General election 2020 (2 Viewers)

[Cornu Ammonis]

The majority of the things it mentions, they are right about.

Russia, a great bunch of lads? The White Helmets, absolute villains. Maybe I’m naïve but this is all news to me.

 

[magicbastarder]

going to iraq and befriending a militia funded by iran sounds a *weird* thing to do.

 

[Lili Marlene]

This wouldnt make the news if they went to the USA, as bad to worse than Russia on all issues, and directly responsible for anything that's happening in Syria and the middle east in general. No one would be calling it "weird" or making sarky "great bunch of lads" comments about one of the cruelest countries on earth with the highest incarceration rate going.

 

[Lili Marlene]

It is a bit of a mad thing to do politically, all the same, certainly won't win them many friends

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

This wouldnt make the news if they went to the USA, as bad to worse than Russia on all issues, and directly responsible for anything that's happening in Syria and the middle east in general. No one would be calling it "weird" or making sarky "great bunch of lads" comments about one of the cruelest countries on earth with the highest incarceration rate going.

Where did I defend the US? (or anyone else here?)

You can be critical of the US without going completely on the swing to portray Russia as some misunderstood benevolent giant. Or supporting Iran in Iraq because the US fucked up the Middle East first. Or parroting Russian propaganda about Roman Protasevich being a neo-nazi. They sound as much like mouthpieces as any FFG weasel who spends their time licking the US’s arse.

 

[magicbastarder]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

it'd be just fantastic if FG got their asses handed to them, FG just seem to be trying to pull a jack chambers stunt here.

 

[taubstumm]

Where did I defend the US? (or anyone else here?)

You can be critical of the US without going completely on the swing to portray Russia as some misunderstood benevolent giant. Or supporting Iran in Iraq because the US fucked up the Middle East first. Or parroting Russian propaganda about Roman Protasevich being a neo-nazi. They sound as much like mouthpieces as any FFG weasel who spends their time licking the US’s arse.

not sure why Daly and Wallace are going so full-on with all of this, but they’re mostly pointing out fairly obvious western hypocrisies.

also, Roman Protasevich is a neo-nazi

that’s not open to much serious doubt

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

also, Roman Protasevich is a neo-nazi

that’s not open to much serious doubt

Is he? I'd read that all the claims about him being a neo-nazi originate in Russia via Russian state media, and only after he came to the attention of the wider world but happy to be corrected on that if I'm wrong.

 

[Cormcolash]

He's probably as non-neo-nazi as the Ukrainian revolutionaries there

 

[taubstumm]

Is he? I'd read that all the claims about him being a neo-nazi originate in Russia via Russian state media, and only after he came to the attention of the wider world but happy to be corrected on that if I'm wrong.

Protasevich was a participant in the actions of the Azov Battalion (check their wikipedia for all kinds of neo-nazi fun). the question of whether he was an active soldier or just an embedded journalist with the Azov battalion is somewhat murky. (It can also be argued that the distinction becomes a little technical when so much of the donbass conflict is already mainly a propaganda conflict, as the actual war-fighting has mostly settled into a stalemate.)

here is a blog post from the founder of the Azov Battalion, plainly stating that Protasevich was with Azov, but “only as a journalist.” you can google-translate the page easily. this is a guy who is fanatically devoted to destroying russian power in ukraine. so it would seem unlikely that he is some kind of russian stooge.

Щодо ситуації в Білорусі

Захоплення літака Ryanair є піратством і нічим іншим. Роман Протасевич у цій ситуації – заручник, захоплений

blogs.pravda.com.ua

Here is the independent russian news outlet, meduza, reviewing the evidence. meduza is currently being threatened with closure by the russian government as an alleged “foreign agent.” so, again, unlikely to be parrotting a government line. they shy away from definitively labelling him a nazi, but they do say it seems likely that he was an active participant in a neo-nazi group in Ukraine, and was apparently so dedicated and admirable that the group put him on their magazine cover.

Journalist or soldier? Meduza dissects allegations that Roman Protasevich (arrested in the Ryanair Minsk incident) served with a neo-Nazi Ukrainian paramilitary unit — Meduza

The head of the Belarusian KGB is directing the public’s attention to Roman Protasevich’s past activities in eastern Ukraine, apparently hoping to bolster allegations against the opposition journalist, whom state officials arrested earlier this week after his international passenger flight was...

meduza.io

here’s a story about the claims, from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — so, about as far away from Russian propaganda as it is possible to get. they try to give the boy a fair shake but they also can’t avoid the conclusion that it really does seem that this clown was a neo-nazi photographer/blogger in donbass:

Jailed Belarusian Pratasevich Dogged By Claims He Fought For Azov Battalion In Ukraine

In addition to charges that supporters say are trumped up, jailed Belarusian journalist Raman Pratasevich -- arrested after his flight was diverted to Minsk in late May -- faces claims that he fought for a controversial paramilitary unit in the war in eastern Ukraine.

www.rferl.org

here’s a twitter thread by Oleksiy Kuzmenko, verified washington-based investigative reporter who does analysis for bellingcat, among others. he says he went into the evidence presuming that it would be fake, and intending to debunk it, but came out the other end convinced it was real:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Cormcolash]

Does anyone think that a bunch like the Azov group would just let any old journalist tag along with them if they didn't agree with their nazi shit? If you do happen to believe that, welcome to dreamland.

 

[taubstumm]

None of the above means that Lukashenko is a cool dude and it was totally chill to force a plane out of the sky.

But it *is* true that this info emerged, and was then more-or-less immediately memory-holed by what you might call the mainstream-liberal western press. the guardian, the irish times, BBC, and similar. that’s not to accuse them of any kind of conspiracy or the like. they just tend to have a filter when it comes to certain parts of the world that can be sort of exhausting to get past (similar filters exist for china, venezuela, cuba, etc).

basically, it’s possible for something to be a russian-government talking-point, and for it also to be completely true.

 

[taubstumm]

Is he? I'd read that all the claims about him being a neo-nazi originate in Russia via Russian state media, and only after he came to the attention of the wider world but happy to be corrected on that if I'm wrong.

also — one more thing on this. almost no-one outside of belarus and ukraine had ever heard of this guy until the plane got forced to land. so to say that this all only came to light “only after he came to the attention of the wider world” seems a little disengenuous — of course that’s when it came to light. suddenly this guy was big news, that’s when people started digging.

(I’m not trying to be trollish here, I’m genuinely trying to make sure I understood you right).

 

[taubstumm]

and AAALSOOOOO, finally-finally: the EU had a collective meltdown about the Protasevich stuff, but then they got a fair bit quieter about it all when the comparison started to be drawn between this incident and a similar one in 2013 when the EU was the one forcing down planes, at the behest of the CIA:

Evo Morales grounding incident - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

so, this is the sort of stuff that I suppose Daly and Wallace are ostensibly trying to draw attention to. though they’re for sure doing it in a weird way. In fact, I wouldn’t be too surprised to find out that they might be sort of MEP tankies-for-hire for various regimes. Like, not active agents of foreign powers or anything dramatic, but maybe not entirely clean either. I have no idea either way, just trying to figure out a logic that would explain their (admittedly fairly strange) behaviour.

 

[Space]

Great work Taubstumm. I now know a lot more than I did earlier..

 

[magicbastarder]

so, the vote last night on stamp duty relief for vulture funds; with that timing, you'd kinda wonder if the government parties (well, FG, it's theirs to lose) have lost interest in DBS

 

[Cormcolash]

It'd be fuckin hilarious if they lose that

 

[magicbastarder]

and the gas thing is james geoghegan can't even vote for himself.

 

[magicbastarder]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Unicron]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Sad