(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
|
Kennedy posted:I've literally said the opposite. I've said what Ukraine has done is unethical. But I'm not surprised or pretending to be outraged about it. Fair enough. But just in case you didn't know, the Allies did some terrible, TERRIBLE war crimes in WW2 which were absolutely not necessary to win the war. So maybe not the best example.
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 09:57 |
|
|
Nenonen posted:Fair enough. But just in case you didn't know, the Allies did some terrible, TERRIBLE war crimes in WW2 which were absolutely not necessary to win the war. That's exactly what I'm saying, friend. Warfare itself is an immoral act, and there are no good guys - and expecting one party - and particularly, the party who are being _subjected_ to warfare - to be held to a "moral" bar is a fool's errand, especially when the other side break and bend that bar every single day.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:09
|
|
|
Kennedy posted:I'm not excusing anything. I've shown evidence that there are no good guys in warfare, if you zoom in close enough. But just as we wanted the Allies to win because the alternative was worse, I think the same logic applies here. I'm sorry if I offend you or other by saying that, but expecting _this_ war to be different to every single other instance of human conflict is fantasy. I am not attacking your morality here, but I would like to ask a practical question. Given that Ukraine is dependent (we can bicker on the degree but I assume we can agree that "western" help is, well, helping them defend themselves) on the popular and political good will of other, more or less democratically minded nations, isn't it bad PR to brag about essentially murdering a random person, on purpose, even if it served a military goal? If you lob a missile at a military or logistical target, you run the risk of killing civilians, too, sure, and that is more "legally-minded" when it comes to international law than just bombing hospitals because you want to terrorize people, but isn't there a similar degree of shades of grey between a missile/drone/whatever attack and making someone an unwilling suicide bomber? I am not an international law person so I can't comment on the actual legality aspects of any of this, but it does kind of look bad if this went down as discussed in this thread. Obviously the Russian side is worse, and desperate times and desperate measures and all that, I understand, but maybe just don't talk about it at least?
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:12
|
|
|
Rappaport posted:I am not attacking your morality here, but I would like to ask a practical question. Given that Ukraine is dependent (we can bicker on the degree but I assume we can agree that "western" help is, well, helping them defend themselves) on the popular and political good will of other, more or less democratically minded nations, isn't it bad PR to brag about essentially murdering a random person, on purpose, even if it served a military goal? If you lob a missile at a military or logistical target, you run the risk of killing civilians, too, sure, and that is more "legally-minded" when it comes to international law than just bombing hospitals because you want to terrorize people, but isn't there a similar degree of shades of grey between a missile/drone/whatever attack and making someone an unwilling suicide bomber? I am not an international law person so I can't comment on the actual legality aspects of any of this, but it does kind of look bad if this went down as discussed in this thread. No need to preface it! I think you're right overall - that them explaining the details of the operation puts them at risk of their overall aid package being diminished due to political pushback etc. But I wonder if there's something else at play here - whether there's a war goal that is being moved forward by being so open about it. Does being open about the operational details force the Russians to change _something_ that the Ukrainians can then exploit later? i.e move forces, change detection techniques etc. I imagine they've thought of the political loss here, and have come to some conclusion that their war goals - or the impact of this disclosure - will overall be a bigger gain to them than the potential political loss.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:19
|
|
|
Kennedy posted:No need to preface it!
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:23
|
|
|
DTurtle posted:Well, if Ukraine had proper long range missiles and the platforms to launch them from, then they wouldn't need to go to such extreme lengths in order to attack one of the most important logistical bottlenecks on the Russian side of this war. And it's also interesting to note that whey they have viable alternatives, they will use them - i.e using marine drones rather than unwilling civilian IEDs.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:30
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:For clarity CV90 is not a tank, it's a family of IFV's with several armament options. Including a tank destroyer version with a 120mm cannon, but mainly a infantry fighting vehicle with a 30 or 40 mm autocannon. Ahhh, a Doctrine Purist, I see... 
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:33
|
|
|
And structure radical 
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:34
|
|
|
Wait, that means a technical can be a tank?? The line between technical and tank was never meant to be blurred, yet here we find ourselves 
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:48
|
|
|
Kennedy posted:That's exactly what I'm saying, friend. Warfare itself is an immoral act, and there are no good guys - and expecting one party - and particularly, the party who are being _subjected_ to warfare - to be held to a "moral" bar is a fool's errand, especially when the other side break and bend that bar every single day. So, in the end, we should not have any moral standards? I'm not getting any clear stand from you. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:49
|
|
|
Icon Of Sin posted:Wait, that means a technical can be a tank?? The line between technical and tank was never meant to be blurred, yet here we find ourselves If a technical, then how about a tachanka?
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:50
|
|
|
OddObserver posted:If a technical, then how about a tachanka? Maxim M1910 on the wheeled mount is a tank
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:52
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:Maxim M1910 on the wheeled mount is a tank Does it count as wheeled if it also has some (horse) legs? (Structure goofy: a tachanka is a mecha)
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 22:57
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:So, in the end, we should not have any moral standards? I'm not getting any clear stand from you. Sorry - I don't mean to be unclear, apologies if that comes across. Let me know if this makes more sense. We absolutely can, and should, have moral standards and expectations. What I'm saying is that in warfare, the reality is that the winning of the war is often valued ahead of these standards. Humans knowingly break these standards in warfare in service of their war goals. Russia has done it through widespread civilian bombings, massacres and torture. Ukraine has done it with this example, and likely other unknown acts. But I posit that regardless of this example, I still support Ukraine because I recognise the play-off of decision making - one unwilling civilian death to attempt to break a critical supply line to Crimea - was done in service to end the war, rather than killing for the sake of killing. And I've seen that Ukraine has - when given the capabilities - taken the "morally right" approach to offensive operations. We should have moral standards but we should not be surprised that they are broken in warfare, as there's no absolute "right" here, or absolute morality in warfare. I hope that make sense. I'm worried I'm derailing the thread here, so happy to reply either here or in DMs. Kennedy fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Aug 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 23:04
|
|
|
It was 1st degree murder, Ukraine may not have intended a specific truck driver to die, but they knew that whoever was driving that truck would die. And since they obviously could not sneak the materials on to a military truck, they knew it would be a civilian dying. I understand why this was the only way to make this truck bomb happen, and I imagine they explored ways to make it a voluntary driver instead but couldn't make it happen. But it is bad that they went through with murdering that driver. It was a crime, even if strategically it was necessary. Every civilian that gets killed by the boat bombs on the bridge is 2nd degree murder; Ukraine's not trying to kill them but they did intend to cause the explosion that killed them. This is also a crime like all civilian deaths in war, but legally a lesser one in many countries. All that said, the moral right here is to continue supporting Ukraine cause Russia will still do a LOT more murders if we don't. It seems now the drone boats are effective at attacking the Kerch, so hopefully Ukraine will not attempt a manned VBIED again. Or we could give them more long range missiles to also avoid the issue. War will always be hell. It is defined by both sides getting blood on their hands even if the defender unambiguously has no choice but to fight.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 23:08
|
|
|
If talking past each other were a war crime the past two pages would be printed out and sitting on someone’s desk in The Hague. Please all be informed that you all seem to agree that the truck bombing was immoral and criminal. One of you is arguing that this act doesn’t come anywhere near outweighing the preponderance of known war crimes by the Russian forces in Ukraine and is far smaller than many of the war crimes committed by the “good” side in WW2. Nobody is supporting war crimes. Nobody is saying that this wasn’t an immoral act. The Artificial Kid fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Aug 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2023 23:44
|
|
|
Just going to chime in on the civilian stuff. I just lurk to keep tabs on things and stay informed, but I feel like I need to say something. I'm a former soldier, I've served mostly with normal everyday people, but there were some real monsters too. The absolute worst was a sergeant that bragged about shooting "insert slur that starts with rag" at a farm because they had shovels, said anyone carrying a shovel around Afghanistan deserved to die because they could easily be setting up IEDs. Said he didn't care if they were actually doing that, it was enough that they had shovels, they should have known better than to be seen with one. Obviously they were farmers, and this is his telling of the story, gently caress knows what actually happened. He was one of the few people I met in my service that genuinely scared me. Don't talk like that guy. We are all sitting behind our computers, posting bloodthirsty poo poo from that vantage point is insane. At best you've done nothing to help, at worst you've encouraged/normalized some of the absolute most despicable behaviour known to humanity. Some of y'all are talking like the pilots in the colatoral murder video. "War is hell" is something soldiers and civvies that have experienced war get to say. You don't get to say it to excuse the targeting of civilians, that is seriously hosed up. Don't lose your humanity in a war you aren't even fighting.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 00:00
|
|
|
1. Anyone trying to justify patsy suicide bombers is an embarrassment. 2. Anyone claiming to have ended their support of aid to Ukraine over this is a concern troll. I hope this helps. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 00:19
|
|
|
All war is a crime. It's organized homicide and a form of mass murder. But you also have to retrace the origins of how it started like you would a murder. Armies don't win "hearts and minds" either. They talk about that stuff, but it's a bunch of crap. When soldiers are actually in danger, what they care about is getting through the situation alive. The main thing they're trained to do is kill the enemy by shooting them. A lot. They'll also blow them up by throwing grenades at them, burn them to death with flamethrowers, bury them alive with bulldozers, smash them with artillery or drop big bombs on their heads. The nature of modern warfare also means they rarely ever see their enemy, and the destructive power of weapons is such that armies fighting over a city will simply pulverize and smash the city like five-year-olds on meth fighting over a sand castle -- and God help anyone who is trapped inside the city while the soldiers murder each other and destroy the place. Russia is also using a lot of 1960s/1970s-era weapons. These are not very precise. When they fall back from a town, they will blow the town away with artillery as Ukrainian soldiers move in. Most people involved in the situation also don't have a choice. Wars are things that happen *to* them. 
BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Aug 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 00:29
|
|
|
Kennedy posted:Ah yes, the stereotypical bleeding-heart fairy-liberals at the Institute for the Study of War. Bit late but seeing Altay Kray mentioned as I catch up! Our niece from just there is visiting for the summer and about to go back to hell country. She specifically talks about her new ukrainian friends from class and absolutely knows they were stolen away and are ukrainian, not altay. Even as a little kid she was able to describe and tear up making a comparison between visiting her aunt and uncle for the summer in America and being torn from home. And this kid normally just wants to watch Frozen, build Lego, swim, and pet all cat. She’s no child prodigy. (Is great tho) Point being, one small point of light here is if she’s anything close to normal, there is hope for the next generation. God willing Putin’s poo poo backfires and some russians grow up knowing firsthand the horror and evil of what’s going on, and god willing all those kids get to go home and maintain contact with their innocent elementary classmates to have a generation that isn’t mostly nihilists and frothing rashists ethanol posted:I had a conversation with a former eastern Ukrainian today, he doesn’t like the Russian state at all because of civil rights issues, but he still loves russian culture. That said he talked about ukraine harassed/arrested his mom for speaking Russian among other things. That was the only language she knew how to speak. And that speaking russian was banned. In that way he thought ukraine should have been more diplomatic in 2014 when putin was “warning everybody” he was going to strike if that continued. He said something about the anti Russian killings being 100% true. A perspective I’ve never heard from a first hand source. I tried to say it’s very hard to understand to what is misinformation about that particular topic. He’s so adiment that it was a real thing. They don’t agree with this take at all Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Aug 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 01:01
|
|
|
Virtual Russian posted:Just going to chime in on the civilian stuff. I just lurk to keep tabs on things and stay informed, but I feel like I need to say something. I'm a former soldier, I've served mostly with normal everyday people, but there were some real monsters too. The absolute worst was a sergeant that bragged about shooting "insert slur that starts with rag" at a farm because they had shovels, said anyone carrying a shovel around Afghanistan deserved to die because they could easily be setting up IEDs. Said he didn't care if they were actually doing that, it was enough that they had shovels, they should have known better than to be seen with one. Obviously they were farmers, and this is his telling of the story, gently caress knows what actually happened. He was one of the few people I met in my service that genuinely scared me. I'm sorry you went through that. But it's a false comparison and I want to call it out. Ukraine is not murdering random Russian farmers out of bloodlust in this case, and did not blanket murder Russians for hypothetical cause. Framing it like that is at best wrong, and at worst malicious. Again I'm not excusing it, but we also can't parlay it into something it's not. This was a specific, deliberated operation in war to break the enemy's supply chain, in which it was required to murder a civilian to do so. The purpose was not to kill this man, it was to end the war. I'm sorry if you all can't see the nuance in that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 01:02
|
|
|
With regards to the reason for releasing details about the bridge-bombing operation now, there is one possibility we might be overlooking: Pride. Take a look at the tone from the original article: fatherboxx posted:"The development and implementation of the special operation with the bridge was carried out by me personally and two of my trusted employees," explains Vasyl Malyuk. It's entirely possible something got lost in translation, but with all the clever details revealed, the specific credit being assigned, and the smug satisfaction at how well it went over and how much the Russians got fooled, it's not entirely impossible that among other motivations Malyuk just really wanted to be able to brag about a major achievement (in the sense of "this was difficult to pull off") and was tired of keeping it under his hat. Again, not saying this was necessarily the only or even the primary motivation (though I'm not saying that's impossible either), but it's pretty human to want to come out and claim credit for a tricky operation that had the entire world speculating for weeks if not months.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 01:42
|
|
|
Please stop defending unethical behavior during war by either side. I am thankful that I'm not in the position where I would have to make the call and I don't judge people who are in that position. But I agree with Virtual Russian that literally nothing good is going to come from mounting a defense or normalizing that behavior. You're not fighting for hearts and minds here. Funny anecdotes from the cit team mobilization summary today: https://notes.citeam.org/mobi-aug-17-18 quote:A resident of the Khanty-Mansi autonomous region-Yugra [Russia's federal subject] avoided a criminal case for theft by going to war. In May 2023, Gariy G. and an accomplice stole property worth 45,000 rubles [$480] from a summer cottage. However, when the police managed to track down the burglars, it turned out that the suspect had enlisted under a contract and had gone to war. As a result, no investigative actions can be taken against him. Signing on to avoid trial definitely seems like a out of the frying pan, into the fire move, but maybe its not so bad if you know the right wheels to grease to avoid combat. In less funny anecdotes: quote:The children of Arkhangelsk resident Lidiya Prudovskaya, 9-year-old Alisa and 10-year-old Zhenya, were called upon as witnesses in the criminal case against their mother for anti-war posts. They were interrogated by Federal Security Service (FSB) agents, with the presence of a pedagogical psychologist and a representative of the guardianship authorities. However, no lawyer was present during the questioning. Their mother was not able to attend the interrogation due to being under investigation on charges of discrediting the Armed Forces. That's just messed up.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 01:44
|
|
|
If you sincerely believe that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine, why would one Russian being killed as part of a war to prevent that give you any pause?
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 01:47
|
|
|
Kennedy posted:Ukraine is not murdering random Russian This is literally what happened.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 01:49
|
|
|
tatankatonk posted:If you sincerely believe that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine, why would one Russian being killed as part of a war to prevent that give you any pause? That's a great question! Do you think it can be answered?
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 01:55
|
|
|
tatankatonk posted:If you sincerely believe that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine, why would one Russian being killed as part of a war to prevent that give you any pause? Can you phrase that as an argument for killing Russian civilians and demonstrate how those killings prevent the genocide rather than as a question?
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 02:01
|
|
|
Kennedy posted:I'm sorry you went through that. What if some dude killed you and said it was for the right reasons? You aren't driving that truck because of the good luck of your birth, never forget that. I bet if you were in the line of fire all that nuance would just melt away. My point isn't to debate what is right or wrong in a war on the other side of the world, I don't know, you don't know. Have some empathy though for civilians, they didn't ask for this. I'm reminded of a great article I read as a student, about how the Red Army Faction clung desperately to the words of Bretcht as they spiralled into increasingly hopeless and outrageous acts of violence, all totally justified of course. I'm deeply sympathetic to their idealism, but there is a lesson in the corrosive effects of violence, and what the justification of violence does to any movement or individual. One moment you are in control and only shooting "pigs" (sub in Orcs here), the next moment you are bombing office workers and justifying it as nessicary to advance the cause of those same workers.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 02:25
|
|
|
Tomn posted:With regards to the reason for releasing details about the bridge-bombing operation now, there is one possibility we might be overlooking: Pride. its almost certainly the case that the reason this was revealed is because malyuk thinks its extremely cool and good that some poor truck driver got atomized during the attack on the bridge. Moreover, he believes (with good reason, imo) that bragging about this will raise morale for extremist elements in the military and society. its a pretty loving palatable political message to say "every one of our enemies deserves to die, including enablers" and unfortunately, due to the nature of warfare (especially being invaded), far-right elements are going to amass political power the longer these conflicts go on tatankatonk posted:If you sincerely believe that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine, why would one Russian being killed as part of a war to prevent that give you any pause? it is a pretty common political position for people to hold that the firebombing of dresden was a horrific crime even though germany was literally committing the holocaust
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 02:28
|
|
|
So the bomb going off exactly along a loaded the fuel train was just incredible luck and they never intended to damage the train tracks?
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 02:30
|
|
|
They got lucky with that and it still barely damaged the rail line and diverted road traffic from 4 lanes to 2 for a few days.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 02:36
|
|
|
adebisi lives posted:it still barely damaged the rail line and diverted road traffic from 4 lanes to 2 for a few days. Why do you say that?
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 02:38
|
|
|
The train tracks and the road are a military target transporting military equipment and fuel to the war. According to the political and military calculus, one Vaporised Guy prevented temporarily dozens of deaths of Ukrainians, both military and civilian, which is why anyone making real world decisions will make such a decision. The Ukrainians are well aware that they're under the looking glass and depend on international support, so they are making well calculated trolley problem decisions to save their people. No one cares if you personally are outraged about itadebisi lives posted:They got lucky with that and it still barely damaged the rail line and diverted road traffic from 4 lanes to 2 for a few days. The road was damaged for half a year and the rail track is still one way iirc Somaen fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Aug 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 03:23
|
|
|
Thousands of years of moral philosophy to arrive at trolley problem means don't get upset about civilian deaths
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 03:33
|
|
|
Everything always looks so clear if you think you've got the moral highground.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 03:36
|
|
|
Somaen posted:At least seven dead including children and dozens maimed and hurt in a rocket attack on civilians: meh, happens every day
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 03:40
|
|
|
I'm not talking about that at all. I'm talking about people justifying it and cheering it on from the safety of their computers. It is disgusting. Civilians getting killed is a tragic reality of war, the targeting of civilians is criminal no matter who does it. Literally no one here needs to, nor gains anything from supporting or justifying the targeting of civilians. Edit: I don't think this will go further in a productive manner. I'll bow out. Please don't talk about civilians in a way that immediatly makes me recall the colatoral murder video. Virtual Russian fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Aug 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 03:47
|
|
|
I think we can all agree it's a war crime. The problem being that war crime also includes posting videos of POWs online on the same level with massacres and executions. But depending on if you hhave friends and family in Ukraine, you either want Ukrainians to.stop dying in war crimes or all war crimes to stop. For someone with personal connections to Ukraine, not all war crimes are equal and not all civilian deaths are important (because then none are important) (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Somaen fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Aug 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 03:55
|
|
|
Same war that saw the Bucha massacre/mass grave. It’s a weird double bind that some want to hold them in. It would seem to be an impossible standard that they defend themselves in the most morally upright ways when the depravity they have been subjected to should be obvious. Murdering civilians is bad. I hope Ukraine sees an end to the murder of their citizens. It’s bad for the Russians too they should stop invading their neighbors. I don’t think that bridge operation means Ukraine is undeserving or unworthy of support.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 03:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 09:57 |
|
|
Somaen posted:I think we can all agree it's a war crime. The problem being that war crime also includes posting videos of POWs online on the same level with massacres and executions. But depending on if you hhave friends and family in Ukraine, you either want Ukrainians to.stop dying in war crimes or all war crimes to stop. For someone with personal connections to Ukraine, not all war crimes are equal and not all civilian deaths are important (because then none are important) Could you further explain what you mean by the last sentence and the paranthetical in particular?
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 03:59
|
|
