Re: ... again
Jellied Eel,
I think the words "exactly the same thing" don't quite mean what you think they do.
For example if you're comparing attacking the Baghdad electricity grid on day one of the war to liberate Kuwait in 1991 to Russia deliberately attacking the Ukrainian electricity infrastructure for two whole years in the current invasion of Ukraine - then you have probably failed in comprehension of basic english. Particularly as they concentrated those attacks in the Winter - presumably in order to sap civilian morale by trying to freeze lots of civilians to death - but made vastly fewer attacks in the Summer. Thus suggesting perhaps the civilians were in fact the target. They may have actual documentary/testimony evidence that the civilians were in fact the target - in which case they have a case for a war crime. If it's unclear, then not so much. If the electricity grid was taken out for a couple of days in order to disrupt conmand and control - then there's probably no case.
Electricity infrastructure, as with bridges, can be legitimate military targets. It depends. Partly it depends on intent, which is much harder to prove.
But of course, whataboutism is a typical Russian tactic from back in the old Soviet days.
You see the war crimes I was talking about was mass kidnapping of civilians, including tens of thousands of Ukrainian children. Or the organised mass murders at places like Bucha and Irpin. Clearly planned for the political and civilian leaders in order to make long-term occupation easier. Again out of the Soviet playbook. Or the mass artillery bombardments of cities, that the Russians started the war with. Such as using thermite from multiple launch rocket systems on Kharkiv and Mariupol - there was nice TV footage of that on day one of the war. That wasn't some minor aberation, or accident, that was in the fucking original war plan. The burning pieces fall from the sky and start fires. If they land on people, they cannot be extinguished with water - you can stop it burning temporarilty with water while you cut it out, or it burns down to the bone. That's what you support when you say:
I do think the invasion was justified
Because with the Russian army, comes the war crimes. It's what they do. It's how they fight. Hence when supposed Russians decided they'd like to leave the Russian federation - when Chechenya tried to secede, the Russian response was to destroy the capital city with artillery. That's their own citizens they killed in the thousands.
in reality, where there is war, there will be war crimes. It's unavoidable. NATO countries go to considerable effort to train their troops not to, to train their planners to avoid civilian casualties and to buy very expensive precision weapons to minimise that nasty euphemism "collaterol damage".
But the Russians don't do any of that. In Syria and Ukraine they deliberately target hospitals, in order to lower enemy morale. They use indiscriminate artillery attacks on cities like Kharkiv - even of people they claim to be Russian citizens - seeing as they annexed Mariupol. They literally organised death-squads they arrived in Bucha and Irpin in the first week of the war, which again means they were part of the war plan. That's what you support.
But oh no, you're just a free thinker who wants everyone to be treated equally.
You're at best a useful idiot (another Soviet KGB term). At worse, this is the government you work for.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
