Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[planetgeli]

Russia sent a missile into an apartment building in Lviv a couple of days ago.

Probably missed the hospital they were aiming at. Their weapons are so shite. Maybe in friendlier times the US could sell them the good cluster bombs.

 

[redsquirrel]

Human beings have tried to create 'rules' around warfare for hundreds, if not thousands of years. And yes those 'rules' had plenty of grey, yes they were often hypocritical, discarded at times, differed from society to society but there was a reason why we tried to create some sort of lines.

The Russian states destruction of the damn, targeting of civilians, kidnapping of children are rightly held to be atrocities, because they violate such 'rules'.
Believing that there are lines that should not be crossed even in warfare is not pearl clutching, it's having some fucking sense of history and humanity.

 

[xenon]

my last couple of posts weren’t directed at you two to be honest. But I do wonder what TopCat thinks with his send your granny over the top rhetoric.

 

[xenon]

I don’t think cluster munitions are good or should be used. But I’m sat here in my comfortable flat. No one shelled this apartment block for at least a couple of weeks.

 

[Pickman's model]

Human beings have tried to create 'rules' around warfare for hundreds, if not thousands of years. And yes those 'rules' had plenty of grey, yer they were often hypocritical, discarded at times, differed from society to society but there was a reason why we tried to create some sort of lines.

The Russian destruction of the damn, targeting of civilians, kidnapping of children are rightly held to be atrocities, because they violate such 'rules'.
Believing that there are lines that should not be crossed even in warfare is not pearl clutching, its having some fucking sense of history and humanity.

So what you're saying is what russia's done is against our rules. Ignoring the number of times Britain and america and australia and canada had broken those rules. Sure I posted earlier in the thread about the raf destroying Dutch dams. Wasn't something about dresden targeting civilians - not to mention nagasaki and Tokyo and hiroshima and on and on, the air raid shelter in baghdad in 1991, the people killed when the Americans bombed hospitals and so on? If 'we' can't or won't abide by these rules, then why the fuck should the russians? Sure there are laws of war, the Americans updated their field manual on the subject for the first time since the 1950s a year or two back. But these 'laws' are so much more honoured in the breach than the observance - jenin and gaza for instance - that it's peculiar to expect Russia to hold themselves to a standard higher than the UK etc hold themselves

 

[redsquirrel]

So what you're saying is what russia's done is against our rules. Ignoring the number of times Britain had broken those rules. Sure I posted earlier in the thread about the raf destroying Dutch dams. Wasn't something about dresden targeting civilians - not to mention nagasaki and Tokyo and hiroshima and on and on, the air raid shelter in baghdad in 1991, the people killed when the Americans bombed hospitals and so on? If 'we' can't or won't abide by these rules, then why the fuck should the russians?

I'm not saying anything of the sort. I specifically mentioned the hypocrisy that states have had in abiding by rules, the biases in their construction and how they have been discarded at times.

But the fact that most human beings, even in times of warfare don't just believe 'anything goes' is a positive thing - however, hypocritical, and self-serving states may be in forming and applying rules.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm not saying anything of the sort. I specifically mentioned the hypocrisy that states have had in abiding by rules, the biases in their construction and how they have been discarded at times.

Soz who has hypocritically abided by these rules?

 

[The39thStep]

I always think a good analogy is to take say an imperialist country that has invaded most of the world and used all sorts of illegal weapons, committed war crimes and atrocities in attacking those countries and then ask if they would be justified in using the same weapons and methods in the unlikely event they were ever invaded

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

it's peculiar to expect Russia to hold themselves to a higher standard than the UK

I don't think many people on here expect anything good from the Russian state or the Russian army or paramilitaries. The Russian state has never given a damn about human rights, individual liberty, international obligations or indeed anything much apart from power and obedience. Other states, including the UK, behave similarly but not usually on the scale that Russia does. Whatever you think of the USA, NATO or the UK, nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies anything Russia has done in this conflict. I'm sure you agree with that.

 

[Flavour]

fake outrage over the cluster bombs from the Grover Furr crew here

 

[gosub]

fake outrage over the cluster bombs from the Grover Furr crew here

Not sure Ukrainians will want to use them on territory they want back anyway

 

[Artaxerxes]

my last couple of posts weren’t directed at you two to be honest. But I do wonder what TopCat thinks with his send your granny over the top rhetoric.

I've yet to hear back about the Red Army in 41 but I think I'll finally just give up and use the ignore function.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Not sure Ukrainians will want to use them on territory they want back anyway

They've got them to help clear the trench lines which is territory they want back

 

[gosub]

They've got them to help clear the trench lines which is territory they want back

Bit like salting the earth though

 

[Artaxerxes]

Bit like salting the earth though

Yep, it’s shit

 

[tim]

Other states, including the UK, behave similarly but not usually on the scale that Russia does. Whatever you think of the USA, NATO or the UK, nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies anything Russia has done in this conflict. I'm sure you agree with that.

The US and UK interventions over the past three decades in Iraq and Afghanistan have been on a similar scale to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

 

[gosub]

The US and UK interventions over the past three decades in Iraq and Afghanistan have been on a similar scale to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

So when you factor in Syria...

 

[_Russ_]

The new battle lines are drawn. cluster munitions fans on one side. Sensible pragmatic negotiate your country away turn a blind eye to the war crimes, something on the other.

Most people are of course some way in from the silly extremes of your miles wide lines

 

[Spymaster]

Can we clutch pearls at kidnapping their children too, raping their women etc etc? Genuine question. Do you have a line? Not all tools of war are munitions after all, and you said "anything".

Are we really so short in munitions that we've reached, er, G14 on the list. "What's G14 Hank? I dunno. Cluster something."

"Widely banned across the world for it's indiscriminate killing of civilians and leaving shit everywhere"

"Press the button. G15..."

Kidnapping children and raping women serves no military objective. It's terrorist activity. Cluster bombs, on the other hand, are highly effective against large numbers of dispersed troops, which is exactly what the Ukranians are facing in many situations. Russia is using cluster munitions against Ukraine, so for Ukraine not to do the same would put them at a significant disadvantage. The main objection to these weapons is the large amount of unexploded shit that they leave behind. Given that Ukraine will be using these on their own territory it's more than fair to assume that wherever they're used will be thoroughly mapped and subject to intense clean-up operations in the future.

This isn't the same as lobbing cluster munitions into a country you're invading and will ultimately fuck off from, leaving behind a fuckton of unexploded ordnance for kids to play with. That's what Russia is doing.

 

[planetgeli]

fake outrage over the cluster bombs from the Grover Furr crew here

I'm against cluster bombs because I have experience of seeing and working with their effects in Laos.

And you think, despite not one of my other 15,000 posts on this site showing as such, that makes me a Stalinist?

In-depth stuff.

 

[existentialist]

Fancy joining the International Brigade? Mums at the front.

The leadership of Ukraine are leading their people into the abyss

Wut, as opposed to just rolling over and letting the brutal Russians rape, kill, and genocide their way across the country?

Yeah, what cunts.

 

[Flavour]

I'm against cluster bombs because I have experience of seeing and working with their effects in Laos.

And you think, despite not one of my other 15,000 posts on this site showing as such, that makes me a Stalinist?

In-depth stuff.

I think this whole cluster bomb story is an off-ramp for people who previously supported Ukraine. "giving them tanks and guns and nice simple bombs was fine, I was all for it back then! But now they're giving them cluster bombs you can count me out"

There are going to be uxo /cluster bomb casualties for years to come in Ukraine anyway, because Russia is using them, and, indeed, Ukraine has already used them too. So this American provision of more cluster bombs as a scandalous "Breaking News" event serves a narrative: one which puts pressure on Ukraine to accept the loss of 20+% of their territory and "make a deal" because for their morally sensitive Western backers the cluster bombs are a red line.

 

[TopCat]

I think this whole cluster bomb story is an off-ramp for people who previously supported Ukraine. "giving them tanks and guns and nice simple bombs was fine, I was all for it back then! But now they're giving them cluster bombs you can count me out"

There are going to be uxo /cluster bomb casualties for years to come in Ukraine anyway, because Russia is using them, and, indeed, Ukraine has already used them too. So this American provision of more cluster bombs as a scandalous "Breaking News" event serves a narrative: one which puts pressure on Ukraine to accept the loss of 20+% of their territory and "make a deal" because for their morally sensitive Western backers the cluster bombs are a red line.

If and when the use of cluster bombs doesn’t dislodge the Russians what next? Chemical weapons to assist a breakthrough? Battlefield nukes?

 

[teqniq]

I think this whole cluster bomb story is an off-ramp for people who previously supported Ukraine. "giving them tanks and guns and nice simple bombs was fine, I was all for it back then! But now they're giving them cluster bombs you can count me out"

There are going to be uxo /cluster bomb casualties for years to come in Ukraine anyway, because Russia is using them, and, indeed, Ukraine has already used them too. So this American provision of more cluster bombs as a scandalous "Breaking News" event serves a narrative: one which puts pressure on Ukraine to accept the loss of 20+% of their territory and "make a deal" because for their morally sensitive Western backers the cluster bombs are a red line.

If you think my posting of the news that Ukraine being supplied with cluster bombs means I no longer support them you are very much mistaken. i just think it's a bad idea for reasons more cogently elucidated by planetgeli.

 

[Spymaster]

If and when the use of cluster bombs doesn’t dislodge the Russians what next? Chemical weapons to assist a breakthrough? Battlefield nukes?

Whatever the Russians use should be used against them, but more effectively and in greater numbers.

 

[teqniq]

If and when the use of cluster bombs doesn’t dislodge the Russians what next? Chemical weapons to assist a breakthrough? Battlefield nukes?

This is just hysterics.

 

[The39thStep]

Is there a petition to sign to get the UK to leave the Convention on Cluster Munitions ? Asking for a friend

 

[hash tag]

Cluster bombs, like land mines will be a bastard to clear up. I just heard an estimate that it will take 750 years to clear up the land mines.
Cluster bombs, mines, war in general is all horrible and wrong and there will be no winners.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't think many people on here expect anything good from the Russian state or the Russian army or paramilitaries. The Russian state has never given a damn about human rights, individual liberty, international obligations or indeed anything much apart from power and obedience. Other states, including the UK, behave similarly but not usually on the scale that Russia does. Whatever you think of the USA, NATO or the UK, nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies anything Russia has done in this conflict. I'm sure you agree with that.

That's a really peculiar post which doesn't seem to respond to the quote from me

 

[planetgeli]

I think this whole cluster bomb story is an off-ramp for people who previously supported Ukraine. "giving them tanks and guns and nice simple bombs was fine, I was all for it back then! But now they're giving them cluster bombs you can count me out"

There are going to be uxo /cluster bomb casualties for years to come in Ukraine anyway, because Russia is using them, and, indeed, Ukraine has already used them too. So this American provision of more cluster bombs as a scandalous "Breaking News" event serves a narrative: one which puts pressure on Ukraine to accept the loss of 20+% of their territory and "make a deal" because for their morally sensitive Western backers the cluster bombs are a red line.

OK. So I've gone from being a Stalinist to a 'morally sensitive' backer of Ukraine.

I've had a busy Saturday morning obviously.