And westerners country have done it to both Russia and pretty much to the entire world for decades..
They are only tasting a bit of their own medicine..
They are only tasting a bit of their own medicine..
Russia is doing it now to westerners countries the same way westerners countries have done to the entire world..
Lets not pretend the last two world wars and significant portion of local wars were not started by westerners countries after all..
Seems like your heuristic is "engaged in war => equal & bad", which I believe would describe every modern nationstate.
What i am saying is that westerners countries act like the world is ending because Russia is doing those things, that Russia is the big bad and that everyone should be scared..
But when they did to the rest of the world it was just business..
It was just pointing out the hypocrisy of westerners countries.. When they do it, it is ok, when others do it, it is a problem..
Most of the global south think westerners countries overall all are all big bad as much as Russia is..
The point that was made in this thread was that everyone should be worried about Russia doing this things while the response was the question on why should the global south be worried about it?
Specially when what Russia is doing is not news to us, we being trough all that time and time again..
Now, to be clear, i don't disagree that Russia is the big bad right now, but westerners countries are not any better..
And to be extra clear, i understand we do face consequences for stuff that Russia is doing to Ukraine, but the same way we face consequences of what westerners countries do all over the world.. So for us this is just another day dealing with the crap the world trough at us..
It would be good if Russia behavior taught westerners countries to not do those things and their behavior changed in the future but that is wishful thinking, we know that will not happen any time soon..
Yes, everyone in the world should be concerned about what Russia is doing because massive scale criminality is bad for everyone. If a neighbor invades your country and rapes your civilians, would you prefer everyone shrug it off?
War is awful 100% of the time and yes, less powerful countries often get the short end of the stick even in conflicts that don't directly involve them. That doesn't mean Russia and western countries are the same.
As recent as the west invading Afghanistan to fight Taliban, that the west had a hand in creating in the first place to fight the soviets in the 70s..
As recent as the tortures that took place in Guantanamo..
west and Russia are two sides of the same coin, same shit... The history is told by the winners and west is often the winners.. Does not mean they are always the right ones..
So let me draw it just to make it super duper clear..
West should indeed be worries about Russia, but do not expect the rest of the world to have any sympathy to you when you did the same thing to us at some point or another..
And to be really honest.. at the moment global south is much more worried about the west pushing back on China rising influence on the global south then whatever Russia is doing in Europe..
We are worried about what the west will do now that the parts of world decided to move away from the dollar for international trading to prevent the US from economically bulling other countries like it has always done with support from the rest of the west..
We have as much, if not more, to worry about from the west then we have to worry about from Russia..
Rape and murder in Iraq: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_rape_and_killings
Murder in Afghanistan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2003_journalist_killings...
the war crimes pages for the us and uk has more stuff covering the middle east invasions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_war_crimes
Hell, if you look for you will find dozens upon dozens of cases of innocent being murdered by law enforcement WITHIN THE WEST, why the hell would you think that it is not happening in foreign soil as well, where there much less oversight..
Do you think that 5 service members raping someone, getting charged by the military, then getting sentenced to prison for decades is the same as what Russian soldiers are doing in Ukraine, for example in Bucha?
Can you link me to the articles about those soldiers being held accountable for their crimes?
If no, then obviously they are not equal.
But i was thinking more on line of who knows how many times more that happened and it was successfully covered up like they tried, and failed, to do in this case..
Or on the lines of the Abu Ghraib prison where torture, sexual assault, rape, murder and desecration took place because the government authorized "enhanced interrogation techniques"..
A case that had the US government arguing that humanitarian laws like the Geneva convention did not apply to US interrogators oversea.. And that required a supreme court ruling to tell then that those laws indeed do apply to then..
And the people that were held accountable just were because journalists denounced what was going on and in the end they only prosecuted the soldiers, the higher ups that approved it did not face any major consequence..
This one have some pictures for you since you wanted some:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
US also used "enhanced interrogation techniques" in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, again authorized by Bush administration. There is no evidence of rape here but not that it make it much better.. Had already mentioned that in case you missed..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
Anxiously waiting your mental gymnastic to tell us how the US disregarding the international humanitarian laws and Geneva convention is fine..
West and the Russian are two sides of the same turd (and the rest of the world is not far behind).. the only difference is that the west want to play righteous and have to save face so they work to cover it up while the Russians just don't care and do it in the open..
In the end, you can stand in your made up pedestal as much as you want and think the west is better, the rest of the world knows the truth you like it or not..
By analogy, a society that allows Crime X to happen with no repercussions is clearly and actually worse than a society in which Crime X occurs, but has repercussions.
The actions themselves could even be equally bad, and the society that produced them would not be equally bad. If you'd like evidence, please consider whether you have any preference about your family moving to the United States, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. All have crime, all have engaged in war, all have committed crimes against humanity. Therefore equal?
This is obvious for all but the most talented gymnasts :)
I would agree if each and every person involved had faced repercussion regardless on how up they were in the command chain, but again it is not what happened..
Come on.. For this people to be so comfortable doing those things to the point they took photos of themselves doing it was because they were comfortable enough doing and sure there would be no repercussions.. And if the soldier were this comfortable to do those then and this sure there would be no repercussions i can almost guaranty you that it happened a lot more then what we know..
And again, there were no repercussions until the things were exposed.. It means that people did those things, and other people saw those things happening and did nothing about until much later when it got exposed to the public.. Then they threw some soldier under the bus to save face and moved on with their lives..
I will give you that in the west at least those things to get exposed and something happen even if only to the people at the bottom of the chain.. in Russia since they control the media they will just hide it, deny and just not care.. But both allowed it to happen and and only took action do damage control later when they needed.. Sorry if i find both equally nasty..
And those things surely makes me wonder how many more times other people did the same thing and hide it properly either because they knew there would be repercussions if it got exposed or because they received help to hide it from someone that knew..
Or if the higher ups that got away without repercussions ever allowed those things to happen again as long as there was no evidence left behind..
Sorry if i am not moved by half a dozen of peons being used as escape goats to save the ass of the higher ups that authorized all this either well aware of what was being done and not caring or not caring to find out to have plausible deniability later..
And not that you will believe but i honestly would not consider moving to the united states any more then i would consider living in Russia, Iran, North Korea, China and most of Europe..
And i will leave at that.. If you have not gotten it by now you will never get it..
I bet you that both people in the west society and in Russia society condemn those actions..
It was not those society that allowed those things to happen.. It was the government...
So I am not judging either society, i am judging both governments..
The difference between west and Russia is the general population access to know what happened and their ability to held the government accountable..
And on that aspect i agree that the west is better then Russia..
But again, this is not what i am judging.. i am judging the government actions and motivations..
And both governments allowed those things to happen and both handled the problem after it came out and only enough to do damage control without making any real and lasting changes...
The only difference is that Russia does it by hidding from their people and\or lying to the people and west does it by throwing soldier goats under the bus but saved the ones that allowed it from any major repercution..
And looking trough that aspect i fill that both are equally bad..
Everyone know that not everyone in the west is to blame for those things happening, the same way everyone know that not everyone in Russia is to blame for what Russian soldier do...