Happiness is a warm cluster bomb

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This topic contains 20 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by  Unseen 1 year, 7 months ago.

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  • #49084

    Davis
    Moderator

    I don’t care what mode of destruction is used against combatants during a war. Well, I do care, but if war is going to happen, combatants are fair game. Civilians are not. Once you allow civilians to die (or pointlessly suffer to get a country to end things sooner), then there is no point in following any rules any more. If you kill civilians (a war crime) then you’ve opened the can of worms of war crimes, and while some war crimes are worse than others (genocide or mass rape vs say, flooding a city of civilians), you have zero moral ground to stand on when you engage it yourself.

    Cluster bombs pointlessly hurt civilians (including well after peace treaties are signed). Some biological weapons can pointlessly kill civilians. Fire bombs and atom bombs pointlessly kill civilians. The only targets that a weapon should reach are beligerants (military infrastructure, combatants and leaders). If Sarin gas can quickly kill only beligerants and not blow down wind and pointlessly kill civilians, then, whatever. Cluster bobms cannot be safely used without viciously and cruelly hurting civilians with unspeakable suffering for decades to come. War is already evil. Using cluster bombs is extremely evil. America is doing something evil by giving Ukraine cluster bombs.

    #49087

    Unseen
    Participant

    Unseen, Your number of nations that ban cluster bombs went from 100 to 120 to 250. One, there are not 250 nations on the Earth, but 206.

    You’re making an awful lot out of a momentary slip of the mind. Thanks for the correction, though.

    That dud rate mostly applies to Russian built cluster munitions since they (and Ukraine, who had stockpiles from the old Soviet days) are the ones using them the last 20 or so years.

    The one issued by the Government Accountability Office, 23% is not referring to Russian cluster bombs. And, as I said, when a military PR officer states 2% I have every reason to believe that it’s horseshit. We have no new cluster bombs, and unlike wine, they don’t get better as time trudges on.

    They, Ukraine, is on track to join Nato, so they are not going to “kill Americans” in their own clic. Not unless they really don’t want to be part of Nato. According to you joining NATO is what all of this is all about.

    You really think that is going through the mind of the Ukrainian soldier in the field? Hahahaha!!! Russians and Ukrainians come from basically the same culture. Ukrainians mistreat captives just like Russians. They set up military operations in urban settings to invite Russian attacks so that they can either be protected from Russian attacks or, more likely, have something newsworthy for PR purposes.

    The American press isn’t going to go out of its way to publicize Ukrainian war crimes so we tend not to see them, but there are videos floating around of Ukrainians killing Russians who have surrendered. And while it’s hard for Ukrainians to kill Russian civilians, remember that many of the Russian “soldiers” are just unwitting civilians pulled off the streets and sent to Ukraine as cannon fodder (womething Ukraine does as well, BTW). However, when Ukraine does an operation inside Russia, it doesn’t exactly take care to avoid citizen casualties, either. Take, for example, the assassination by bomb of the pro-Russian blogger. A bullet would have avoided the civilian collateral damage. The real purpose wasn’t to eliminate the blogger, it was terror.

     

    #49088

    Unseen
    Participant

    @davis

    My point exactly. Thank you. In Ukraine, there seems to be a rush to the bottom in order to keep the war going as long as possible. At that time, presumably, there will be a negotiated settlement.

    This is a trade war by proxy between Russia and the U.S., and the U.S. is failing. Watch this video from :30 to 12:00 to see what I mean by that:

    Who is Richard Wolff? He is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor in the graduate program in international affairs of the New School. Wolff has also taught economics at Yale University, City University of New York, University of Utah, University of Paris I (Sorbonne), and The Brecht Forum in New York City.

     

    #49092

    Unseen
    Participant

    Let’s boil this down to one simple question: Why are cluster munitions preferable to lethal chemical alternatives for the purpose of neutralizing a battlefield, given the long term effects of cluster munitions? Even if Sarin kills some noncombatants, which can be minimized if wind direction is taken into account, it will soon disperse to become harmless and certainly won’t be killing decades into the future.

    #49095

    _Robert_
    Participant

    Sorry, Dr. Wolff, the Russian economy is and has been a joke for decades. What a stupid video, LOL.  Nobody cares about the value of the ruble, which is of course now about half of what it was pre-invasion. Thanks to the evil dictator, Russia will be getting raped by their good “friends” India and China for its natural resources just too keep itself going. They have had a real good brain-drain as so many young males who know anything split long ago.

    Russia has been perceived as a military threat only, however it’s conventional army, navy and air force are obviously pathetic untrained amateurs.  It’s a bad look on a modern battlefield as they get slaughtered 4 to 1.  Wolff seems to have confused Bush’s stupid wars with a country who is begging for arms and fights hard so that someday, just like he does, they may speak badly about their own government and actually make improvements.

    #49097

    Unseen
    Participant

    @robert

    Despite the grossly lopsided GDPs of Russia vs. America and the NATO combined GDP, the war in Ukraine is far from over. It’s so desperate now that the U.S. is resorting to weapons most countries regard as a war crime. And the reason just given by Biden is that we are running out of nice weapons, so we’re resorting to using a weapon so terrible that chemical warfare would be more humane long term.

    A movement toward a so-called BRICS currency is afoot and countries the U.S. doesn’t consider enemies are on board. India is almost an ally given their border tussle with China. Brazil and South Africa are not enemies. The world is so tired of a unipolar U.S.-dominated world where one country sanctions others at will basically, that they don’t want to depend on needing to have dollars to function.

    As Wolff points out, the American attack on Russian private property using the SWIFT system as though it owns it is likely a bridge too far when it comes to what other countries are willing to tolerate.

    If Ukraine is turning into a war of attrition, who do you think is winning? Russia is hardly down and out and still has vastly more human resources to throw into battle than Ukraine. Despite having a smaller GDP than our lumberjack and beer brewing buddies to the north, they’re not doing half bad, and in fact have proven to have drained NATO resources to the desperate point where cluster bombs have to be brought in.

    I don’t want to see Ukraine lose but I also don’t want it to be destroyed in a war that is, when you look behind the curtain, between Russia and America. It could be as simple as Ukraine agreeing to remain neutral. Instead, we are toying with making them NATO.

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