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Ukraine is ignoring US warnings to end drone operations inside Russia
(www.economist.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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As an American, I support Ukraine droning inside Russia. Fuck up their power plants, oil production, and bases! I believe most Americans would agree that in war, this tactic is fair game.
There have been no such calls for Ukraine to stop attacking Russia. The article is behind a paywall, and there are no corroborating stories from any credible news sites. According to the same article on yahoo news, the White House claimed its due to oil prices. The US gets its oil from Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Brazil. The headline has no merit.
Power plants are not valid military targets though. No one should be attacking those and it's always wrong to do so.
Edit: I posted this comment and immediately went to bed. After waking up and looking at responses, I'm absolutely disgusted with people justifying and approving war crimes. Attacking civilian infrastructure like power plants is a WAR CRIME and that's why it's a huge deal that Russia has been attacking power plants. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Edit 2: alright, time for links since people seem unconvinced. Both the ICC and the UN consider the attacks by Russia on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure to be war crimes. If it's wrong for Russia to do, it's wrong for everyone to do.
Sorry, Russia already lost the right to say Ukraine shouldn't be hitting their power plants.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. If Russia started using VX gas, would it be acceptable for Ukraine to start using Sarin? Absolutely fucking not. There is never a legitimate excuse for a war crime.
There's one actually. Survival.
If the situation gets to a point where your existence on the planet becomes problematic, you take the gloves off, you fight back with everything you can, especially if you're protecting those that you love.
Having said that, fuck war, and fuck war crimes. Wish the UN could resolve this crap before it gets to where we are now.
~~Power plants are~~ Ukraine is not a valid military target though. No one should be attacking ~~those~~ it and it's always wrong to do so.
FTFY
Well yes, but starting a war suddenly and without declaration isn't a war crime.
~~Well yes, but~~ starting a war ~~suddenly and without declaration isn't~~ is a ~~war~~ crime.
FTFY as well.
Look, I'm about as anti-war as they come. But in the capitalist neoliberal rules-based order, war happens constantly all over the world and the best we can do is enforce the provisions of the Geneva Convention. No good will come from equating war generally with war crimes right now. There will be a point where we can call war a crime against humanity, but the Overton window isn't there yet.
Why are you framing it as if capitalism and neoliberalism are causing war? Isn't this one of the most peaceful times in human history?
It's not that they're the cause of all war, but neoliberal capitalism is the root of all modern conflicts.
Yes apples are not oranges, so why are you trying to change the subject?
AFAIK there is not a single example of Ukraine attacking power plants in Russia.
An oil depot or refinery is NOT a powerplant. Russia has more than enough oil to serve their population, but maybe they can't serve the military 100% too, if Russia chooses to prioritize their illegal military invasion over their own population, that's a Russian problem. As long as Russia prioritize oil for their military, oil is a valid military target.
I'm not trying to change the subject. The OP tried to slip a war crime target in with valid military targets, and I wanted to set the record straight.
Maybe. But destroying the Russian dictatorship is a moral obligation for everyone in the free world.
All Russian infrastructure and assets are valid targets. Both inside and outside of Russia.
Attacking civilian infrastructure like power plants is a WAR CRIME and that's why it's a huge deal that Russia has been attacking power plants. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. All moral obligations are equal. That means doing unethical and immoral actions in pursuit of an ethical and moral goal means you are no longer fighting a good fight.
Power plants are valid military targets.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/when-are-attacks-civilian-infrastructure-war-crimes-2022-12-16/
Claiming that they're typically valid targets is very different from "sometimes they are, in extreme circumstances".
Citation needed
Civilian infrastructure can in fact a valid target if it assist the military. Electricity generation is used to maintain many military systems, including telecommunications, logistics, lighting, radar systems, and all sorts of manufacturing capability that assists the military.
So fucking what? Attacking civilian power infrastructure isn't the solution to fighting an enemy. Attack the military comms, logistics, lighting, radar, and manufacturing instead. Then everyone knows the attack is absolutely justified.
Buddy, I can smell the straw from here. Ukraine isn't attacking Russia's critical infrastructure out of some need for retribution. If a grizzly bear attacks you, you hit that thing in any sensitive spot you can reach until it backs off. Otherwise you're dead. That's the situation Ukraine has been in from the start. They've been persistently outgunned and outmanned. The only way to get Russia to stop is to hit them where it hurts.
I'm not making some kind of strawman argument. I'm correcting the OP, because attacking civilian infrastructure is a war crime. If Russia starts using chemical weapons, should Ukraine start too? If you have any sense of ethics, you'd say no.
Congratulations, you've successfully justified a war crime.
At least Ukraine is not doing it in the middle of winter, unlike Russia.
Sure they are. You’d make a terrible military leader.
And you'd end up in the Hague.
You are incorrect. Please don’t spread misinformation.
https://sites.duke.edu/lawfire/2022/10/27/is-attacking-the-electricity-infrastructure-used-by-civilians-always-a-war-crime/
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/03/war-crimes-indiscriminate-attacks-infrastructure-systematic-and-widespread
The UN disagrees.
The geneva conventions and other treaties that established what we call the international conventions on warfare were not written by he UN, amd the UN has no jurisdiction on them. The geneva convention was held in 1864, about 80 years before the UN was formed.
The ICRC is the jurisdiction in “charge” of defining warcrimes.
In any case, warcrimes are contextual. Bombing a power plant in one instance may be a legitimate target in war, while in another case, where Russias goal was to cause civilians to freeze and suffer, may very well be. However, I am not a lawyer of the international criminal courts.
Again, so fucking what if the UN isn't directly involved with charging and sentencing war crimes. The UN, the ICJ, and the ICC are all international organizations. When one makes a claim, it's highly likely that the others will follow suit.
The UN isn’t in charge of war crimes. Since the power systems are used to fight a war. They are legit targets.
It’s explained to you in the cite I gave you. It’s hard to take you seriously when you try to cite the UN who put Iran in charge of human rights.
Neither is Duke. I would call an international convention of nations far more legitimate than any college on this matter.
Then were the charges? Where is the UN voting to use force to arrest Putin ? Exactly. The UN is worthless.
Here are the charges. Who would have guessed international conventions influence international courts?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/international-court-seeks-the-arrest-of-2-russian-officers-over-attacks-on-ukraine-infrastructure
That isn’t the UN
Lol so fucking what? You're wrong dude, it's ok to admit it. There's no shame in being wrong.
I’m not wrong. You claim it’s always illegal. Yet your cites don’t say that. My cites say it is lot always illegal and explains why.
We are talking about Ukraine attacking Russia. You are trying to oddly cite Russia attacking Ukraine.
Just take an l and move on or actually cite your claim
I didn't think I had to say this, but I'm arguing an ethical position that happens to coincide with international law. I think it's always wrong to bomb infrastructure. In this war between Ukraine and Russia, it's a definitive war crime and it would be a violation of international law for Ukraine to strike a power plant in Russia.
The ethical position is that civilian infrastructure like power plants, hospitals, dams, bridges, etc should never be attacked. This is because fake justifications can be made to attack that infrastructure, as we see in Israel's genocide.
Ethics is different than law.
Nice observation. I'm arguing 2 compatible things simultaneously, one is legal that obviously has exceptions. The other is ethical to argue that the "exceptions" are just excuses for killing civilians.
It's morally wrong to do so. At the end of the day, like every single other war in the human history sadly , the right side is the winning one, be It bombing power plants, hospitals or houses.
Unless nobody wins. Attacking targets with no clear strategic advantage out of spite is animalistic and stupid. Just take out the relay stations.
Seems I'm getting downvoted. Just to be clear, I condemn war and armed conflicts, If i could make so, no guns would ever be fired.
My point is, it's pointless to argue about the "should be" or "could be", I'm just stating the actual, current state of matters.
There's ALWAYS a winner, in fact, If a war started, someone is already winning, be It one of the involved parties, be It a guns supplier or a manufacturing plant making tanks.
It's naive to think that, people with power to decide what to do in a war, will prioritize a "good and moral war", over getting what they want from It.
Maybe you and I can't see any advantage over an attack and label It stupid, but it is what it is, and maybe the actual intent is not clear to us.
Anyways, war is bad, but don't be naive.
If a country's wartime decisions are made by people who benefit solely from death and destruction, then that country lost before the war even began. I don't see that being the case with the defenders in this conflict, Ukraine.
In war, everyone loses.
I beg to differ: Adnan Khashoggi, a famous arms dealer, considered one the richest mans of the 1980s, active on the Iran-Contra affair. Viktor Bout, famous russian arms dealer active on the FARC. Sir Basil Zaharoff, greek arms dealer active on the Balkan Wars
And these are just a few most notorious ones.
As I said, when a war starts, someone is already winning, it's a sad but true reality.