Thread by @neil_abrams

After questioning a Yale report which he did not read, and after I debunked his statements in a Twitter thread he also did not read, Maté is now asking me to refute a new Grayzone article which he may or may not have read but which is also very, very stupid. /n

https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1642205302698246144

I'll try to finish this quickly since I need to take my kid to the dentist. If I don't finish now I'll get to it later.

First, Maté claims the "main source" for the allegations of Russia's mass-kidnapping program is the Yale report.

No, it is not the "main source." There are *tons* of independent investigations on this which I detail in the thread Maté did not read:

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1641109861407789056?s=20

You may recall:

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1641106820172500992?s=20

And that's not even to mention the fact that RUSSIA ADMITS WHAT IT HAS DONE:

1. It admits to a mass child-deportation program

2. It admits the program is aimed at erasing kids' Ukr identities.

3. It admits it is holding at least some of these kids without parental consent.

Here's Putin admitting to the program along with the fact that its main goal is political indoctrination:

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1641109047834472454?s=20

Here's another admission from a top official that erasing the Ukrainian identities of these children is an official aim of the program.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1641109284485468161?s=20

Here's the head of the Russian program acknowledging that they're detaining at least some of these children despite requests from their families in Ukraine to return them:

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1641110190392221697?s=20

Here's the same official admitting to the massive scale of the program.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1641110294528405505?s=20

As the Yale report notes, all these things - deportations of children without lawful consent, political indoctrination of the children, and holding children incommunicado from families - violates international law.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1641108920847699969?s=20

Here's why the notion that the researchers are biased due to their State Department funding is prima facie stupid:

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1641109507769241600?s=20

Anyway, let's get to the Grayzone "article." The first half of it relies on the first-hand account by Blumenthal's co-author who visited one of the camps and found everything to be totally above-board.

Yes, you read that correctly: Journalist gets approval from the Kremlin to visit one of the child camps, is given a regime-approved tour, tells of happy campers who totally have an incentive to honestly report their experience, and reports back that all is well.

Seriously?

Here's what can only be termed faith-based reporting from the Grayzone authors, who tell us that most if not all the kids in these camps are ethnic Russians being reunited with their homeland.

How do they know this? They don't. But that doesn't stop them from saying it.

Never mind the fact that ethnic Russians don't make up anywhere near a majority of the population even in those regions of Ukraine (excluding Crimea) that contain the biggest share of ethnic Russians.

Because Blumenthal et al are *sure* all the deported kids are ethnic Russians.

Not that it would matter if they all *were* ethnic Russians. Why is that? Because under conditions of Russian military occupation, there are no circumstances under which parental "consent" to relinquish one's children to Russian camps can be considered legitimate.

That gets to the fundamental dishonesty of the Grayzone authors when they try to claim that most of the parents actually consented to have their children deported to Russia.

Because also "buried in the report" is a breakdown of the "consent crisis" the report describes.

Anyway, I've got to go. I'll leave it up to all of you to point to anything substantive I missed and will get back to it later.

/End