this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
67 points (91.4% liked)
Death to NATO
1541 readers
46 users here now
For posting news about NATO's wars in Ukraine, Serbia, Kosovo, and The Middle East, including anywhere else NATO is currently engaged in hostile actions. As well as anything that relates to it.
Rules:
-
Follow Site Rules
-
No support nor defence of Western-backed governments, NATO or Western Imperialism
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm not well versed in military training but eight weeks seems like an incredibly short time?
They're basically kidnapping people off the street and throwing them into combat as cannon fodder. Any regime that would do this to their own people is absolutely deplorable. Western values on full display here.
Conscription and full mobilization in wartime is not really a western thing though and not really the same as kidnapping. This coming from the point of someone hating the idea of even having a military, narrowly evading conscription myself a few years ago. If you do have some other sources for your claim I would be happy to take a look at them.
I mean there are tons of videos of literal kidnapping where people are grabbed of the street kicking and screaming. Here's a whole article on the subject https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/07/hxfo-j07.html
Literally kidnapping means
making the usage of it in terms of illegal mobilization seem a bit disingenuous. Not to say that is not problematic, but my main point was that illegal detention of people for use as soldiers in war is hardly unique to western countries nor Ukraine in this conflict. You, and the article, can easily make this point without misrepresenting the facts.
When you show up as a representative of the military to steal someone from their life and throw them into a meat grinder, they don't come with you because they're super stoked to die. They come with you because if they don't, the threat is implicit.
Sure, but you can't ignore the other half of the definition. It is the same with wrongful incarceration: checks some of the boxes but is not really kidnapping. Still the main point is also ignored regarding the uniqueness of the situation: It is not a special case by any means.
There is no other half of the definition, because there is no "and". It doesn't say to steal, carry off, and abduct by force and fraud. I don't really see any justification to say this isn't kidnapping, a guy walking up to you at random, unexpectedly, and then using the threat of physical or carceral force to abduct you to the front lines of a doomed war. I would say why split hairs here, but tbh I don't even understand what hair you're trying to split
The problem is rhetoric matters, and kidnapping implies abduction for the purpose of gaining claims, money or exercising terror. Lemmygrad is too stuffed with people using rhetoric that in turn allows them to react with hateful comments. That is why I want to split hairs. We all know what kidnapping means and what context it is usually used for, but you guys really want to use the term even though a better fit is just the plain truth that they are doing illegal and forceful recruiting. The reason you want to do this is to call Ukraine and the West special in this regard, which is not truthful, showing why rhetoric matters.
Your own definition: to steal, carry off, or abduct by force or fraud, especially for use as a hostage or to extract ransom
"Especially" does not mean "only", it just signifies what kidnapping is most often used for. Using the term is simply not incorrect nor does anybody here assume Ukraine is doing that for extortion. Reaction to these actions will be equally negative even if you used a more "correct" term of forceful recruiting. And Ukraine really is special in that regard, as it frequently quite physically drags off actively and violently resisting people, something the West will not do out of a sheer PR nightmare, instead opting for more subtle ways of persuasion.
Why you are so intent to die on this hill is beyond me.
Physically abducting people against their will is literally what they're doing right now. The only one misrepresenting facts here is you.
Sorry man, but we both know there is a distance between "kidnapping people off the street" and illegal procedure in the procurement of soldiers. The martial law, with grounds in the Ukrainian constitution, allows pretty much for conscripting any male within age 18 to 60 something. That the process is not done in due order is concerning, but also to some degree understandable given the circumstances. Do I think they should even be allowed to conscript just about anyone, of course not, but that doesn't make talking about what is actually going on fair game and what you are really saying true. As an addendum I want to say that something being founded in law or not doesn't make it morally right or wrong. Hence the problem is not the distribution of forms nor the method of extracting unwillful populace for war (which is what the article mentions and uses as grounds for it claims of kidnapping), but the almost unbounded conscription itself. This is also why war is terrible, allowing for situations like this, and none should be happy for using Ukrainians or Russians for fighting the West nor anybody else.
There are literal videos of Ukrainians abducting people off the street kicking and screaming. These aren't hard to find. The fact that you just keep pretending this isn't happening shows an incredible amount of intellectual dishonesty on your part.