Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

Whenever you read something like that that the "U.S. says" remember that the "U.S. said" for a long time that WMDs exist in Iraq and used that claim for a war. It turned out it was a complete fabrication, and that there were even helpers, e.g. Britain and Germany. So "UK said" it too and it was later completely obvious:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier

"much of the work in the Iraq Dossier had been plagiarised from various unattributed sources including a 13-year-old thesis produced by a student at California State University. The most notable source was an article by then graduate student Ibrahim al-Marashi"

Also:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admit...

Even older (Gulf War) claims of the "enemy" killing babies in the incubators were a complete fabrication:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

"The Nayirah testimony was a false testimony given before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990 by a 15-year-old girl who provided only her first name, Nayirah." It "was cited numerous times by United States senators and President George H. W. Bush in their rationale to back Kuwait in the Gulf War. In 1992, it was revealed that Nayirah's last name was al-Ṣabaḥ and that she was the daughter of Saud Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized"

"On January 6, 1992, The New York Times published an op-ed piece by John MacArthur entitled "Remember Nayirah, Witness for Kuwait?"[57]" "The story earned MacArthur the Monthly Journalism Award from The Washington Monthly in April 1992, and the Mencken Award in 1993."

Imho enough non-us sites have pointed out the fact that China has concentration camps. But hey, I guess there were doubters for nazi Germany too, and in this age, paid commenters trying to add doubt. Not that I'm accusing you directly, just I may be doubting your sincerity a little.

> Imho enough non-us sites have pointed out the fact that China has concentration camps.

If they simply reported about the U.S. claims, or the sources are the same in some other way, that shouldn't count as "more proof". Again, see the WMD story, and consider how long main stream media in multiple countries hasn't questioned that, now proved false, narration.

> Not that I'm accusing you directly, just I may be doubting your sincerity a little.

What you effectively promote is not even questioning the validity of some claims when it is e.g. "against China" so that as soon as I point the provable U.S. propaganda actions which even resulted in the wars before, I must be paid for that? In reality, those who are spreading the actual propaganda are those who are nicely paid for their work. That's exactly why I advocate extreme caution in unconditionally accepting the inflammatory claims, and the lines involving "Muslims in concentration camps" are obviously very much such.

Actually it's China that appears to be borrowing from the US propaganda playbook by using the war on terror as a pretext for incarcerating up to 30% of an ethnic and religious minority. Even Human Rights Watch has reported on them. https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/09/09/eradicating-ideologica...

Thanks for that link, I see no use of "concentration" camps term there.

Where do you get that 30 percent though? That would be at least more than 3 million people!

The biggest claim I know of is, as an example, 1700 out of some specific town of 32,000 inhabitants, and that could be realistic if the said town was indeed the center of the extremist activity, including some kind of preparing a paramilitary organization:

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/target-0629201813250...

Note how that specific claim (of around 5% of that 32000 people town) is first blown up to be "10%" and then put in the title as "One in 10 Uyghur Residents of Xinjiang Township Jailed or Detained in ‘Re-Education Camp’" to bind the title not to the specific town but to the whole province with 11 million residents. Which is again less surprising knowing that it's RFA who publishes it that way:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia

Paid by U.S. taxpayers, initially directly organized by the CIA. Now it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asia_Foundation

"the US government described the Asia Foundation as a "quasi-nongovernmental organizations" and said that "the core of its budget" was still provided by the US government."

And even that RFA didn't use the "concentration" word.

I'm not claiming that I know the exact numbers; I don't. But this was reported by the same news outlet: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/millions-08032018142...

There is vast evidence for these camps, heck, you can see them in google maps.

https://theintercept.com/2018/08/13/china-muslims-uighur-det... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_cam... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/11/if-you-enter-a...

I don't dispute that there is something that can be seen in the google maps. I also don't dispute that the "camps" have some numbers of people in them.

What I am claiming is that we should be very careful in evaluating what exactly among all the claims is true.

E.g:

- what is meant by "concentration camps"? Is the naming correct or a pure propaganda? I.e. are they comparable to those made by Nazis in WW II? Or,

- Are they comparable to the concentration camps in which the U.S. put the people of Japanese origin living in the U.S. during the same war? Or,

- Are they comparable to the U.S. prisons?

- How many "minority Muslims" are put in the camps? The title itself can be claimed to be "correct" even if the most of the people in the camps aren't minority Muslims and only a few "minority Muslims" are put there. And again, is that the best name for that "camp" etc.

- Did the "minority Muslims" in the "camps" perform some subversive activities before, i.e. does some legal ground exist?

- What is the treatment of the people in these camps?

- How many people are total in these camps and other prisons in China? China has almost 5 times more people than the U.S. so if the total is under 10 million of people, they have still less people in the prisons per citizen than the U.S. has(!)

- How can we be sure not to act like we acted after the "WMD" claims or "Nayirah testimony"? Before the discovery much later, you could have also responded that for what was claimed there's "vast evidence."

> How can we be sure not to act like we acted after the "WMD" claims or "Nayirah testimony"?

Is there anyone, anywhere, suggesting we go to war over this? And if not: what the hell are you talking about?

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