I thought you as an avg Westerner were comparing your fate in the West with the fate of the refugees from non-Western country, which I find laughable. — neomac
You look at the West through pink-coloured glasses, apparently unable to acknowledge political malpractice when it is carried out by the West. — Tzeentch
That Westerners criticize the West is normal: we do it because we can, because we are free to do it. — Olivier5
Your argument requires a comparison, it cannot be supported by the provision of only one side. You argued that the effect was greater than... that requires two sources showing that one is greater than the other. Providing one source and saying "wow, that looks really big" is not sufficient. — Isaac
it is precisely the geopolitical significance of this war to the global order that magnifies the importance of any material and human damage caused by this war, especially from the Western prospective. — neomac
So I was right with "...you reckon" then, since none of that can be quantified and rests entirely on your subjective opinion. — Isaac
1) Look back through my posts. I've cited dozens of experts, yet still this cheap rhetorical trick is trotted out every few pages "where's your evidence", as if it hadn't already been supplied in droves.
2) You cannot expect to keep shifting the burden of proof and act as if that was a counter argument. If you think there are literally no experts advising multi-billion dollar campaigns against poverty, famine, pollution, and disease, then you're the one who needs to supply evidence to back up such a wild claim. — Isaac
Well, we might still disagree on how to asses experts. And even on how one cites experts. — neomac
I don't see how. The qualification of experts is pretty standard, as is the method of citation. — Isaac
One can still discriminate between rational and irrational — neomac
To paraphrase Van Inwagen, if you and your epistemic peer disagree, you must accept the possibility of your epistemic peer group being wrong, and that includes you. You cannot resolve a disagreement about what is rational by appeal to what is rational. — Isaac
As I said, you need to meet a minimum threshold of comprehension to take in part in discussions at this level. If you seriously don't understand how evidence underdetermines theories then I can't help you (not on this thread anyway - feel free to open a thread raising the question and we can discuss it there). — Isaac
I want to do neither. The argument was about whether Ukraine had committed war crimes, I posted an article proving they had. That's it. It does not need to further caveats to remind everyone that Russia has too, and the suggestion that Wikipedia is a better source than an actual published paper is too absurd for further comment. — Isaac
A few million are currently at severe risk of starvation (according to UNICEF) in Afghanistan.
Off the top of my head, something like 10-20,000 are killed in the Myanmar conflict in a year, a few thousand a year every single year for decades in the Mexican war on drugs. The US supported war in Yemen has killed over a million with a similar annual death toll to Myanmar.
A failure to tackle air pollution kills 100,000 or more people every year in India. Even here in England there are something like 100-150,000 deaths a year from all causes that could be avoided through public health interventions.
There's wars in Ethiopia and Somalia which, coupled with famines, cause thousands of deaths every year. Half a million children are at risk of death from the latest drought and that's barely even made the inside pages of most newspapers, nearly twice that in Sudan… — Isaac
As Janne Mende argues...
the Western human rights tradition cannot be equated with the contemporary human rights regime, which differs from its pre-1945 predecessors (Moyn, 2012). It was not the gradual increase of declarations or a smooth combination of natural law and citizenship rights that led to the foundation of the international human rights regime, but rather the international reaction to the genocide and atrocities committed by National Socialist Germany
Interpreting the pre-1945 declarations in their historical contexts reveals that they were not fully embraced by Western societies at the time but were the subject of highly controversial struggles (Bielefeldt, 2007: 182f.).3 What is more, pre-1945 non-Western movements and struggles encompassed similar or even further-reaching ideas that provided a foundation for human rights.
Critical accounts identify a tendency to overemphasize human rights violations in the Global South. This tends to construct a non-Western “other” that needs to be saved by Western states (Chakrabarty, 2008; Kapur, 2006). Thereby, the human rights regime creates a dichotomy between the Western embracement and the non-Western violation of human rights (Mutua, 2008). This dichotomy neglects human rights violations in Western states and disregards the complicity of the latter with the former (Chowdhry, 2005).
Deliberations within UN human rights for a highlight fault lines characterized by regional, substantial, and strategic alliances, not simply Western versus non-Western states. Human rights activists and diplomats from the Global South use the human rights framework to strengthen their demands. In a recent example, a group of non-Western states initiated a working group dedicated to drafting a binding treaty for corporate responsibility for human rights. The group was led by Ecuador and South Africa, and supported by Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, Kenya, Namibia, and Peru, among others, as well as by NGOs from all parts of the world. Although their proposal was opposed by the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, and the European Union, they were successful in that the UN Human Rights Council founded an intergovernmental working group (Mende, 2017) that published its Zero Draft in 2018. — Janne Mende, Department of International Relations, Institute of Political Science, Justus Liebig University
Ahmed Shaheed gives some historical context...
Fifty-eight countries assembled in 1948 to affirm their “faith in the dignity and worth of all persons” in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, wherein a framework for preserving that dignity and fostering respect for its worth was offered. Among these states were, African, Asian, and Latin American countries. Thirty-seven states were associated with Judeo-Christian traditions; 11 Islamic; six Marxist; and four identified as being associated with Buddhist-Confucian traditions.
...It was Egyptian delegate, Omar Lutfi, who proposed that the UDHR reference the “universality” of human rights
...social and economic rights were placed on the agenda as a result of pushes from the Arab States and the Soviet bloc, respectively.
...the Soviet bloc, which demanded more emphasis on socio‐economic rights than referenced in the document
...the UDHR was formed with major influence from non-Western states, thereby giving it legitimacy as a truly universally-applicable charter to guide humanity’s pursuit of peace and security.
...states like Chile, Jamaica, Argentina, Ghana, the Philippines and others were vanguards for the advancement of concepts such as “protecting,” in addition to “promoting” human rights.
In 1963, for example, fourteen non-Western UN member states requested that the General Assembly include a discussion on the Violation of Human Rights in South Viet-Nam on its agenda, alleging that the Diem regime had been perpetuating violations of rights of Vietnamese Buddhists in the country
in 1967, a cross-regional group of states from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean secured the adoption of two commission resolutions, establishing the first two Special Procedure mandates: the Ad-Hoc Working Group of Experts on southern Africa and the Special Rapporteur on Apartheid. The special procedures mechanism was thus established. Both resolutions were adopted by a vote, with most Western countries abstaining. — Dr. Ahmed Shaheed - UN Special Rapporteur — Isaac
That doesn't excuse any of these things, nor does the excuse that it's worse in other places of the world, nor does it make someone who seeks to flee these things anything less than a political refugee. — Tzeentch
You look at the West through pink-coloured glasses, apparently unable to acknowledge political malpractice when it is carried out by the West. — Tzeentch
Tell me, would you have asked poor Americans that were drafted to commit a de facto genocide in Vietnam why they didn't just flee the country if they didn't like it? — Tzeentch
So the sarcastic remark wasn’t about war crime per se, but the nature of war crimes committed by Ukrainians. You article didn’t list any of such war crimes (“endanger civilians” is not equal to “murder civilians”). — neomac
Isaac is lying — Olivier5
His priorities are not the same as yours — Agent Smith
After years of searching, I regret to inform that there is apparently no perfect paradise on earth.
— Olivier5
Nothing but hypocrisy. Not that I expected anything different. — Tzeentch
Concerning me, why do I side with the West? For the simple reason that in the West avg people could enjoy a level of rights and material well-being that I find evidently preferable than what I and like-minded people could get in authoritarian regimes. — neomac
Note that the Amnesty report in question is being reviewed by the organization. It was rejected by many long-time Amnesty members as flawed in its methodology (written only by foreigners) and conclusions that fuel Russian propaganda narratives.
There was no accusation of war crime by Ukrainian forces in that report, anyway, so Isaac is lying, as he often does. — Olivier5
It is indeed strange that we must pick sides, because otherwise we support Putin, as such views appear to exclude each other. — Manuel
The only ones supporting Putin are those who argue in defense of Putin. The side-picking is obvious in people's rhetoric. Personally I side with the west, not because it is an innocent perfect utopia, but because it allows progress, personal freedom and security far better than any other form of government or society so far. Siding with the least worse does not mean supporting the bad sides of it, but it damn straight stands up against the tyranny of someone like Putin. — Christoffer
They're so deeply entrenched in their dislike of western society that when a person like Putin essentially wage war against western ideals and any post-soviet nation who wants to rebuild into such ideals, they get confused into somehow defending Putin or validating his perspective just because it somewhat aligns with how they dislike western ideals. — Christoffer
it just means that we pick the side that is the least worse — Christoffer
One side of empathic people who get outraged by the brutality of Putin and one side who can't align their criticism of the west with standing against Putin so they disregard any judgement of him or try to justify his reasons because of some weird emotional inability... — Christoffer
And always remember, always always always, to say that Putin is a criminal, which he is. Because we didn't know that. — Manuel
The Soviet Union lost 10,000 to 15,000 men in Afghanistan out of a much larger population base, says Samantha de Bendern, an associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the international affairs think tank Chatham House. And, she told The Associated Press, even the most conservative model suggests 50,000 men dead in Ukraine. That’s between three and five times greater than what the Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan in nearly 11 years.
“I can’t see how a society can sustain that,” de Bendern said. — Associated Press
Arguing for a stop to the war is not the same as standing or supporting Putin - it does not follow at all, logically speaking. — Manuel
I would also like to know what is meant by "the West". Does South America count? Africa? Clearly not China because NATO members don't like it. If by the West you mean those countries here that sanction Russia, then I think it's a very nebulous notion: — Manuel
The less bad "side" is to avoid another World War, because apparently two of them were not enough for us to get the message. — Manuel
You can be outraged at the war crimes and want them to stop, while at the same time seeking to reduce the number of Ukrainians killed. Or you can create a Disney film in which the Empire is defeated. — Manuel
You may say my last sentence is a defense of Putin, when it is a description of fact, going all the way back to the dissolution of the USSR, stated clearly by people who actually know about this conflict, like the US' last ambassador to the USSR Joh Matlock and others. But if you can't make a distinction between these two, then we are stuck. — Manuel
One can enjoy the hard-fought rights of the US — freedom of speech, for example — and still recognize the awful foreign policy of the government.
I condemn Putin for this war, and I also condemn my government for its actions leading up to it. This idea of “picking a side” is strange. — Mikie
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