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Comment by xtian | Hacker News Reader

Amnesty International corroborated this congressional testimony which was used to justify the first Gulf War and later revealed to be a complete fabrication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

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So you think they are fabricating this?

I don’t have any special insight, I’m just pointing out that Amnesty doesn’t have a sterling record in this regard.

The story is definitely in the US’ favor geopolitically, though. Look up which countries have condemned China for human rights abuses in Xinjiang at the UN. I don’t think there are any Muslim-majority countries on that list. Compare it to the list of UN countries which have condemned the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

Seems like you are implying that the story is false because it benefits the US.

I’m implying that maybe given the US’ history in the Middle East, its claims about the treatment of Muslims should be taken with one or more grains of salt.

Ok - so you do think they are lies.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

How do you tell without another clock when it is right, though? I think the best solution to this is find independent reporting that has no relationship to any western countries, which I am sure will find some atrocities, and not touch the broken clock at all.

CIA has a long history of funding terrorists and attempting regime change operations around the world, China included.

People that know the pattern can see the bullshit coming from a mile away.

Why the US all of a sudden loves the Uyghur terrorists that it was bombing with impunity not too long ago...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m7id66fk9hY

The US was bombing Uighurs? That seems like total bullshit to me.

>U.S. targets Chinese Uighur militants as well as Taliban fighters in Afghanistan

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-targets-chinese-uighu...

They were considered terrorists, then at some point during the Syrian regime change project, imported Uyghur fighters became useful allies to the US along with Al Nusra, Al Qaeda and ISIS.

US is also currently rehabilitating an Al Qaeda militant's image to make him the 'Juan Guaido' of Syria...

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/abu-mohammad-al-j...

> in Afghanistan

I think this is the relevant phrase, no?

How is it relevant? They are Uyghurs, and this terrorist group does operate in China too. The fact that this year they stopped being terrorists according to the US does smell like bullshit.

Certainly, the US didn't bomb them for their ethnicity. That doesn't make the statement factually incorrect, the flip-flopping there smells like bullshit and that's what GP was alluding to if we are reading the comment in good faith.

The US considered ETIM a terrorist organization before they became useful got reframed as freedom fighters: https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/p...

So they didn’t bomb ‘Uighurs’ because they are Uighurs. They classified a particular organization as terrorists.

I.e. this is a false equivalence with what China is accused of.

The US removed this organization’s terrorist designation and is now promoting them as the voice of the oppressed Uyhgur people. I’m not trying to draw any equivalence.

They did the same with the IRA in Northern Ireland. That’s what happens in geopolitics. Relationships change.

What does it have to do with what is happening in Xinjiang?

Please, let's not equate the IRA with international islamiste terrorists operating in multiple countries and associated with Al Qaeda.

The argument is that the US changing its mind on terrorists just because they are Uyghurs after bombing them shows that there is foul play involved and that the US government does not act in good faith on the matter, but instead is weaponizing the Xinjiang issue for geopolitical gain and distorting the truth to do so.

I'm not convinced. That sounds just like the reasoning China uses. "We are not targeting a people but a terror organisation".

Seems like apples and oranges. What does any country really have to lose by criticizing Myanmar? Not much. On the other hand, criticizing China comes at a cost because they're a powerful country. So countries are probably less willing to do it in general even if they're ideologically aligned with doing it.

This is a good point. However, being allied with the US does not magically make the cost of criticizing China any lesser, and there are Western countries with a stronger reliance on the Chinese economy than many Muslim countries.

So is the deciding factor really reliance, or is it rather US-alignment?

Besides, there is quite a bit to gain by criticizing enemies of the US and excusing crimes from allies of the US, see for example Muslim countries recognizing Israel at the behest of the US state department, so why is it not the case here also?

And the US too is a very powerful nation, even more powerful, yet many Muslim countries critiqued it.

I think the truth here is a lot more complex. The contrast between the reporting by western and non-western sources here as well as the factual inaccuracies in reporting and willingness to exaggerate lead me to conclude that while not offending China is a big thing, another is that western reporting is likely exaggerated as happened before when geopolitics made it convenient.

> while not offending China is a big thing, another is that western reporting is likely exaggerated

Why? If anything it seems likely that most negative reporting on China has been downplayed for years and is now only catching up now that Western governments are less interested in appeasement.

What appeasement? Western governments were never interested in appeasing, only in profit. Now China is in the way.

There are many countries were atrocities of similar scale are happening right now and that don't have much influence. That's the metric for a neutral amount of reporting, and China was over that since the 60s.

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