Thread by @neil_abrams

Atrocity-denial is the lowest form of punditry.

Which explains why it attracts such inveterate bottom-feeders as @aaronjmate and @mtracey.

So let’s take a look at their most recent foray into this scummy endeavor: Denying Russia’s forced-deportations of Ukrainian children.🧵

@aaronjmate @mtracey Occasioning this latest episode of atrocity-denial by Maté and Tracey is a report by the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at Yale’s School of Public Health, which documents a mass system of forced child-deportations from Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Here’s a link to the Yale report: hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/sharing…

@aaronjmate @mtracey Since the report’s release, the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and top Russian official Maria Lvova-Belova for overseeing this system of unlawful child-deportations. icc-cpi.int/news/situation…

@aaronjmate @mtracey Maté, for his part, questions the trustworthiness of Yale’s HRL, the report’s author, on the grounds that it receives funding from the State Department. That’s convenient, since it liberates him from having to actually read the report.

@aaronjmate @mtracey “The idea that Russia has this mass program of abducting children doesn’t fly,” Maté observes. “And the only source I can see is a State Department-funded group.”

Boy, Aaron, it’s just impossible to find independent corroboration of these claims, isn’t it?

@aaronjmate @mtracey Yeah, we noticed.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Maté’s excuse for this vast system of child deportations is that, as far as he can tell—you know, from not reading anything about it—these kids are orphans or have relatives in Russia.

Unsurprisingly, Maté’s take mirrors that of the Russian government, as per the report itself

@aaronjmate @mtracey Then there’s Tracey, who, upon examining the report’s approach to data-gathering, concludes “the methodology is just crazy”—this, mind you, from a guy who wouldn’t know a methodology if it walked up to him and shook his hand.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Commenting further on the report’s methods, Tracey takes issue with the fact that the researchers didn’t interview any witnesses or victims.

@aaronjmate @mtracey But if we use our brains for a moment, these methodological decisions start to make sense. As the report explains, interviewing witnesses living under Russian occupation might put them in danger. And talking to the actual families could jeopardize the return of their kids.

@aaronjmate @mtracey That’s probably why the report goes to great lengths to conceal even that testimony from witnesses and victims collected through open-source methods—which, I would add, is the only responsible way to handle it.

@aaronjmate @mtracey As the report makes clear, the Yale researchers rely on sophisticated open-source methods. They compile evidence from all manner of publicly-available records and then cross-verify each piece of relevant information to ensure reliability.

@aaronjmate @mtracey By aggregating data from such varied sources as satellite imagery, photos, social media posts, official government statements, and the like, the researchers were able to map out the locations of the camps, the system for transporting children there, and the people responsible.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Tracey also objects that the researchers “did not request access to the camps”—you know, the same ones where Russia’s dictatorial regime is detaining the kids it kidnapped from a warzone.

Can you think of a reason why it might have been impractical to try that?

@aaronjmate @mtracey Then, just to underscore his dishonesty, Tracey cherry-picks part of an interview with one of the researchers to imply that the parents sending their kids to Russian camps are doing so voluntarily. state.gov/briefings-fore…

@aaronjmate @mtracey Except if you continue reading the actual interview, you’ll see this very same researcher go on to describe a “consent crisis” in which scores of children are being removed in violation of international consent standards and often without parental consent at all.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Which means, if you weren’t previously aware, that Michael Tracey is full of shit and can’t be trusted to report on anything in an honest manner.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Finally, Tracey, who evidently spent all of 2017-21 in a coma, mocks the researchers for believing what he regards as a crazy conspiracy theory that the Trump administration detained migrant children in its own system of concentration camps.

@aaronjmate @mtracey This penchant for stupefyingly lazy atrocity-denial is a common theme with Tracey. Here, for instance, you can see him get thoroughly humiliated on Indian TV after questioning whether Russian forces massacred Ukrainian civilians in Bucha.

@aaronjmate @mtracey But I digress. So what does the HRL report actually find? In short, it describes a huge system of child-deportation and detention whose primary purpose is to eradicate any sense of Ukrainian nationhood among these kids and replace it with a patriotic Russian identity.

@aaronjmate @mtracey The report confirms the deportation of over 6000 children into a system of 43 camps. These numbers, however, are a conservative estimate. The true figures are likely much, much higher.

@aaronjmate @mtracey As noted earlier, Ukrainian children are taken from their families without anything remotely resembling “consent.” Worse, while families were initially provided return-dates for their kids, at least four camps have suspended returns indefinitely.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Russia’s actions in this regard likely violate numerous international criminal statutes. Such violations include deportations without necessity or parental consent, holding children incommunicado from their families, and political indoctrination of detained children.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Nor are the people in charge of this system trying to hide it. For instance, Putin signed a decree in May 20222 easing the process of assigning Ukrainian children Russian citizenship. He also admitted the aim of the program is to politically-indoctrinate the children.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Maria Lvova-Belova, who heads the Russian program, herself admitted that, among other things, facilitating adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families constitutes official state policy.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Sergei Kravtsov, another top official involved in the program, admitted it is designed to effectively erase these children’s Ukrainian identities.

Somebody please ask @aaronjmate if the U.S. State Department made Kravtsov say that.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Still, some might object, doesn’t the Humanitarian Research Lab’s involvement with a State Department program taint the report’s findings?

No, and if one bothers to think about it for a moment, the reasons why are obvious.

@aaronjmate @mtracey Various agencies of the U.S. government, whether the State Department or the Department of Education, help fund thousands upon thousands of research projects. Do you think there are special political commissars reviewing the findings of each one to ensure political compliance?

@aaronjmate @mtracey Even beyond that, the researchers at places like Yale’s HRL are professionals. If the U.S. government were actually trying to influence their findings, you’d hear about it. There would be resignations. It would be a scandal. But it hasn’t happened, has it?

@aaronjmate @mtracey And if there existed some large-scale federal censorship program beyond Yale’s HRL, you’d see mass resignations nationwide. The complaints wouldn’t just come from a few cranks; rather, you’d see scores of esteemed experts abandoning ship. The story would be huge.

@aaronjmate @mtracey So if you believe the U.S. government tried to intervene in the Yale study or that such practices are common in any liberal democracy, you are deluding yourself. That’s not how things work. Sure, you might find the rare exception, but that’s the point: They’re exceptions.

@aaronjmate @mtracey But if you *still* distrust the Yale study and insist on seeing independent verification of Russia’s child-deportation system, I’ve got good news: There’s *tons* of it, and it’s easy to find—whatever Maté and Tracey would like you to think.

@aaronjmate @mtracey In addition to the AP investigation referenced earlier, in the video clip mocking Maté, here’s Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch:

amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

hrw.org/news/2023/03/1…

@aaronjmate @mtracey Here’s a report by BBC Russia showing how Russian forces see children at Ukrainian orphanages as trophies. It also contains testimony from kids who dispute Lvova-Belova’s claim that none of the children from these orphanages have family. bbc.com/russian/featur…

@aaronjmate @mtracey Here’s Lvova-Belova herself admitting that Russia continues to detain Ukrainian children despite demands from their parents to return them. Putin, for his part, applauds her for such efforts. washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/…

@aaronjmate @mtracey Here’s Lvova-Belova again, this time acknowledging the massive scale of these child-deportations.

@aaronjmate @mtracey In sum, the existence of an illegal Russian program to deport Ukrainian kids without consent and erase their Ukrainian identities is a fact. And Russia apologists who dispute this, like @aaronjmate and @mtracey, are scumbags engaged in the worst sort of atrocity-denial.

/end