Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[Ken]

Ken, I was talking about Soviet Russia after WW2, not during.

So you wanted the US to start WW3 against the Warsaw Pact? What are you saying?

The US did push human rights issues in relations with the USSR, both in the UN and in bilateral relations. Most notably with respect to allowing emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. What policy do you think was lacking?

[Soloist]

Ken, I was talking about Soviet Russia after WW2, not during.

So you wanted the US to start WW3 against the Warsaw Pact? What are you saying?

The US did push human rights issues in relations with the USSR, both in the UN and in bilateral relations. Most notably with respect to allowing emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. What policy do you think was lacking?

I am saying that if one argues that fighting Hitler was a just war due to the atrocities he did, equally so if not greater would be Stalin. The so called just war led to just as much suffering as the war itself in one of the victors. This is sort of the point of there not being just war. Now from a governmental perspective, the Warsaw pact was more effective then declaring war to protect some random people.

[Ken]

Here’s part of my perspective.

Back in the 1930s, Russia brutally occupied Ukraine.

The Germans came in and were treated like liberators - which they were. They stopped the brutal Russian occupation.

So who were the “good guys” and the “bad guys” in that fight?

A Christian doesn’t choose sides in a war.

Yes, of course the Nazis had plenty of Ukrainian collaborators and people who welcome them. The Nazis made plenty of newsreels of that sort of thing for propaganda purposes. But that is not a remotely accurate description of the Nazi invasion and occupation of Ukraine. If you want to actually educate yourself, read Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands" https://www.timothysnyder.org/books/bloodlands

While you are at it, perhaps you can tell us what is meant by the term "Holocaust by Bullets" and what the German Einsatzgruppen were doing in Ukraine, especially at places like Kamianets-Podilsky and Babi Yar

[barnhart]

I am saying that if one argues that fighting Hitler was a just war due to the atrocities he did, equally so if not greater would be Stalin. The so called just war led to just as much suffering as the war itself in one of the victors. This is sort of the point of there not being just war. Now from a governmental perspective, the Warsaw pact was more effective then declaring war to protect some random people.

I might go even further and suggest the atrocities of the Third Reich were similar in nature to the approach of the British and French empires in Africa and the American empire in America in the previous 150 years ("divine" right to expansion, seizure of resources, containing the unwanted population in containment camps and the use of chemical/biological warfare against civilians...)

[nett]

I am saying that if one argues that fighting Hitler was a just war due to the atrocities he did, equally so if not greater would be Stalin. The so called just war led to just as much suffering as the war itself in one of the victors. This is sort of the point of there not being just war. Now from a governmental perspective, the Warsaw pact was more effective then declaring war to protect some random people.

I might go even further and suggest the atrocities of the Third Reich were similar in nature to the approach of the British and French empires in Africa and the American empire in America in the previous 150 years ("divine" right to expansion, seizure of resources, containing the unwanted population in containment camps and the use of chemical/biological warfare against civilians...)

But the US has totally stopped doing all that nasty stuff right? /s

[Ken]

Ken, I was talking about Soviet Russia after WW2, not during.

So you wanted the US to start WW3 against the Warsaw Pact? What are you saying?

The US did push human rights issues in relations with the USSR, both in the UN and in bilateral relations. Most notably with respect to allowing emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. What policy do you think was lacking?

I am saying that if one argues that fighting Hitler was a just war due to the atrocities he did, equally so if not greater would be Stalin. The so called just war led to just as much suffering as the war itself in one of the victors. This is sort of the point of there not being just war. Now from a governmental perspective, the Warsaw pact was more effective then declaring war to protect some random people.

I still don't understand your point. Germany and Japan started WW2 by launching offensive wars of conquest against their neighbors. What did the USSR do in the 1950s to merit a NATO invasion and the launching of WW3? They invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 to prop up the local communist government there, which was a country that they already occupied. Do you think that merited launching WW3?

People don't typically argue for the launching offensive pre-emptive wars. No one was arguing for the UK or France to launch an offensive war against Hitler in say 1935. Or for the US to launch an offensive war against Japan in 1935. But once those two countries chose to launch their own offensive wars of conquest and declare war against their neighbors the choice was either to fight or capitulate and leave a German-Japanese empire straddling 3/4th of the globe.

[Ken]

I am saying that if one argues that fighting Hitler was a just war due to the atrocities he did, equally so if not greater would be Stalin. The so called just war led to just as much suffering as the war itself in one of the victors. This is sort of the point of there not being just war. Now from a governmental perspective, the Warsaw pact was more effective then declaring war to protect some random people.

I might go even further and suggest the atrocities of the Third Reich were similar in nature to the approach of the British and French empires in Africa and the American empire in America in the previous 150 years ("divine" right to expansion, seizure of resources, containing the unwanted population in containment camps and the use of chemical/biological warfare against civilians...)

Yes, the Germans learned from the Americans who invented concentration camps in their genocide against Native Americans, and who invented segregation in the Jim Crow south. That is a historical fact. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... is/540630/ The genocide of our native peoples and slavery (and their legacies) are the two original sins of the United States. Sins that all too many conservatives want to hand-wave away today.

But what does that mean for policy today in 2022? Do we idly stand by when others promote those same sorts of policies today because we have a tainted past? What country doesn't? Or do we learn from the past and seek not to see it repeated elsewhere?

[Bootstrap]

I think the Old Testament wars were a mixed bag, and God condemned Israel's actions too sometime. I'm reluctant to use the phrase "just war" at all - some of the worst atrocities in history are committed by religious fanatics convinced that they are doing God's will.

My logic is that when God commanded them to go wage war on this nation or another it was a Just war. Now the nation and people of God are not a earthly kingdom and likewise our just war is waged in the spiritual realm.

This is, of course, not a "just war" in the Augustinian tradition. For instance, here's the Catholic Catechism:

• The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain.
• All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.
• There must be serious prospects of success.
• The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

Israel was the aggressor when they occupied the Holy Land. Humanly speaking, they had no serious prospect of success. They did not enter the Holy Land to eliminate a threat or human rights abuses or whatever.

[Soloist]

This is, of course, not a "just war" in the Augustinian tradition. For instance, here's the Catholic Catechism:

• The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain.
• All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.
• There must be serious prospects of success.
• The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

Israel was the aggressor when they occupied the Holy Land. Humanly speaking, they had no serious prospect of success. They did not enter the Holy Land to eliminate a threat or human rights abuses or whatever.

have you read Augustine's writings on Just war? or are you just quoting the modern version?

[Bootstrap]

This is, of course, not a "just war" in the Augustinian tradition. For instance, here's the Catholic Catechism:

• The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain.
• All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.
• There must be serious prospects of success.
• The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

Israel was the aggressor when they occupied the Holy Land. Humanly speaking, they had no serious prospect of success. They did not enter the Holy Land to eliminate a threat or human rights abuses or whatever.

have you read Augustine's writings on Just war? or are you just quoting the modern version?

I have read Augustine's writings on just war, but not recently. Here, I am quoting the modern version as found in the Catholic Catechism, there are a bunch of variants of it, but I think the modern version is what most people I know associate with the term "just war".

What definition of just war are you using? Does it come from Augustine?