Ukraine Conflict - "A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny"

[xzar_monty]

5 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The only real question about it is whether there's no practical alternative to using schools as barracks, and there clearly are.

Which reminds me that when I pointed out that Russia clearly has the alternative to cease the operation, you argued quite strongly along the lines that it has not.

Edited August 12, 2022 by xzar_monty

[xzar_monty]

7 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The whole cascade of events has been triggered by Russia

 

--> Ukraine basing at schools is one of those events

--> Ukraine basing at schools has been triggered by Russia

--> since Russia triggered it they're to blame*.

Seems a pretty logical progression, no?

Apologies for the double quote (I am not good at this), but no, the progression is not logical. It is terrible, as far as logic goes. You are mixing up occurrences and the question of blame, whereas in fact they're in different "realms" altogether. Let's look at another example.

Guy #1 runs his car into guy #2's car, triggering a cascade of events.

-> Guy #2 getting up, walking to guy #1 and hitting him in the face is one of those events.

-> The physical violence has been triggered by guy #1.

-> Guy #2 is still to blame. Not for the crash, but for the violence.

The same applies for the war, mutatis mutandis. I'm honestly quite surprised you even think I'd follow the progression in the way you describe. It is entirely logical up to the point where you start attributing blame, but then it goes completely off the rails.

You asked why bring this up at all, if the point is not to lay all blame on Russia. This is a good question. The answer is that while bringing it up ought to be irrelevant, it is not. Even on this forum, there has been plenty of arguing along the lines that although something less than marvelous has possibly been happening somewhere in Ukraine, maybe, what we should really focus on is the pathological hatred people have for Russia, and also let us not forget how awful the collective West has been in its dealings throughout its history. So that's why it felt other than irrelevant to point out that which is, as you quite rightly say, obvious: the whole cascade of events has been triggered by Russia. Not by other evil powers wanting to put down poor Russia.

Edited August 12, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Zoraptor]

That's an impressive attempt at goalpost shifting at the end.

Let's run through the relevant sequence though, shall we?

"They also betray a pretty crappy understanding of humanitarian law, ie it applies to those you like, not just those you don't. Ultimately the reason why you shouldn't use protected civilian infrastructure for basing and why it is a warcrime unless it's of military necessity is because it erodes the protection for every school, including those that are still used as schools. That's why both Hamas and Ukraine using schools as bases is bad, and a war crime, and despite Hamas' bases being a lot closer than the one at Bakhmut." -- me

in direct response:

"You know what else is a war crime? This entire Russian war against Ukraine. Nothing of this school-schmool thing would have happened if not for Russia's imperialistic delusions backed by tiny waxy garbage man's issues." --bugarup

to which you replied

"This is a very salient point. All the other atrocities stem from Russia's initial atrocity.."

This does not exactly mesh with your example of a car accident, now does it? If someone said Bob punching Fred after a car crash was assault and the reply was "all the other actions stem from Fred crashing his car" not just as a point, but as a salient one it would be obvious that that was justifying Bob's actions. If you think it's just common assault for which Bob is responsible then you don't mention the car crash- or at very least say it doesn't justify Bob's actions in any way. If you mention the crash then you're obvious trying to reduce Bob's responsibility for the crash by saying that without Fred the punch wouldn't have happened.

And again, this is specifically not how humanitarian law works in the relevant situation anyway.

[xzar_monty]

You do recognize that I specifically write other atrocities, don't you? Hence implying the deeds are rather terrible. I have made no attempt to justify any war crimes, and wouldn't. Trust me when I say that I know my stance on this better than you do. Also, I wrote mutatis mutandis to prevent quibbling that is nearly always possible when something is demonstrated with an imaginary example from somewhere else. Clearly, the idea didn't work.

I suggest we stop wasting bandwidth now.

 

Edited August 12, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Gorth]

34 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

I suggest we stop wasting bandwidth now.

I’ll add my undemocratically non-elected vote to this motion… 

[BruceVC]

3 hours ago, Gorth said:

I’ll add my undemocratically non-elected vote to this motion… 

Gorthfuscious why do you hate freedom of speech,  Democracies are built on it 

[Lexx]

50 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Gorthfuscious why do you hate freedom of speech,  Democracies are built on it 

To remain a tolerant society, you can't tolerate everything. It's a paradox, but necessary.

[Mamoulian War]

 

[Mamoulian War]

Also, today emerged rumours, that one of the most prominent collaborators in South Ukraine, Oleh Shostakh, had a very explosive day today in Melitolpol. The guy is one of the main organizers of sham referenda in the South. Let’s eagerly await now for some indeoendent sources to confirm or deny the claim.

 

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-08-12-22/h_570cc7f061c21c3e18909c1487b204e7

[xzar_monty]

Here's an extremely interesting piece on the war and Russia's military capability in the light of it. Note the date: this is slightly old now, but still worth a read. We can be thankful for the fact that Russia is based on corruption and theft, and the entire society is rotten. Otherwise things would be a lot worse than they are now. An especially hearty recommendation goes for @kanisatha.

This, in my view, is proper writing.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2022.2078044#.Yveg_FmrhUc.twitter

[xzar_monty]

Also, an earlier piece on how the Bucha atrocities are viewed by people participating in Russian social media groups. In a nutshell: it's not pretty.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2022.2074020?src=recsys&fbclid=IwAR1bQJ_pW8EZ1Mvul_6C5EndLWUZAQaQ3IGs92KdjrBRgb_LtT6rx4WcEwc

[Lexx]

Russians and their homophobia. Not too long ago, a russian user on a different forum called me "Fritz" as derogatory slang (because germany) and said my added features in Fallout 1in2 were "homosexual" - makes me think that the socialist fraternal kiss between Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker must have caused a real generational trauma to them.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Lexx

[xzar_monty]

Masha Gessen's recent book The Future is History contains a decent description how homophobia is one of the things that Russian media has been touting for about twenty years now. There was a case where a homosexual man had two beer bottles inserted into a sensitive spot -- after two, the third one didn't fit -- and the perpetrators didn't basically receive any penalty. Also, the public opinion, insofar as it was consulted, was in favor or the perpetrators. This is one snapshot of the current attitudes in Russia.

The Russian media has also been very vocal about the attempts to turn people into homosexuals, which, as anyone should know, doesn't really happen even if there was someone out there making the attempt. And we're talking about state media here, which is the worrying thing.

I just read an interesting article written by a Russian journalist. In it, he quoted a Russian historian who pointed out that the nation is still trying to come to terms with the events of 1917-1918. He stressed that during the revolution, a great number of the most intelligent, educated, liberal and productive people were either murdered or forced into exile. The Stalinist purges took this even further about twenty years later. The result was a nation of workers and peasants who are capable of doing things but who definitely need kind of a father figure, essentially a tsar, to tell them what to do. Note that these are not my words or thoughts; this was the Russian historian speaking. Interestingly, he added that if Putin for whatever reason changed his mind, it would take his PR machinery only a few weeks to have ordinary Russians waving Ukrainian flags and cheering for Zelenskyi.

And as I'm sure we've all already read, there is, even now, a significant brain drain going on in Russia: the educated and liberal people want out. It's not going to improve things.

Edited August 14, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Mamoulian War]

There are starting to emerge rumours, that higher rank russian officers are starting to flee from the west bank of Dnieper in Kherson Oblast. No official statements on this yet, but interesting news nevertheless.

[xzar_monty]

Not sure how trustworthy this is, and I'd argue that "elderly" doesn't describe all of these guys, but this does look mightily unimpressive.

 

[Mamoulian War]

I have found the source of the rumours. Mayor of Mykolaiv stated yesterday night, that russian command have moved thier posts away from west bank. So in a way it can be seen as an official statement.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/08/13/7363155/

[kanisatha]

6 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Here's an extremely interesting piece on the war and Russia's military capability in the light of it. Note the date: this is slightly old now, but still worth a read. We can be thankful for the fact that Russia is based on corruption and theft, and the entire society is rotten. Otherwise things would be a lot worse than they are now. An especially hearty recommendation goes for @kanisatha.

This, in my view, is proper writing.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2022.2078044#.Yveg_FmrhUc.twitter

Good article.

Their point about being able to "cheat" yourself during peacetime but then paying the price for it when in war strikes me as being just as relevant to the US as Russia. I believe the average American soldier today is incapable of standing and fighting in any competent form. In peacetime the generals and politicians are able to spin and cover up this reality. But soon war with China is going to happen, and then we the American people are going to be devastatingly shocked to learn of the extent to which our military prowess has been allowed to deteriorate and wither.

[xzar_monty]

8 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Their point about being able to "cheat" yourself during peacetime but then paying the price for it when in war strikes me as being just as relevant to the US as Russia. I believe the average American soldier today is incapable of standing and fighting in any competent form.

Oh, there's no question that the point is generally relevant. From which follows the question: don't you think it's equally relevant to China?

I would argue that the point doesn't apply to countries like Israel, but then the point is sort of irrelevant anyway when it comes to Israel, because it has never had proper peacetime.

[kanisatha]

36 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Oh, there's no question that the point is generally relevant. From which follows the question: don't you think it's equally relevant to China?

I would argue that the point doesn't apply to countries like Israel, but then the point is sort of irrelevant anyway when it comes to Israel, because it has never had proper peacetime.

Yes it does also apply to China. But in China's case such things as poor training, poor logistics, and general incompetence of soldiers are already factored into US analyses of Chinese capabilities. But our spin on our own soldiers is that they are "awesome," and I'm quite certain many in the Pentagon have bought into their own spin and propaganda. So it's a matter of expectations v. reality.

Our expectations of performance for the average Chinese soldier will be low, and this will be matched by reality.

Our expectations of performance for the average US soldier will be high, but this will NOT be matched by reality, hence this will be a rude shock.

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

I believe the average American soldier today is incapable of standing and fighting in any competent form

Based off of what?

[xzar_monty]

@kanisatha: Your twofold assessment may well be correct. Unfortunately it's one of those things that cannot be demonstrated either way until the true test arrives.

[kanisatha]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Based off of what?

Based off of what I read on our military preparedness, including both academic/think-tank and journalistic sources. There are plenty of analyses out there on such things as widespread obesity in the ranks, inability of the military to find enough recruits and so standards being lowered/ignored (off the record) so that quotas may be filled, merit being practically nonexistent and politics driving command promotions, and soldier surveys showing that service is not among the main reasons young people nowadays join the military.

[Mamoulian War]

As promised before, Kazakhstan’s oil to EU will start to bypass Russia, starting in september.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/central-asia/news/kazakhstan-to-start-oil-sales-via-azeri-pipeline-to-bypass-russia/

Edited August 15, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[Malcador]

War in Ukraine: Only five of 15 self-propelled howitzers from Germany are operational (www-rnd-de.translate.goog)

Don't think any were lost due to combat, so was interesting to note.  If only they'd listen to Massaro and send everything the Bundeswehr had..

[Lexx]

I've heard about this already a few weeks ago. The problem is not that the vehicles are bad, it's that their barrels can only shoot like 100 rounds per day. Ukraine however is using them way more than that, which ofc means they are breaking down faster.