Sometimes war crimes are okay, right?

Homepage Forums Small Talk Sometimes war crimes are okay, right?

This topic contains 20 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by  TheEncogitationer 2 years, 6 months ago.

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  • #44148

    jakelafort
    Participant

    Robert, no doubt we need to examine historical precedent and what happens when appeasement is the response to aggression.

    Before we get that far though it is necessary to ascertain just what are Putin’s objectives. I have not read anything that leads me to believe he intends on being the next Alexander the Great, Genghis Kahn or Hitler. Nor is the world the same as it was and similarly amenable to grand territorial acquisition and domination. A real war against the west and nobody wins. Nobody can win. From what i have read Putin is an admirer and likens himself to Peter the Great. From what i recall there were no great territorial accretions during his reign. ( i am going on memory which is concededly shaky) There was the Great Northern War. There was an effort to win a warm water port on the Black Sea. In general Peter was trying to westernize Russia, to bring his aristocracy into modernity and to construct a great city in his name. None of that hero worship or admiration or accomplishments to emulate strike fear in terms of grand design.

    Giving the Donbass to Russia and fostering cooperation in rearranging borders so that both nations contributed to moving expenses in and out of that region would have been a concession that made more sense then the path followed. It is my opinion that nuclear war is far more likely now than it would have been. International affairs, just like business has a personal aspect. Realpolitic is infused with personal considerations and feelings that go beyond the perceived interests of the nations particularly when there are dictators runnning the show.

    Also the stage is prepared and the curtains about to open on the next Ukraine-probably China and Taiwan. So the west will likely play it similarly. China will have allies and probably is the balls to the wall super power that is more apt to see provocation in the West’s interference with matters that are considered Sino-affairs. Ya keep playing this kind of hand and the probability of nuclear war and other harms escalates.

    #44152

    _Robert_
    Participant

    Putin despises the west and the US and interferes in our elections. He tries to divide us and keep us weak and preoccupied so he can create war, havoc and invade sovereign countries. He thought he had the West after the idiot Trump was praising him and trashing NATO. So, yea of course he made his big move. Trump was right? Kiss Putin’s ass? Make deals with the KGB gangster? Be fearful of a selfish dictator? Let him grow bolder?

    China is a problem of our own (greedy Walmart induced) creation. We can bring manufacturing back home. This is no time to wimp out.

    #44155

    Unseen
    Participant

    Imagine that Russia occupies or has created mutual defense agreements with Canada, Mexico, and much of the Caribbean. It also conducts military exercises with and in those nations as well as naval exercises offshore. Would we be like Putin, trying to create some sort of buffer zone by taking parts of southern Canada and Northern Mexico?

    If China is a problem of our own making, might Russia rise to that level as well?

    #44156

    _Robert_
    Participant

    Imagine that Russia occupies or has created mutual defense agreements with Canada, Mexico, and much of the Caribbean. It also conducts military exercises with and in those nations as well as naval exercises offshore. Would we be like Putin, trying to create some sort of buffer zone by taking parts of southern Canada and Northern Mexico? If China is a problem of our own making, might Russia rise to that level as well?

    You really think Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia joined NATO because Russia is NOT threat to their sovereignty. Is the US currently a threat to the sovereignty of Canada and Mexico in the same way? Putin and his unfortunate Russia made their bed and now they lay in it. Even Yeltsin cringed when when Putin changed the national anthem back to the Soviet anthem. And Valentin Yumashev, the son-in-law of Yeltsin (who helped Putin come to power) has quit his role as a Kremlin adviser. It’s a shit analogy.

    #44159

    Unseen
    Participant

    You really think Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia joined NATO because Russia is NOT threat to their sovereignty.

    Or maybe they joined NATO for economic reasons, the NATO nations being prosperous and strong and Russia at that time being more or less a failed state(?).

    #44174

    TheEncogitationer
    Participant

    Unseen,

    You didn’t answer the question, you dodged it.

    No, I gave you an answer you didn’t expect and didn’t like. That the thing about free inquiry. You have a right to do free inquiry, but there’s no guaranteed answer or result.

    So, I guess the consensus is that, yeah, sometimes war crimes are okay.

    No, I did not say that.

    I proposed that militaries interpose themselves between bodies of civilians and that it is a best practice of governments to encourage Civil Defense and Emergency Preparedness to civilians, so that they may stay out of harm’s way in the event of war.

    That is the way to be a live lion rather than a live jackal or a dead lion. If those are war crimes, then there is no right way to wage war, even in self-defense, and we should all end up as dead lions who roll over to any globe-aspiring, hand-rubbing Fearless Leader like Vladimir Putin.

    But you didn’t pay attention to any of that and you did your usual MO sung about by Paul Simon: “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”. 🙄

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