3 Mass Tragedies Being Ignored for the Ukrainian Narrative
Greg Zink
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Now that “Standing with Ukraine” is the uncontested pinnacle of blue-pilled slacktivism, we can seemingly ignore the entirety of the world’s problems in favour of one particular conflict. One that, with even a modest amount of digging, reveals a geopolitical chess game underpinned by neo-Nazis, duelling propaganda machines, and a no-win nuclear situation.
Yet everything in life must now be tinted with sapphire and gold hues in order reach a certain brand of conspicuous moral certitude. Conversely, anyone arguing that one’s justified public empathies are being weaponized in favour of NATO realpolitik is slanderously denounced as Putin apologetics.
Apparently, it is impossible to denounce all the belligerents (Russia, NATO, Checnyans, and the Azov Battalion) while still standing squarely behind ALL the people who are unjustly caught in the middle. People who want nothing else besides life, liberty, and the pursuit of their own happiness.
Parallel to this are other, arguably more important and brutalizing, humanitarian issues facing the world. Ones that are uncomfortable for the dominant world powers because of what they reveal. And this regards their views on freedom, democracy, and human rights as much as it does for their motivations (or lack thereof).
1. Afghanistan’s Return to Hard-Line Theocracy
Back in September of 2021, the US accepted some hard truths regarding their exit from Afghanistan. After 20 years, $4 Trillion ($2 Trillion spent on the war and a yet to be realized $2 Trillion on Veteran’s compensation and aftercare) was squandered, and 171,000 total deaths, the American people were essentially told to move on with life and worry about Covid.
Unfortunately, not all the people of Afghanistan could fit on military planes for safe passage to North America. There are still roughly 8 million women under the age of 19 who, after nearly 20 years of increased autonomy, are now being subjected to the brutal realities of Taliban rule.
But Afghan women and girls were only considered when starting wars, not ending them.
The United Nations reports that “Taliban forces were responsible for nearly 40 percent of civilian deaths and injuries in the first six months of 2021, although many incidents were unclaimed. Women and children comprised nearly half of all civilian casualties. Attacks by the ISKP included assassinations and a number of deadly bombings.”
Indeed the number of deaths for this year alone in Afghanistan stands at least 637. But the incalculable misery of women and children is the true tragedy of their national reality.
Amnesty International has been attempting to assist women like one named Zeenat who they documented from abroad to demonstrate the Taliban’s tyrannical rule. They note how she was:
“Regularly beaten by her husband and brother before she took refuge in a shelter. When the Taliban arrived, she and several other women fled. They are now in hiding. She said: “We came only with the clothes we were wearing. We don’t have a heater, and we go to sleep hungry… My brother is my enemy, and my husband is my enemy. If he sees me and my children, he’ll kill us… I am sure they are looking for me because they know the shelter has closed.” One shelter director, currently in hiding with some survivors from her shelter, told Amnesty International: “We don’t have a proper place. We can’t go out. We are so scared… Please bring us out of here. If not, then you can wait for us to be killed.”
Educational deficits, familial terror, forced veiling, and widespread sexual abuse are just a few of the depressing aspects of female life under Taliban rule. This is not to mention the daily threat of sectarian violence against minorities. For example, Afghanistan’s Hazara-Shia community:
“On May 8, three explosions at the Sayed al-Shuhada school in Kabul killed at least 85 civilians, including 42 girls and 28 women, and injured over 200—the vast majority from the Hazara community.”
The bombing of a school in Ukraine would be instantaneously labelled a war crime. Yet for Afghanistan, it’s swept aside because Western involvement is largely over. The MIC made its cash and we left because they couldn’t droned or occupied into submission.
And we left the theocrats in power an impressive amount of artillery…
2. Yemen’s Neverending Hell
Yemen’s ongoing hell is uniquely problematic for mainstream reporting because of the uncomfortable questions it forces. “Who is behind this aggression?”, “What is being sought?”, and “What are the alliances?”
The sad and awful truth is that all of these revolve around Saudi regional hegemony and arms for oil deals. But the geopolitical math/national self-interest stacks up in favour of an alliance with these theocrats. So the US can be their biggest trading partner, and their crimes against Yemen can be roundly ignored.
Despite being the deadliest conflict of 2021 (with at least 27,000 deaths), and registering almost 5,000 deaths in 2022, the media mentions are nearly non-existent. No red, white, and black profile pics for this travesty. No mainstream media push for justice in the face of tyranny. And no analysis of why this is allowed to proceed unabated.
The reason for willful neglect is that opposing Russian aggression advances Western interests while broaching the topic of Yemen would be messy. That’s Saudi’s backyard, not NATOs, so let them assert their violence because opposing it would mean fracturing a cozy relationship. So those crimes against humanity are permissible you see. Just wave blue and yellow and you forget about 10,700 YEMENESE CHILDREN who have been maimed or killed in the last 7 years.
And if you think Putin is a bad guy, check out the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia’s rap sheet. Mass executions, the assassination of journalists, suppression of women’s rights, funding terrorism, bombing hospitals, and seeding global jihadist schools across the world are just a few of their more notable activities.
Maybe President Hadi just isn’t as photogenic as Zelensky.
Regardless, Human Rights Watch has noted that the armed conflict in Yemen has resulted in the “largest humanitarian crisis in the world.” And according to the Yemen Data Project, “more than 17,500 civilians were killed and injured since 2015, and a quarter of all civilians killed in air raids were women and children. More than 20 million people in Yemen are experiencing food insecurity and 10 million of them are at risk of famine.”
They go on to note at least “90 unlawful Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, including deadly attacks on Yemeni fishing boats that have killed dozens and appeared to be deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects in violation of the laws of war.”
So since 2015, the US (remember they’re the good guys against evil Russia) have backed the Saudi coalition forces who have completed “20,100 airstrikes on Yemen since the war began, an average of 12 attacks a day.”
Naturally, their targets included hospitals, school buses, markets, mosques, farms, bridges, factories, and detention centers. But no war crimes here folks! Just focus on Russia-man-bad and keep repeating it until you can’t hear anything else.
3. China’s Uyghur Genocide
Lastly, we have the totalitarian machinations of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their eradication of enemies (perceived or otherwise). Which has led to draconian persecution of the ethnic Uyghur population in the western province of Xinjiang.
In what can only be described as a fascistic zeal for racial purity and Orwellian control, President Xi has imposed an open eugenics program to slowly eliminate their Muslim minority population.
Besides imprisoning millions of Uyghur citizens in re-education camps, diluting their population centres with Han migrants from around China, and separating families, Xi is also enforcing a coercive mass sexual sterilization program to prevent these people from being able to procreate.
Indeed the word genocide is being applied because according to the Genocide Convention (of which China is a signatory of) it is defined as “any one of five acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a [protected group].”
In addition to direct killings, their acts included: “causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing birth-prevention measures, or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
China’s communists are guilty of all of these crimes yet they remain free of sanctions, embargoes, or any penalty whatsoever. The possibility of war isn’t even considered an option or publicly discussed. We just look the other way at evil Vladimir.
The reality is that China has launched state-orchestrated campaigns against the Uyghurs on a systematic and widespread basis. These people have been described as suffering under “unlivable conditions, torture, and sexual violence inside the camps, and are subjected to institutionalized enslavement across China.”
And Since 2017, the government has “forcibly transferred Uyghur children – many of them “orphaned” as a result of losing both parents to internment or forced labour – to a network of state-run facilities in Han Chinese settings.”
So the CCP is subjecting these people to “sterilization and coercive birth-prevention policies, [that] destroys the group’s reproductive capacity.” And In 2018, the evil fruits of their endeavours became apparent when, in Xinjiang, their birth rate declined by nearly half – the most extreme such drop anywhere since the UN began recording these statistics.”
So despite overwhelming evidence of the most pernicious socio-cultural mass atrocity since Rwanda, China gets a pass because of their economic invaluableness (both in their market capacity and their purchase of sovereign US debt).
Now many are left wondering what will be done if China invades Taiwan. It’s been on the table for some time, but will we uphold the same morality against them as we have with Russia?
Keeping You On Script
The bottom line is that many different humanitarian crises simultaneously exist at the present moment. You should ask yourself: “Why is this one being amplified as opposed to the others?”
A very simple exercise is to look at how Ukraine was discussed before Russian aggression. “Corrupt”, “far-right”, and “troubling” seemed to be the running motif. But how quickly things can change to a more virtuous, democratic, and inspiring outlook…
Please re-evaluate your reactions to the Ukraine situation and juxtapose them against your noticeably absent sentiment for veiled adolescent Afghan girls, the besieged and starving Houthis, or the forcibly sterilized and re-educated Uighurs.
I’ll wait for your answer while I watch Raytheon’s and Lockheed’s stock prices soar.
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