Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[temporal1]

If these atrocities are true .. does international law define citizens armed (by Zelensky) to fight, simply as “citizens?”
honest question, i have no idea.

Is there a difference between “unarmed citizen” versus “citizen armed by gov to fight,” i.e. citizen recruited to act as an army?

These are good questions and I don’t know the answer. I assume armed civilians would be considered combatants, but I’m not sure that’s what we’re talking about here. Some of these killings involve people who were waving white flags or had the Russian word for “children” written on their vehicles. This article from the BBC has footage of a civilian convoy being shot at by Russian troops and a Ukrainian civilian being shot while raising his arms (the footage was captured by a Ukrainian drone and is from a distance).

It’s important that war crimes on both sides get investigated and documented. Sometimes these cases do get prosecuted, like the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which Bosnian Serbs murdered 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys. Even if prosecution never happens, I think it’s important to understand what happened in order to bear witness for the victims. This is why historians continue to investigate the Holocaust — several years ago there was an archeological dig at the Treblinka camp in Poland to understand better what had happened even though most of the survivors and perpetrators are dead. Murdering and executing people is a way to erase them — to make them disappear — documentation and bearing witness is a way to resist that disappearance.

i understand there are war crimes; a few pages back, Ukraine was accused of torturing+killing handcuffed Russian soldiers.
(“kneecaps” Page 128.)

Right. That’s also terrible.

For those of us who believe all war is criminal, it’s hard to distinguish worldly definitions of, “this killing is ok, this one is not.”
But the world and its governments rely on loads of technical human law. In effort to prevent the worst of it.

I know that the rules and laws of war aren’t perfect and there are too many times when these rules are ignored and perpetrators get away with it. I still would rather live in a world where these rules exist and where there was at least an attempt at morality in warfare. I don’t think the Geneva Conventions make war OK or acceptable, but I also refuse to submit to the cynicism that “might makes right” and that everything and anything in war is allowable or acceptable because human law is imperfect.

i agree, and do not find anyone on this forum that represents the underlined.
i’m glad for the Geneva Convention. Not perfect, but i believe it has helped.

Is it possible to understand why someone does something without actually endorsing the person and what they do?
Or is this deemed impossible?

Few of us knows how we would behave in war.

[Szdfan]

I don’t think the Geneva Conventions make war OK or acceptable, but I also refuse to submit to the cynicism that “might makes right” and that everything and anything in war is allowable or acceptable because human law is imperfect.

i agree, and do not find anyone on this forum that represents the underlined.

This is one of the areas I get irritated with you, when you make pronouncements about what “everybody” thinks or doesn’t think that aren’t true. That’s what I mean by gaslighting.

International Law is a liberal fantasy. There is no higher court to appeal to. International law amounts to whatever the most power nation says it is.

In reality, "All is fair in love and war"

[Soloist]

Its easy to fake these sort of things... but its also easy to dismiss these sort of things.

This is war though... rape, pillage, and blood shed of the innocent. Anyone who thinks we can civilize war or that our forces never do this is seriously missing what war looks like.
Remember, officially Russia likely has rules condemning these practices just like we do, but corruption has a way of ignoring crime regardless of nation.

Iraqis and Afghan civilians would raise their hands and surrender, even use white flags and then attack the moment US military turned their back.
If this was an actual crime scene perhaps the truth could come out, but it won't so for all practical reasons Russia killed innocent bystanders. As shown in our own society, flat out video recordings of violence get disputed and both sides see what they want to see...

Again, I don't support Russia, but I don't support Ukraine. I am against the Ukrainians killing Russians and against the Russians killing Ukrainians.

If Russia was invaded and civilians started to pay for it with their livelihoods I would hope we all would care and send food and aid for shelter to them too as we have with the poor Ukraine refugees.

[temporal1]

I don’t think the Geneva Conventions make war OK or acceptable, but I also refuse to submit to the cynicism that “might makes right” and that everything and anything in war is allowable or acceptable because human law is imperfect.

i agree, and do not find anyone on this forum that represents the underlined.

This is one of the areas I get irritated with you, when you make pronouncements about what “everybody” thinks or doesn’t think that aren’t true. That’s what I mean by gaslighting.

International Law is a liberal fantasy.
There is no higher court to appeal to. International law amounts to whatever the most power nation says it is.

In reality, "All is fair in love and war"

read carefully: “i agree, and do not find” .. is NOT speaking for others.
i wasn’t remembering the quote you offer. i don’t object to you demonstrating your disagreement. no need to accuse of gaslighting.

i think the quote is Soloist nett. He has a right to his opinion. He has reason for his opinion.

i don’t interpret his words to mean “might makes right.”
perhaps, his is a lament, the world is sinful, avoid confusing earthly governments with God Almighty.
(again, my honest interpretation.) he seems to be present, maybe he/nett will expand on his words. i hope.

(i think) one of my worst failings is being overly direct. i sure try. i’m guilty.
evidently, you “read me” as full of tricks. in my view, that’s sort of a compliment. i’m not clever enough to pull that stuff off.
i learned from a tender age.

[Josh]

The idea of trying to make war more civil is kind of ridiculous. “War crimes” is a way to punish the losers in wars. (Victorious countries aren’t held accountable for obvious “war crimes”.)

Since the Geneva Convention was put into place, war and bloodshed has become much worse. Huge numbers of people died in the last century. War is worse than ever before.

As usual, both sides in this conflict will shriek about the other side’s war crimes whilst pretending they are innocent and haven’t done any themselves.

[Ken]

The idea of trying to make war more civil is kind of ridiculous. “War crimes” is a way to punish the losers in wars. (Victorious countries aren’t held accountable for obvious “war crimes”.)

Since the Geneva Convention was put into place, war and bloodshed has become much worse. Huge numbers of people died in the last century. War is worse than ever before.

As usual, both sides in this conflict will shriek about the other side’s war crimes whilst pretending they are innocent and haven’t done any themselves.

What?!?

Now you are coming here to excuse and whitewash war crimes Josh?

[Josh]

The idea of trying to make war more civil is kind of ridiculous. “War crimes” is a way to punish the losers in wars. (Victorious countries aren’t held accountable for obvious “war crimes”.)

Since the Geneva Convention was put into place, war and bloodshed has become much worse. Huge numbers of people died in the last century. War is worse than ever before.

As usual, both sides in this conflict will shriek about the other side’s war crimes whilst pretending they are innocent and haven’t done any themselves.

What?!?

Now you are coming here to excuse and whitewash war crimes Josh?

No, I think all war is essentially evil and immoral. I find the idea of parsing a war into the part that is okay (like carpet bombing villages) into the part that is somehow not okay.

One aspect is that more powerful countries can get away with more. They have a better Air Force so they can conduct aerial bombing which is somehow not a war crime.

[Ken]

No, I think all war is essentially evil and immoral. I find the idea of parsing a war into the part that is okay (like carpet bombing villages) into the part that is somehow not okay.

One aspect is that more powerful countries can get away with more. They have a better Air Force so they can conduct aerial bombing which is somehow not a war crime.

We are currently talking about the summary execution of civilian prisoners. Hundreds of civilian prisoners are being found executed, some with hands tied behind their backs, some in mass graves, in the areas of Ukraine being abandoned by the Russians. Are those war crimes?

In any event, indiscriminate aerial bombing of civilian targets is, indeed, a war crime. International law was vague on that concept prior to WW2 (because it hasn't happened before WW2 or technically the Spanish Civil War) but was made clear afterwards. Here is a description of current International Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_bo ... tional_law

In the post war environment, a series of treaties governing the laws of war were adopted starting in 1949. These Geneva Conventions would come into force, in no small part, because of a general reaction against the practices of the Second World War. Although the Fourth Geneva Convention attempted to erect some legal defenses for civilians in time of war, the bulk of the Fourth Convention devoted to explicating civilian rights in occupied territories, and no explicit attention is paid to the problems of bombardment.

In 1977, Protocol I was adopted as an amendment to the Geneva Conventions, prohibiting the deliberate or indiscriminate attack of civilians and civilian objects, even if the area contained military objectives, and the attacking force must take precautions and steps to spare the lives of civilians and civilian objects as possible. However, forces occupying near densely populated areas must avoid locating military objectives near or in densely populated areas and endeavor to remove civilians from the vicinity of military objectives. Failure to do so would cause a higher civilian death toll resulting from bombardment by the attacking force and the defenders would be held responsible, even criminally liable, for these deaths. This issue was addressed because drafters of Protocol I pointed out historical examples such as Japan in World War II who often dispersed legitimate military and industrial targets (almost two-thirds of production was from small factories of thirty or fewer persons or in wooden homes, which were clustered around the factories) throughout urban areas in many of its cities either with the sole purpose of preventing enemy forces from bombing these targets or using its civilian casualties caused by enemy bombardment as propaganda value against the enemy. This move made Japan vulnerable to area bombardment and the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) adopted a policy of carpetbombing which destroyed 69 Japanese cities with either incendiary bombs or atomic bombs, with the deaths of 381,000-500,000 Japanese people.

However, Protocol I also states that locating military objectives near civilians "shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians." (Article 51, Para 8)

[Ken]

As for the evidence of war crimes such as summary executions of civilians and mass graves in the areas of Ukraine being abandoned by the Russians?

GIS experts have been busy geo-locating all of the photos and videos pouring in from various sources to verify them. What they do is isolate identifying features such as specific buildings and other geographic features within the photos and then match them to known reference sources such as Google Street View to geo-locate the precise locations. So that pictures of dead bodies and mass graves from say Chechnya or Syria or some other conflict can't be recycled as propaganda here.

Here is a thread about this process complete with lots of photos of atrocities that are documented to be from formerly Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine. Click through to read the whole thread if you are interested. Some of the photos are graphic.



In addition, legitimate professional news sources are now entering the area to investigate and what they are finding is collaborating the initial social media reports.

Here is a report filed yesterday from the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60949791
And another from the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... sia-bucha/

[Josh]

Ken,

Are you seriously taking the position that Russia has committed lots of “war crimes” yet Ukraine hasn’t committed any?