Putin Invades Ukraine II

[I Shrugged]

I have a hard time getting anyone to say something explicit.
Something beyond, Maybe all is not what it seems, or A is the same as B (without stating what A is or what B is).

I’m not sure what in the discussion is discomfiting to you. I haven’t seen anyone defending Putin.

Me personally, I hate being fed war propaganda. I guess if there is a time for cheerleading, now is it. But it sets off my spidey sense.

[vnatale]

I have a hard time getting anyone to say something explicit.
Something beyond, Maybe all is not what it seems, or A is the same as B (without stating what A is or what B is).

I’m not sure what in the discussion is discomfiting to you. I haven’t seen anyone defending Putin.

Me personally, I hate being fed war propaganda. I guess if there is a time for cheerleading, now is it. But it sets off my spidey sense.

Do I detect a fellow current (or former) Spiderman fan? I do have the #1 issue (though without a cover).

[I Shrugged]

I have a hard time getting anyone to say something explicit.
Something beyond, Maybe all is not what it seems, or A is the same as B (without stating what A is or what B is).

I’m not sure what in the discussion is discomfiting to you. I haven’t seen anyone defending Putin.

Me personally, I hate being fed war propaganda. I guess if there is a time for cheerleading, now is it. But it sets off my spidey sense.

Do I detect a fellow current (or former) Spiderman fan? I do have the #1 issue (though without a cover).

No but it’s a cool saying.

[dualstow]

I have a hard time getting anyone to say something explicit.
Something beyond, Maybe all is not what it seems, or A is the same as B (without stating what A is or what B is).

I’m not sure what in the discussion is discomfiting to you. I haven’t seen anyone defending Putin.

Me personally, I hate being fed war propaganda. I guess if there is a time for cheerleading, now is it. But it sets off my spidey sense.

oh, it’s not that. i don’t think anyone’s defending Putin here. In fact, I was the first (I think) to bring up NATO’s broken promise & advance in this thread.

However, I see p6 - U.S. neocons
p7 Lincoln vs secession attempt by the South
also p7 US: the tyranny of the American ultra-left
p8 U.S. invaded Grenada
… America is divided..

and I get it. The U.S. is not clean. I just don’t think it’s context so much as whataboutism as you yourself stated (Grenada).
And *of course* American politicians are going to call Putin a war criminal. Why wouldn’t they take advantage? Because W invaded Iraq on a shitty pretext?

I think I may have the same jadedness as you about the propaganda on our side, except that I expect it. I don’t know, maybe it’s defeatism but for me it’s like traffic at rush hour. It’s going to happen, always. Anyway, I hope my posts aren’t taken as cheerleading for the U.S. I’m interested in Putin’s motivations (I certainly can’t swallow the “denazification” BS) and specifically in how the war is going.

Most recently, I see that Russia’s AI and robot program is going to suffer severe setbacks due to losing access to many Asian chipmakers. The Russian military is going to suffer and the general population is going to suffer. They’re calling it the “New Old Soviet Union” from a consumer’s perspective.

[dualstow]

P.S. I read Desert’s linked long article yesterday (because that’s what cool kids do on a Friday night).
It’s like reading a small book, with all the background. Good stuff.

Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... e-00012340
— Maura Reynolds

[I Shrugged]

I have a hard time getting anyone to say something explicit.
Something beyond, Maybe all is not what it seems, or A is the same as B (without stating what A is or what B is).

I’m not sure what in the discussion is discomfiting to you. I haven’t seen anyone defending Putin.

Me personally, I hate being fed war propaganda. I guess if there is a time for cheerleading, now is it. But it sets off my spidey sense.

oh, it’s not that. i don’t think anyone’s defending Putin here. In fact, I was the first (I think) to bring up NATO’s broken promise & advance in this thread.

However, I see p6 - U.S. neocons
p7 Lincoln vs secession attempt by the South
also p7 US: the tyranny of the American ultra-left
p8 U.S. invaded Grenada
… America is divided..

and I get it. The U.S. is not clean. I just don’t think it’s context so much as whataboutism as you yourself stated (Grenada).
….

Without checking, I think I am the writer of at least 3 of those, lol. I am obsessed with America’s role in contributing to the strife in the world.

At some point I need to rationalize that it’s just the way the world works, and let it go within reason. There will alway be some empire that believes they are supposed to run the world. Now it’s America.

[Xan]

I don't see the equivalence between Ukraine and Grenada, especially if you don't swallow the "de-Nazification BS". Grenada absolutely was taken over by a Communist coup, and its neighbors requested intervention.

By contrast, Ukraine is not run by Nazis, and its neighbors certainly did not request intervention.

Also, with the benefit of hindsight, the people of Grenada celebrate the anniversary of the invasion as "Thanksgiving Day". They seem to be happy not to be under Communism. Do we really think that the Ukrainians would appreciate being freed from their current government and brought into Russia?

[dualstow]

Another thing my hypothesis doesn’t do is excuse Putin from responsibility for invading Ukraine. The invasion was a clear and egregious violation of international law, and Putin is the one who did it. Bill Clinton didn’t do it, and neither did George W. Bush or Barack Obama or Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

True, in all five of those administrations there were policies that Putin could have taken both as threats to Russia’s national security and as signs of disrespect. And I think these policies were big mistakes. But the point of saying that isn’t to shift blame for the invasion away from Putin.

— from Robert Wright’s Nonzero newsletter: “Inside Putin’s Head
https://nonzero.substack.com/p/inside-putins-head

At some point I need to rationalize that it’s just the way the world works, and let it go within reason. There will alway be some empire that believes they are supposed to run the world. Now it’s America.

Better us than Russia. Or China or Iran.

[dualstow]

definitely, Desert.
- - - -

On Friday, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, suggested that his country was prepared to raise the costs for any nation helping the Ukrainians in their struggle, declaring that all vehicles shuttling weapons into Ukraine would be considered legitimate military targets.

Re: the oft-mentioned MiG-29 fighter jets offered by Poland:

In contrast to a Javelin antitank missile that has only limited range on the battlefield, a MIG-29 could fly from Kyiv to Moscow in a matter of minutes, the generals said, a capability that the Kremlin might see as a direct threat.

The same day, the White House put forth another consideration: that to be delivered to Ukraine, the MIGs would have to take off from an air base in a NATO country, possibly inviting retaliation on NATO territory by the Russians.

— NYTimes

[boglerdude]

You dont start a war unless youre confident you'll win. “Every battle is won before it's fought.” Sun Tzu

"Gore charged that President Bush sent an "obsequious" message to Saddam days before Iraq's invasion. Gore depicted the message, which he said the administration improperly kept secret, as one of many Bush actions that "caused Saddam to miscalculate and decide that he could invade the neighboring nation of Kuwait with impunity."
( I’ll just fill in a citation. STATE DEPARTMENT CABLE TRAFFIC ON IRAQ -- KUWAIT TENSIONS, JULY 1990
R. Jeffrey SmithOctober 21, 1992 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... 1ea61d2e5/ DS)

I dunno. Kayfabe. The Regime is giving you guys 8% asset inflation and 1% rates. Just mask up.

[dualstow]

Russia used its first HYPERSONIC MISSILE.
EDIT: or claimed to. Yet to be confirmed I guess.

[vnatale]

This was TREMENDOUS this morning!

MARCH 21, 2022 | PART OF WASHINGTON JOURNAL 03/21/2022
Washington Journal
Benjamin Jensen on Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Benjamin Jensen talked about the Russian invasion of Ukraine

https://www.c-span.org/video/?518819-5/ ... e-conflict

[Xan]

I don't see the equivalence between Ukraine and Grenada, especially if you don't swallow the "de-Nazification BS". Grenada absolutely was taken over by a Communist coup, and its neighbors requested intervention.

By contrast, Ukraine is not run by Nazis, and its neighbors certainly did not request intervention.

Also, with the benefit of hindsight, the people of Grenada celebrate the anniversary of the invasion as "Thanksgiving Day". They seem to be happy not to be under Communism. Do we really think that the Ukrainians would appreciate being freed from their current government and brought into Russia?

On the question of "war crimes":
Did Bush lay siege to cities, indiscriminately killing civilians with bombs as Putin is doing? Or did we sacrifice many of our own men in order to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible? Were thousands of Iraqis abducted and sent to be disappeared in the United States? I'm just not seeing the equivalence here at all.

[dualstow]

This was TREMENDOUS this morning!

MARCH 21, 2022 | PART OF WASHINGTON JOURNAL 03/21/2022 … Benjamin Jensen talked about the Russian invasion of Ukraine
https://www.c-span.org/video/?518819-5/ ... e-conflict

That’s pretty good, Vin. I’m learning something.
Do they eventually provide a transcript that isn’t in ALL CAPS? Otherwise I have to paste each portion to TextEdit or Google Docs and fix the case.

[vnatale]

This was TREMENDOUS this morning!

MARCH 21, 2022 | PART OF WASHINGTON JOURNAL 03/21/2022 … Benjamin Jensen talked about the Russian invasion of Ukraine
https://www.c-span.org/video/?518819-5/ ... e-conflict

That’s pretty good, Vin. I’m learning something.
Do they eventually provide a transcript that isn’t in ALL CAPS? Otherwise I have to paste each portion to TextEdit or Google Docs and fix the case.

Not sure because I rarely look at the transcripts, if ever.

[vnatale]

I don't see the equivalence between Ukraine and Grenada, especially if you don't swallow the "de-Nazification BS". Grenada absolutely was taken over by a Communist coup, and its neighbors requested intervention.

By contrast, Ukraine is not run by Nazis, and its neighbors certainly did not request intervention.

Also, with the benefit of hindsight, the people of Grenada celebrate the anniversary of the invasion as "Thanksgiving Day". They seem to be happy not to be under Communism. Do we really think that the Ukrainians would appreciate being freed from their current government and brought into Russia?

On the question of "war crimes":
Did Bush lay siege to cities, indiscriminately killing civilians with bombs as Putin is doing? Or did we sacrifice many of our own men in order to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible? Were thousands of Iraqis abducted and sent to be disappeared in the United States? I'm just not seeing the equivalence here at all.

A few days ago on C-Span's Washington Journal there was a discussion led by someone regarding these current "war crimes".

A caller asked him if he considered The Fire Bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki to be war crimes. He responded that he thought they did.

Each of those resulted in tremendous losses of civilian lives....far, far, far greater than what we are learning about these current ones.

The way we went into Iraq with little concern as to how Iraq was going to carry on with a viable government resulted in much, much loss of life among Iraq civilians. Remember when Colin Powell warned Bush before the War that he was going to carry on the responsibility of all the consequences of initiating that way? Just a reckless, irresponsible decision on the part of Bush.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualtie ... Iraq%20War.

"460,000 deaths in Iraq as direct or indirect result of the war including more than 60% of deaths directly attributable to violence. 110,600 violent deaths. 183,535 – 206,107 civilian deaths from violence. 109,032 deaths including 66,081 civilian deaths. Overview: Iraqi death estimates by source Summary of casualties of the Iraq War."

We may not have killed these people directly by our own bombs or any other means but it was a direct result of Bush deciding to initiate the war and the irresponsible way he carried it out.

[Xan]

I don't see the equivalence between Ukraine and Grenada, especially if you don't swallow the "de-Nazification BS". Grenada absolutely was taken over by a Communist coup, and its neighbors requested intervention.

By contrast, Ukraine is not run by Nazis, and its neighbors certainly did not request intervention.

Also, with the benefit of hindsight, the people of Grenada celebrate the anniversary of the invasion as "Thanksgiving Day". They seem to be happy not to be under Communism. Do we really think that the Ukrainians would appreciate being freed from their current government and brought into Russia?

On the question of "war crimes":
Did Bush lay siege to cities, indiscriminately killing civilians with bombs as Putin is doing? Or did we sacrifice many of our own men in order to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible? Were thousands of Iraqis abducted and sent to be disappeared in the United States? I'm just not seeing the equivalence here at all.

A few days ago on C-Span's Washington Journal there was a discussion led by someone regarding these current "war crimes".

A caller asked him if he considered The Fire Bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki to be war crimes. He responded that he thought they did.

Each of those resulted in tremendous losses of civilian lives....far, far, far greater than what we are learning about these current ones.

The way we went into Iraq with little concern as to how Iraq was going to carry on with a viable government resulted in much, much loss of life among Iraq civilians. Remember when Colin Powell warned Bush before the War that he was going to carry on the responsibility of all the consequences of initiating that way? Just a reckless, irresponsible decision on the part of Bush.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualtie ... Iraq%20War.

"460,000 deaths in Iraq as direct or indirect result of the war including more than 60% of deaths directly attributable to violence. 110,600 violent deaths. 183,535 – 206,107 civilian deaths from violence. 109,032 deaths including 66,081 civilian deaths. Overview: Iraqi death estimates by source Summary of casualties of the Iraq War."

We may not have killed these people directly by our own bombs or any other means but it was a direct result of Bush deciding to initiate the war and the irresponsible way he carried it out.

You can certainly argue those points about Bush, but I don't know of any definition of "war crime" that includes indirect loss of life. As opposed to, you know, bombing maternity hospitals and art schools or whatever. Completely different thing.

[dualstow]

Use of hypersonic missile confirmed.

[vnatale]

I don't see the equivalence between Ukraine and Grenada, especially if you don't swallow the "de-Nazification BS". Grenada absolutely was taken over by a Communist coup, and its neighbors requested intervention.

By contrast, Ukraine is not run by Nazis, and its neighbors certainly did not request intervention.

Also, with the benefit of hindsight, the people of Grenada celebrate the anniversary of the invasion as "Thanksgiving Day". They seem to be happy not to be under Communism. Do we really think that the Ukrainians would appreciate being freed from their current government and brought into Russia?

On the question of "war crimes":
Did Bush lay siege to cities, indiscriminately killing civilians with bombs as Putin is doing? Or did we sacrifice many of our own men in order to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible? Were thousands of Iraqis abducted and sent to be disappeared in the United States? I'm just not seeing the equivalence here at all.

A few days ago on C-Span's Washington Journal there was a discussion led by someone regarding these current "war crimes".

A caller asked him if he considered The Fire Bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki to be war crimes. He responded that he thought they did.

Each of those resulted in tremendous losses of civilian lives....far, far, far greater than what we are learning about these current ones.

The way we went into Iraq with little concern as to how Iraq was going to carry on with a viable government resulted in much, much loss of life among Iraq civilians. Remember when Colin Powell warned Bush before the War that he was going to carry on the responsibility of all the consequences of initiating that way? Just a reckless, irresponsible decision on the part of Bush.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualtie ... Iraq%20War.

"460,000 deaths in Iraq as direct or indirect result of the war including more than 60% of deaths directly attributable to violence. 110,600 violent deaths. 183,535 – 206,107 civilian deaths from violence. 109,032 deaths including 66,081 civilian deaths. Overview: Iraqi death estimates by source Summary of casualties of the Iraq War."

We may not have killed these people directly by our own bombs or any other means but it was a direct result of Bush deciding to initiate the war and the irresponsible way he carried it out.

You can certainly argue those points about Bush, but I don't know of any definition of "war crime" that includes indirect loss of life. As opposed to, you know, bombing maternity hospitals and art schools or whatever. Completely different thing.

It could be the same, though, in terms of how you can be just as guilty from an act of omission as you can from an act of commission.

Yes, the points about Bush could be debated. Can we debate the Fire Bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki? If we'd lost the war then Germany and Japan could have had their own "Nurenberg" and tried those responsible for those war crimes.

We did all those actions for the same reason Putin is doing his. To terrorize the civilian population, to cause it to lose morale and motivation, to cause it to rise up and have their government surrender. But it never seems to work. Just as Hitler bombing England did not work. But I do believe that Germany initially was not bombing civilian targets in England but only started doing so after we and England started bombing civilians in Germany.

[Xan]

We may not have killed these people directly by our own bombs or any other means but it was a direct result of Bush deciding to initiate the war and the irresponsible way he carried it out.

You can certainly argue those points about Bush, but I don't know of any definition of "war crime" that includes indirect loss of life. As opposed to, you know, bombing maternity hospitals and art schools or whatever. Completely different thing.

It could be the same, though, in terms of how you can be just as guilty from an act of omission as you can from an act of commission.

At the moment I'm more interested in addressing the "W is as bad as Putin" thought that seems to be circulating here than WWII.

You're saying Bush is guilty of an act of "omission" that is the same as directly bombing civilians? Sorry, that just isn't true.

[Tortoise]

Just curious about the thought process among some of the posters in this thread, so a couple of questions:

• When a civilian building is attacked in Ukraine, and Russia denies that it did it, is it possible that Zelensky's administration ordered it in an attempt to maintain power by pulling other nations into the conflict? If not, how can we know one way or the other who really attacked the building?
• When a civilian building is attacked in Ukraine, and even if Russia does not deny doing it, is it possible that the Ukrainian military used the civilian building as a "human shield" by placing military targets such as heavy artillery on or near it? I have seen claims to that effect. How can we know one way or the other?

If we can't know one way or the other, is it possibly a bit dangerous to throw all of our support behind one side or the other in this conflict halfway around the world?

[vnatale]

We may not have killed these people directly by our own bombs or any other means but it was a direct result of Bush deciding to initiate the war and the irresponsible way he carried it out.

You can certainly argue those points about Bush, but I don't know of any definition of "war crime" that includes indirect loss of life. As opposed to, you know, bombing maternity hospitals and art schools or whatever. Completely different thing.

It could be the same, though, in terms of how you can be just as guilty from an act of omission as you can from an act of commission.

At the moment I'm more interested in addressing the "W is as bad as Putin" thought that seems to be circulating here than WWII.

You're saying Bush is guilty of an act of "omission" that is the same as directly bombing civilians? Sorry, that just isn't true.

Bush being guilty of the omission of not providing proper governance after removing the one in place resulted in far more deaths to civilians than anything Russia has done so far.

Should not our main concern be how many civilian end up getting killed no matter what the methods?

When the Gulf War (first one) was going on in 1990 I asked a coworker what was so bad with Saddan killing his own citizens by "gas". How was it any worse than killing them with a bullet or any other means? In all cases he kills them.

I was totally shocked by my coworker's response. I knew he was an German immigrant but I had had not idea until that point that he had been in Dresden during our Fire Bombing of it! And, he then went on to describe all the horrors he saw and experienced while we were fire bombing his city.

[vnatale]

Just curious about the thought process among some of the posters in this thread, so a couple of questions:

• When a civilian building is attacked in Ukraine, and Russia denies that it did it, is it possible that Zelensky's administration ordered it in an attempt to maintain power by pulling other nations into the conflict? If not, how can we know one way or the other who really attacked the building?


• When a civilian building is attacked in Ukraine, and even if Russia does not deny doing it, is it possible that the Ukrainian military used the civilian building as a "human shield" by placing military targets such as heavy artillery on or near it? I have seen claims to that effect. How can we know one way or the other?

If we can't know one way or the other, is it possibly a bit dangerous to throw all of our support behind one side or the other in this conflict halfway around the world?

Don't we always have to deal with possibilities and then the probabilities of those possibilities? How likely do you find any of what you state as possibilities?

We are all somewhat like a jury trying to sift through all the evidence trying to reach judgments and conclusions.

When one country is run by such a person as Putin with all the infamous deeds on his resume plus having been the country without a doubt (unless you have one) that unprovokedly attacked another country ... then I think I know who does and does not get the benefit of the doubt.

[Xan]

We may not have killed these people directly by our own bombs or any other means but it was a direct result of Bush deciding to initiate the war and the irresponsible way he carried it out.

You can certainly argue those points about Bush, but I don't know of any definition of "war crime" that includes indirect loss of life. As opposed to, you know, bombing maternity hospitals and art schools or whatever. Completely different thing.

It could be the same, though, in terms of how you can be just as guilty from an act of omission as you can from an act of commission.

At the moment I'm more interested in addressing the "W is as bad as Putin" thought that seems to be circulating here than WWII.

You're saying Bush is guilty of an act of "omission" that is the same as directly bombing civilians? Sorry, that just isn't true.

Bush being guilty of the omission of not providing proper governance after removing the one in place resulted in far more deaths to civilians than anything Russia has done so far.

Should not our main concern be how many civilian end up getting killed no matter what the methods?

When the Gulf War (first one) was going on in 1990 I asked a coworker what was so bad with Saddan killing his own citizens by "gas". How was it any worse than killing them with a bullet or any other means? In all cases he kills them.

I was totally shocked by my coworker's response. I knew he was an German immigrant but I had had not idea until that point that he had been in Dresden during our Fire Bombing of it! And, he then went on to describe all the horrors he saw and experienced while we were fire bombing his city.

Quite an interesting story about the coworker from Dresden. I'm sure that was fascinating.

You ask whether our "main concern" should be how many civilians end up dead. Maybe that should be, but the question at hand is who is a war criminal and who isn't. Take a homicide trial for example (I say "homicide" because all murders are homicides but not all homicides are murders). Let's say the possible outcomes from the jury are murder-1, murder-2, manslaughter, negligent homicide, and just plain accident.

In all those cases the victim is dead. Isn't that what we should care about? String up the guy! The other guy is dead and that's all that matters!

No, that's not how it works. Prosecuting a war of aggression and intentionally killing civilians in order to achieve your aims is murder-1. (Maybe -2?) "Not providing proper governance" is at worst negligent homicide.

[vnatale]

We may not have killed these people directly by our own bombs or any other means but it was a direct result of Bush deciding to initiate the war and the irresponsible way he carried it out.

You can certainly argue those points about Bush, but I don't know of any definition of "war crime" that includes indirect loss of life. As opposed to, you know, bombing maternity hospitals and art schools or whatever. Completely different thing.

It could be the same, though, in terms of how you can be just as guilty from an act of omission as you can from an act of commission.

At the moment I'm more interested in addressing the "W is as bad as Putin" thought that seems to be circulating here than WWII.

You're saying Bush is guilty of an act of "omission" that is the same as directly bombing civilians? Sorry, that just isn't true.

Bush being guilty of the omission of not providing proper governance after removing the one in place resulted in far more deaths to civilians than anything Russia has done so far.

Should not our main concern be how many civilian end up getting killed no matter what the methods?

When the Gulf War (first one) was going on in 1990 I asked a coworker what was so bad with Saddan killing his own citizens by "gas". How was it any worse than killing them with a bullet or any other means? In all cases he kills them.

I was totally shocked by my coworker's response. I knew he was an German immigrant but I had had not idea until that point that he had been in Dresden during our Fire Bombing of it! And, he then went on to describe all the horrors he saw and experienced while we were fire bombing his city.

Quite an interesting story about the coworker from Dresden. I'm sure that was fascinating.

You ask whether our "main concern" should be how many civilians end up dead. Maybe that should be, but the question at hand is who is a war criminal and who isn't. Take a homicide trial for example (I say "homicide" because all murders are homicides but not all homicides are murders). Let's say the possible outcomes from the jury are murder-1, murder-2, manslaughter, negligent homicide, and just plain accident.

In all those cases the victim is dead. Isn't that what we should care about? String up the guy! The other guy is dead and that's all that matters!

No, that's not how it works. Prosecuting a war of aggression and intentionally killing civilians in order to achieve your aims is murder-1. (Maybe -2?) "Not providing proper governance" is at worst negligent homicide.

As usual you provide good counters to any arguments that I make! I don't have anything to come back on this particular discussion regarding comparing today's acts to what Bush did or did not do in the Iraq War.

However, I will continue to bring World War II in it and both of these conclude that we WERE guilty of war crimes. Pure acts of commission:

Was it a War Crime to Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

http://discerninghistory.com/2016/10/wa ... -nagasaki/

Why Aren’t Hiroshima and Nagasaki War Crimes?

https://www.fff.org/2016/05/12/arent-hi ... ar-crimes/

I think the laws you describe above regarding homicide are far move developed and come into play far more than the laws of war crimes and how often they come into play. In the case of war crimes .... whether or not something is a war crime is often in the eyes of the beholder, i.e., whose side you are on and, most importantly, if you won that war.