FishBulbia posted:

This is nothing about rehabilitating what they're doing, it's about the morality celebrating people suffering when you're watching the war like a sports match. That's what people are arguing about.

I also don't think it's that much of a hot take to suggest that the people doing most of the dying in war are not policy makers.

Warbadger posted:

Telling people they shouldn't celebrate (or in this case joke about) the death of soldiers taking part in an invasion/genocide (because those soldiers might just be regular clean soldiers, not the dirty warcriming soldiers) is indeed a necessary part of rehabilitation.

Note that all of this is in reference to a pretty not-explicit joke about an elite tank ace dying in combat, not generic "people suffering".

Herstory Begins Now posted:

Again, russia does not execute soldiers for refusing to deploy. People literally can just walk away from their units and they may or may not even be picked up later for it. Similar to draft dodging, yeah it might well upend your life, but at least then you aren't literally a participant in a genocidal war of conquest, which actually seems like a bargain, all things considered.

The only people without really any ability to just not fight are the portion of separatist republic troops that were literally press-ganged into fighting.

FishBulbia posted:

I'm not telling people to do that. and the issue at hand doesn't have any baring on if they are a warcrime soldier or not. I'm just saying people not partaking in a celebration of the death of an adversary aren't the same as people trying to rehabilitate nazi soldiers.

Warbadger posted:

To be clear - this was not about a graphic exultation and wild celebration of some random person's death. This is about a mild joke at the expense of an elite Tank Ace killed in combat inside the foreign country his army is currently invading and genociding.

Herstory Begins Now posted:

Again, russia does not execute soldiers for refusing to deploy. People literally can just walk away from their units and they may or may not even be picked up later for it. Similar to draft dodging, yeah it might well upend your life, but at least then you aren't literally a participant in a genocidal war of conquest, which actually seems like a bargain, all things considered.

The only people without really any ability to just not fight are the portion of separatist republic troops that were literally press-ganged into fighting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Soldier_(song) posted:

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
And he knows he shouldn't kill
And he knows he always will
Kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
And fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
Who's to live and who's to die
And he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
Condemned him at Liebau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon to a war
And without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he
Really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
And brothers can't you see
This is not the way we put an end to war.

lilljonas posted:

We "know" there were about 20k to 40K soldiers before the invasion and before the introduction of mandatory conscription. A couple of tens of thousands on the Luhansk-Donetsk front right now, after Russia has lost a ton of BTGs and also have many of their troops stationed on other fronts, means that the DPR and LPR forces are a significant part of the current active fighting, even though maybe not the majority. But not an insignificant portion at least, and not two small paramilitary groups.

FishBulbia posted:

Isn't something like 50% of the population of the DNR basically pensioners? I'm skeptical of their ability to leave.

lilljonas posted:

Edited

All I'm trying to say is that it is very easy to dehumanise participants in a war when you are not, yourself, in a situation where you have to make hard choices. Like mentioned above that "it's your fault if you keep living in an occupied country and then get conscripted". In a idealized fantasy it's easy to declare that everyone who are about to be roped into an oppressive war of conquest should make some kind of noble sacrifice, but very few in this thread have ever done anything close to what it would mean to flee your country back in 2014-2018 because of the insurgency, or even worse to actively resist a mandatory conscription.

A little bit of humility among the armchair moralists would be nice. By that I don't mean to apologize for the Russian atrocities or anything like that, but rather appeal to a more nuanced understanding of the psychology of war and systemic oppression.

CommieGIR posted:

Not Ukraine but very much related:

https://twitter.com/WillManidis/status/1536347712911577089?s=20&t=r3M668-4TGb1PBNPAzyq_Q

Discendo Vox posted:

This seems like fearmongering; it was an explosion at Freeport, not the entire place exploding or "Freeport's explosion" (interesting use of the possessive there). There's been plenty of coverage, and it's expected to be a ~three week outage.

CommieGIR posted:

A three week outage is significant impact given the shift to alternative sources of natural gas, and in the middle of a fuel crisis.

Discendo Vox posted:

Not relative to "Freeport exploded" or "this story is almost no where in the mainsteam news", or the twitter user implying it was Russian sabotage, which really ain't in evidence.

mobby_6kl posted:

On the other hand, it's in Texas, so chemical facilities blowing up is about as normal as in russia.

FishBulbia posted:

https://twitter.com/Kira_Yarmysh/status/1536668006671073282?s=20&t=mIVQ-UHrOsSRUScDj3uE6g

They disappeared Navalny

SirTagz posted:

Could you guys please get a room or just PM or something. I do not want to go back a comment chain 3 pages long to make sense of these short heavy hitters.

CommieGIR posted:

Yup, explosions at plants in Texas are, sadly, pretty common and normal, but it couldn't come at a worse time.

Alan Smithee posted:

it's really cool and good that the dudes who shot up them power stations here never got caught

luckily no one can ever do that again

Alan Smithee posted:

it's really cool and good that the dudes who shot up them power stations here never got caught

luckily no one can ever do that again

FishBulbia posted:

The fact that the Russian's aren't pulling off that stuff in the US is a testament to their incompetence and how much that "Russian web of influence" was overblown

cochise posted:

I was reading about that last week. A lot of people seem to think it was done intentionally by a group to draw attention to the weak security. The team of people were obviously very professional in how fast and quiet they were able shoot up that station without drawing attention. No radio comms were apparent but flashlight signals to keep it low-tech.

Then they did it again like a year later.

FishBulbia posted:

The fact that the Russian's aren't pulling off that stuff in the US is a testament to their incompetence and how much that "Russian web of influence" was overblown

Alan Smithee posted:

it's really cool and good that the dudes who shot up them power stations here never got caught

luckily no one can ever do that again

Wibla posted:

The US government publicly stated that any such attack on US soil could trigger NATO article 5.

You do the math

FishBulbia posted:

The fact that the Russian's aren't pulling off that stuff in the US is a testament to their incompetence and how much that "Russian web of influence" was overblown

cinci zoo sniper posted:

The reason why media rarely cares to mention the distinction is because these are not some kind of separatist armies - they’re two relatively small paramilitary groups lead by Russian soldiers (~20% of total headcount before February). Their total headcount is a few tens of thousands, when the force that invaded from Russia is 120-180 thousand, depending on whose numbers you like.

While I’m not personally interested in that, one could also make a philosophical argument about their agency in willingly living under a military occupation.

KitConstantine posted:

Thread about how the new western artillery trickling in is starting to have an effect.

Mans posted:

Mans posted:

Russia not committing acts of terrorism in the United States is a testament to Russian incompetence?

...what?

Russia should be destroying US infrastructure and bombing US factories at random as a sign of competence in your eyes? How many people need to be reminded that neither the US, nor Germany nor Switzerland is at war with Russia?

Two to three million Ukrainians spent eight years being shelled by Ukrainian artillery and seeing fanatics do horrifying things to their community (https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-tornado-battalion-rogue-paramilitaries-kyiv-trial-crimes/28205795.html), their civilian centers are being bombed as we speak even though Ukraine claims to have no spare artillery shells.

They don't need much coercion to be opposite to the current Ukrainian regime. They're probably the most motivated to fully retake their regions. Have you ever bothered to study their perspective in this war? They're not a Borg collective indoctrinated by Russia. They are real people with real motivations in a real struggle.

It sure has!
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/three-killed-artillery-attack-donetsk-market-separatist-news-agency-2022-06-13/

Mans posted:

Russia should be destroying US infrastructure and bombing US factories at random as a sign of competence in your eyes? How many people need to be reminded that neither the US, nor Germany nor Switzerland is at war with Russia?

Mans posted:

It sure has!
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/three-killed-artillery-attack-donetsk-market-separatist-news-agency-2022-06-13/

quote:

There was no independent confirmation of any of the attacks and Reuters could not ascertain whether they had taken place.

Mans posted:

Two to three million Ukrainians spent eight years being shelled by Ukrainian artillery and seeing fanatics do horrifying things to their community (https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-tornado-battalion-rogue-paramilitaries-kyiv-trial-crimes/28205795.html), their civilian centers are being bombed as we speak even though Ukraine claims to have no spare artillery shells.

They don't need much coercion to be opposite to the current Ukrainian regime. They're probably the most motivated to fully retake their regions. Have you ever bothered to study their perspective in this war? They're not a Borg collective indoctrinated by Russia. They are real people with real motivations in a real struggle.

Mans posted:

Two to three million Ukrainians spent eight years being shelled by Ukrainian artillery and seeing fanatics do horrifying things to their community (https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-tornado-battalion-rogue-paramilitaries-kyiv-trial-crimes/28205795.html), their civilian centers are being bombed as we speak even though Ukraine claims to have no spare artillery shells.

quote:

But even with the courtroom closed to observers, the latest Tornado trial has become a public spectacle. Authorities released video footage from a court session they said shows the defendants interrupting proceedings by shouting and hurling their own feces and urine at judges and prosecutors. One defendant is heard in the video recording threatening a judge, "I'll come after you, bitch, and I'll rape your corpse with a rubber cock."

quote:

One man came to Topolskov, he said, to tell him about Tornado fighters who forced him and another male detainee at gunpoint to rape a third man who was tied to a pommel horse.

Mans posted:

Two to three million Ukrainians spent eight years being shelled by Ukrainian artillery and seeing fanatics do horrifying things to their community (https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-tornado-battalion-rogue-paramilitaries-kyiv-trial-crimes/28205795.html), their civilian centers are being bombed as we speak even though Ukraine claims to have no spare artillery shells.

They don't need much coercion to be opposite to the current Ukrainian regime. They're probably the most motivated to fully retake their regions. Have you ever bothered to study their perspective in this war? They're not a Borg collective indoctrinated by Russia. They are real people with real motivations in a real struggle.

Mans posted:

It sure has!
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/three-killed-artillery-attack-donetsk-market-separatist-news-agency-2022-06-13/

Mans posted:

Two to three million Ukrainians spent eight years being shelled by Ukrainian artillery and seeing fanatics do horrifying things to their community (https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-tornado-battalion-rogue-paramilitaries-kyiv-trial-crimes/28205795.html), their civilian centers are being bombed as we speak even though Ukraine claims to have no spare artillery shells.

They don't need much coercion to be opposite to the current Ukrainian regime. They're probably the most motivated to fully retake their regions. Have you ever bothered to study their perspective in this war? They're not a Borg collective indoctrinated by Russia. They are real people with real motivations in a real struggle.

mobby_6kl posted:

Do you still have a link in history? I tried to google but there seemed to be a few stories from like 2014

cochise posted:

Had to dig around for it. Thought I saved/liked this thread when I read it last week but I didn't.

Here you go: https://twitter.com/WillManidis/status/1533814922366308360