pointing out that it's unrealistic for you to say "I am not looking to pick a fight".
Edit: It doesn't sound like a reason to kill them because "they did X" can't mean "kill them" for essentially any X, the operative word being "did". I.e. government agents must (morally) reserve lethal force against their own citizens for when they are under immediate threat of an intent to kill, and they are (morally) obligated to avoid that situation in the first place, if at all practical, for admittedly various definitions of "practical".
Exactly what kind of picture are you imagining? That evil baby-eating Kazakh government is lining up poor peaceful unarmed civillians to shoot them down in the street? Well sorry, that's not what we see on photographic evidence. Unfortunately there is no other practical response to armed mob that threatens actual civillians and is intended to kill anyone affiliated with the government, other than "killing them in the street" if they don't comply with surrender order, don't lay down their weapons and continue their business of turning the city into a war zone, burning property and so on.
> Both of your posts have an aggressive tone that is condoning a government killing citizens
This is merely your impression. Written text has no "tone" except the one you hear in your imagination. Please don't reduce what I had said to a mere "tone that is condoning government killing citizens" -- that is not what I said.
> They also contain sarcasm Only one contains sarcasm and, in an case, sarcasm does not imply anything in particular. My first posts only epressed frustration with Reuter's quality of journalism. If you see it in a "wrong" tone and interpret it as an invitation for a fight, sorry, but that is completely on you.
> I'm just pointing out that it's unrealistic for you to say "I am not looking to pick a fight"
Please don't project your behavioural patterns on me.
> I.e. government agents must (morally) reserve lethal force against their own citizens for when they are under immediate threat of an intent to kill
Then I don't see what is the problem here, or, specifically, I don't see why you insist on acting as if it is not what is currently happening.
But that’s not correct.
“I have given the order to law enforcement and the army to shoot to kill without warning,” Tokayev said.
https://apnews.com/article/kazakhstan-law-enforcement-agenci...
> “I have given the order to law enforcement and the army to shoot to kill without warning,”
> “Those who don’t surrender will be eliminated.”
I mean, it's not that we can safely throw away defining statements and retain the meaning of the message, especially given that we discuss a small quote of a translated text.
I don't get what you suggest, that their government should treat their servicemen as cannon fodder that is supposed to counter aggressive armed individual with hugs and kisses? Well there are already several dosen killed by thugs, hardly anyone would want to risc their lives for the life of someone with an intent to kill you with a gun.
If you don't want to get shot without warning, then, I guess, just don't attack police, especially don't use firearms when you do that? This is basically a permission to use firearms at will, it's already a given for any servicemen in any developed state as a best practice for officer's survivability.
Well this is just demagogy and slogans, utlimately boiling down an attempt to depicict it as a yet antother romantic dihotomy of "opressive government" and "brave people".
As awlays, in reality the real civilians are hiding scared at their homes or fleeing the country and it's just a few armed thugs, who think they can represent and talk for "the people", having tasted some blood and lawlessness.
There is enough video evidece to see how "defense against their agressors" turns out to be robbing shops and setting building ablaze. So please don't act like these people are defending or fighting the government or have some moral high ground.
"Real civilian" is apparently anyone without the will to fight. It sounds dangerously like the Russian propaganda against Chechens when they were simultaneously calling the rebels "foreign influencers" (no real civilian would fight the Russians!) while simultaneously sending secret police to genocide or jail military age males.
But that is not what I have said, especially not the "at all" part, why are trying to misqoute me? All I have said is that robbing shops doesn't seem like a glorious heroic struggle against the government. Random skirmishes will obviously occur. Not sure what exactly you see as contradictive and where exactly do you imagine a binary mutual exclusion.
> "Real civilian" is apparently anyone without the will to fight
Has the definition of word "civillian" changed while I was not looking? Seems to be still be "a person who is not an active member of the military, the police, or a *belligerent group in a conflict*. So I don't get why you insit on using the wrong term, other than to spin a narrative.
Armed belligerents are not civillians, up is not down, war is not peace, words do have specific meanings.
> but thugs who use firearms against police [up-thread]
contradicts
>"So please don't act like these people are defending or fighting the government.
I quote, "So please don't act like these people are defending or fighting the government." Are police part of government or not? Adding "at all" is merely semantic, it's just the way my part of the US talks. i.e. "Would you like a bag at all with your groceries?" Saying "fighting government" and "fighting government at all" would both mean you are fighting government to some extent, but the latter _could_ be interpreted as slightly weaker if anything.
>Has the definition of word "civillian" changed while I was not looking
Ok so what you meant was once you fight, you're a belligerent and not a civilian. Your intent was just to help us understand definition of civilian? Yes yes I agree, I thought you were implying something different like they weren't real citizens with genuine honest intent or something. But you've now made clear you were using the standard definition. Although I'm confused why you didn't just say that in the first place.
The language used is interesting - eg "an invasion of bandit formations trained from abroad".
Is ‘bandit’ a common translation that gets used, or some state propaganda that’s being parroted?
It could be both I suppose.
I am not going to suggest how anyone should achieve their political goals, nor am I going to engage another "ends justify the means" argument. I am simply pointing out that calling armed isurgents mere "protestors" and putting them in one cohort with protesting civillians is a very blatant attempt at misinformation.
> Is ‘bandit’ a common translation that gets used
It's a borrowed Itallian word, widely used in both roman and indo-european languages, not a "translation". Please don't accuse me of "parroting" something when you base your assetions on such illiterate mental models.
Thank you for the link, but I don't suppose hackernews crowd really needs some journalist of a state-owned political media explaining complex politics to them.