Ukraine Thread

[Gilrandir]

O Tempora, o mores. The pain, the physical pain. They're polluting Crimea. Giving jobs to former drug addicts. Only Putin can do something so inhumane...

You should shell them, and then eat them. They're not human beings, anyway.

I gave the information, it is your right to make conclusions yourself.

[Gilrandir]

You should shell them, and then eat them. They're not human beings, anyway.

Only Putin can do something so inhumane...

I agree. Demonization was needless:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33445772

Just a glance from an outsider:
http://www.wrath-bearingtree.com/dispatches/

[CrossLOPER]

I agree. Demonization was needless:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33445772

Morally, an approval would have been right. They need to admit to it themselves. Someone was going to be pissed, regardless the decision. Russia chose to maintain good relations with a long-term allied government. It was going to be spun one way or another.

Just a glance from an outsider:
http://www.wrath-bearingtree.com/dispatches/

I am not sure what this is trying to argue. It's also filled with clichés.

The arguments are scattered. At one point, the author gains a fetishistic obsession with the hammer and sickle on the insignia on Aeroflot and suggests it is as unacceptable as Lufthansa displaying a Swastika on its insignia, and then proceeds to spend a great deal of time detailing why Nazi Romanticism might not be so bad.

[Brenus]

"Morally, an approval would have been right." Why? Bosnian Forces killed war prisoners, few thousands, figures are still unknown... It is difficult to know, but if the Bosnian had 8,000 men in position to fight, the town would have never fallen.
In order to match the number of 8,000, the Bosnian Government and UN are taking all unidentified bodies, do DNA (as DNA can show religion), but as all Bosnian are related, it is quite a complex thing.

As part of a reconciliation process, it doesn't seems to work either, as shown during the commemoration...

Awful as it was, it is not a genocide, but a war crime (women and children were not killed). The Hague Tribunal took a political stance on this one.

More than 100,000 Serbs were expelled from Kosovo, Churches burned (not that I am against to destroy Churches but not during an ethnic cleansing...), few thousands killed, but this was not a genocide. Same in Croatia, same in Bosnia.

So, why Srebrenica differed from the others?

[Gilrandir]

Awful as it was, it is not a genocide, but a war crime (women and children were not killed). The Hague Tribunal took a political stance on this one.

War crimes are committed against indiscriminate people. Here only one ethnic/confessional group was targeted. This was enough to qualify it as genocide.

[Sarmatian]

That would mean that all wars between nation states were in fact a genocide.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[Brenus]

"This was enough to qualify it as genocide." Yeap, it is exactly how The Hague twisted the concept in order to fit the bill.
So my grand-father killing Germans was committing genocide as he didn't killed any English or American, he was clearly aiming at only one ethnic/confessional group which happened to be France's invaders.

[Gilrandir]

That would mean that all wars between nation states were in fact a genocide.

Again, in war you kill indisriminate people fighting against you without asking thier nationality.

"This was enough to qualify it as genocide." Yeap, it is exactly how The Hague twisted the concept in order to fit the bill.
So my grand-father killing Germans was committing genocide as he didn't killed any English or American, he was clearly aiming at only one ethnic/confessional group which happened to be France's invaders.

You mean he gathered all members of a community, chose German males among them and shot them? Wow, what details we learn!

[Sarmatian]

Again, in war you kill indisriminate people fighting against you without asking thier nationality.

And all men of military age were killed indiscriminately. Those men used the status of UN protected enclave to raid surrounding communities, only to fall back, hide behind UN troops and do it all over again. And again, and again, and again... After they were beaten, Bosnian Serb forces killed all POWs.

None of it makes it excusable.
None of it makes it a genocide. One could call it a massacre, a war crime, a crime against humanity, take your pick, but not a genocide...

If that is the definition of a genocide, Every.Single.Nation on earth has committed genocide multiple times. Ukrainians against the Poles and Jews, Poles against Ukrainians, English against Arabs, Americans against Native Americans, Vietnamis, Iraqis, Afghanis and Mexicans, Germany against just about every nation the conquered in ww2, Russians against Poles and various Asian tribes/countries, Greeks against the Turks, Turks against the Greeks, all European colonizers against native population on all continents and so on.

To label it a genocide is supposed to justify western policies and actions during the nineties. It is insulting to those who truly were victims of genocide to compare it.

[Brenus]

"You mean he gathered all members of a community, chose German males among them and shot them?" Much better! The community identified itself in wearing green/grey uniforms (men and women),so the choice was easy to do, and gathered in buildings, train or lorries. He just have to blow-up the trains/lorries, then finish off the job with light machine-guns.

[Gilrandir]

And all men of military age were killed indiscriminately.

I heard that they weren't just men of military age, but Muslim/Bosniaks of military age.

[Sarmatian]

I heard that they weren't just men of military age, but Muslim/Bosniaks of military age.

So? When Americans bombed Japanase cities and villages, they should have hopped over to Thailand afterwards to kill an equal number of Thais, so they're not accused of bias?

Are you serious?

[Gilrandir]

So? When Americans bombed Japanase cities and villages, they should have hopped over to Thailand afterwards to kill an equal number of Thais, so they're not accused of bias?

Are you serious?

I'm trying to show that it was not indiscriminate slaughter, as you tried to convince us, but one ethnic/religious group was targeted. Whatever you might say, it reeks of genocide (on a small scale, of course, no match for the Armenian one, for instance).


Meanwhile, Russia proclaims itself above the international law.
http://rt.com/politics/273523-russia...-constitution/
One more reason to sign treaties wit Putin.

[Brenus]

"Meanwhile, Russia proclaims itself above the international law.
http://rt.com/politics/273523-russia...-constitution/
One more reason to sign treaties wit Putin." EUROPEAN Human Right Court. USA always refused to sign on the Human Right Convention. One more reason to sign treaties with USA? And I think that was one point the UK Prime Minister promised during the last campaign, he wants to get rid as well of the European Human Right Convention.

[rvg]

And all men of military age were killed indiscriminately. Those men used the status of UN protected enclave to raid surrounding communities, only to fall back, hide behind UN troops and do it all over again. And again, and again, and again... After they were beaten, Bosnian Serb forces killed all POWs.

None of it makes it excusable.
None of it makes it a genocide. One could call it a massacre, a war crime, a crime against humanity, take your pick, but not a genocide...

If that is the definition of a genocide, Every.Single.Nation on earth has committed genocide multiple times. Ukrainians against the Poles and Jews, Poles against Ukrainians, English against Arabs, Americans against Native Americans, Vietnamis, Iraqis, Afghanis and Mexicans, Germany against just about every nation the conquered in ww2, Russians against Poles and various Asian tribes/countries, Greeks against the Turks, Turks against the Greeks, all European colonizers against native population on all continents and so on.

To label it a genocide is supposed to justify western policies and actions during the nineties. It is insulting to those who truly were victims of genocide to compare it.

Couldn't agree more. It's a simple matter of shooting first so you don't get shot. Remove kebab before kebab removes you.

[Gilrandir]

"Meanwhile, Russia proclaims itself above the international law.
http://rt.com/politics/273523-russia...-constitution/
One more reason to sign treaties wit Putin." EUROPEAN Human Right Court. USA always refused to sign on the Human Right Convention. One more reason to sign treaties with USA? And I think that was one point the UK Prime Minister promised during the last campaign, he wants to get rid as well of the European Human Right Convention.

Russia DID sign the Convention (although didn't ratify it) and now refuses to obey what it signed (as was the case with 1994 Budapest memorandum and 1997 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with Ukraine). If you don't see the difference, I do.

[Brenus]

"(although didn't ratify it)" Key point. So it is not signed...

[Sarmatian]

Russia DID sign the Convention (although didn't ratify it) and now refuses to obey what it signed (as was the case with 1994 Budapest memorandum and 1997 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with Ukraine). If you don't see the difference, I do.

Country is not bound by the treaty until it has been ratified.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[Gilrandir]

Country is not bound by the treaty until it has been ratified.

As the latest developments show, Russia is not bound even if it does ratify something. But if you don't ratify it, be honest to yourself and others and proclaim exit from the treaty. Russia is trying to sit on two chairs: it pretends to be a part of the European human rights system when it suits it and spurns it when it doesn't. The same it did to the two treaties I mentioned AND IT RATIFIED THEM too.
The USA is at least aboveboard in staying away from the treaty.

And another propulsion by Russia in the south.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...-south-ossetia

[Brenus]

"The USA is at least aboveboard in staying away from the treaty". Yeap. However USA (and others) did sign the International Treaty about Internationally recognised borders, and well, still didn't respected this treaty, as earlier than the Vietnam wars.
NATO countries didn't even respect the treaty they imposed upon Serbia which guaranteed Kosovo as part of Serbia.
If fact, Putin is taking advantage of these US violations of international treaties to justify his breaches of international laws. Germany by constitution can't sent troops in foreign country. However Germany did participate of Serbia's bombing campaign. How? Weellll, they changed the constitution (and international agreements)...
So Putin is doing what was done before (and as much as I remember, the war against Iraq, or the invasion of Afghanistan were not really following international laws neither)...

[Gilrandir]

"The USA is at least aboveboard in staying away from the treaty". Yeap. However USA (and others) did sign the International Treaty about Internationally recognised borders, and well, still didn't respected this treaty, as earlier than the Vietnam wars.
NATO countries didn't even respect the treaty they imposed upon Serbia which guaranteed Kosovo as part of Serbia.
If fact, Putin is taking advantage of these US violations of international treaties to justify his breaches of international laws. Germany by constitution can't sent troops in foreign country. However Germany did participate of Serbia's bombing campaign. How? Weellll, they changed the constitution (and international agreements)...
So Putin is doing what was done before (and as much as I remember, the war against Iraq, or the invasion of Afghanistan were not really following international laws neither)...

We might start a discussion on the niceties of the treaties you referred to and try to see if the treaties in question contained any stipulations the violation of which could result in what the US did or whether the breaches of international laws performed elsewhere were a just cause to violate these very treaties. Moreover, each of us (and perhaps others) would assess them differently: for some the violation of them would be a lesser evil done to protect/promote freedom/democracy, for others - dirty deeds done out of cynical spite; Germany changing its constitution might be considered catering to the shifting purposes of the pan-European tyrant by some and flexibility neccessary to address the challenges of today's world by others (which is being attempted by some ostensibly peaceful counrties, btw :
http://www.rt.com/news/273820-japan-troops-abroad-law/).
We may argue whether the prohibition of using German armed forces abroad covered the use of them as a part of NATO forces or whether this prohibition could be considered void if some international organization (like UNO) sanctioned it... It would be indeed a long and tiresome argument.

But, in my opinion, what differs the cases you mentioned and those connected with the topic is that yours had the vestiges of violations of "general principles of international law" which were usual in the "uncivilized past" and have been largely on the decline as the international relations are becoming "more civilized".
The ones violated by Russia in relation to Ukraine were "more personalized and specified" involving a limited number of parties to them agreeing on some specific point (Budapest memorandum of 1994) or being even a comprehensive bilateral act (1997 Ukraine-Russia treaty of friendship and cooperation). Violating them was a grosser misconduct, in my view. It is like your are going with a (legally registered and inherited from your father) gun along the street and suddenly you are surrounded by cops who say: "Now nice and slow put that gun down, make three steps back and you won't get hurt". You do that and when the gun has been impounded one of the cops (your cousin, btw) start shooting at you.

Still more grievous is the fact that the violations were done by Russia against Ukraine. I don't think you can fully gauge the enormity of what was done by Putin. He attacked the nation who has been considered the fraternal one in regard to Russians for 300 years at least and whose closeness in customs, language, religion, worldview has been emphasized and indeed fostered, especially during the Soviet era (the institute I graduated from was named after 300th anniversary of reunification Ukraine with Russia). All the conflicts that happened between Ukraine and Russia in the past were considered petty misunderstandings and those who were proclaimed to blame (the most well-known characters are Mazepa and Bandera) were stigmatized as traitors targeting the ever-lasting friendship and, forsooth, brotherhood of two closely related peoples (it is curious, though, that "traitors" were always found in Ukraine only).
Indeed, two peoples lived mostly peacefully, often intermingling in various places of both Ukraine and Russia and marrying into each other. I don't know what other international relations can those be likened to, perhaps I can loosely compare them with Canadians and Americans, or (in Europe) Czechs and Slovaks, or Germans and the Swiss.

When the Crimea was annexed, Ukrainians couldn't for quite a time credit what had happened. Can Canadians consider Americans capable of such a deed? Can Slovaks in their worst nightmares envision such a move from Czechs? Can the Swiss be afraid that Germany would some day annex Bodensee and lands to the south of it (to protect the German-speaking community)? Such was the impact of Russian invasion in 2014.

Ultimately it resulted in the pro-Russian stance in Ukraine suffering a seriuos setback. If some politicians start saying something about normalizing relations with Russia, reviving friendly ties with it, enhancing economic cooperation, entering any unions with it, there is always a sentence which they have no answer to: "You mean the Russia that stole the Crimea from us?" Strategically, it is a great defeat for Putin. He succeeded in estranging a large stratum of Russia-oriented Ukrainians.

But even worse is the anti-Ukrainian hysteria fomented by Putin. Russians are taught to believe in the fascist nazi people across the border who are ruled by junta aiming to kill Russians and Russian-speakers.

So, a bottomline: for Ukraine and Russia it was more than just a violation of some treaty, it was (and still is) a much deeper, palpitating and even gruesome issue, involving worldview shifts.

[Brenus]

I understand what your are writing. But this war is not mine. So I can and I judge or analyse it differently. For me, your charge on Putin and respect of treaties is part of the same debate.
Western powers started in not respecting treaties and rules. Western powers started to invade others countries and to decide what was right and what was wrong.
Do you think that Serbs believed that France would bomb them? They have a monument in Belgrade saying "love France like France loved as".
And about Ukraine, what do you think Russians were feeling in watching anti-Russian chants and demonstration: betrayed?

[Gilrandir]

Western powers started in not respecting treaties and rules. Western powers started to invade others countries and to decide what was right and what was wrong.

I don't think one can put the blame of "starting" onto anyone in particular. Invading and violating treaties was older than division of Europe into Western vs Eastern powers. Yet with foreign relations becoming more and more civilized, such cases were hoped to become less frequent. As for annexing a part of another country, it hasn't happened in Europe since Austro-Hungary annexed Bosnia more than a hundred years before.

Do you think that Serbs believed that France would bomb them? They have a monument in Belgrade saying "love France like France loved as".

You again fail to understand. Serbs and the French don't have a history behind them which can even distantly remind the one behind Ukrainians and Russians.

And about Ukraine, what do you think Russians were feeling in watching anti-Russian chants and demonstration: betrayed?

As I have repeated many times, anti-Russian chants and demonstrations started only as a reaction to the Crimea annexation and further developments in Donbas. Maidan never adopted any anti-someone rhetoric (unless anti-Yanukovych, of course, and that was after some two months). There were Russians and Russian flags on Maidan. Russian media perverted it the way they were told to. And this, which amounted to whipping the whole people into anti-Ukrainian (and anti-Western) frenzy is the greatest iniquity of Putin.

[Gilrandir]

http://worldif.economist.com/article...l-beyond-putin

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

A Chechen friend of mine said more or less the same as that article - Russia is doomed.

[Husar]

[Hooahguy]

Does anybody ever sometimes feel that this whole thing is just Russia's revenge for Ukraine's Eurovision entry for 2007?

Link for the uninitiated, and its very, very weird. And possibly NSFW.

[Gilrandir]

Does anybody ever sometimes feel that this whole thing is just Russia's revenge for Ukraine's Eurovision entry for 2007?

Link for the uninitiated, and its very, very weird. And possibly NSFW.

More wierd than this:


or this?


If you aren't initiated: at Eurovision freaks rule.

But there was a Russian-Ukrainian scandal after 2007 Eurovision, though:

Russians heard "Russia goodbye" instead of "Lasha tumbai" (which is said to be something in Mongolean) and the entertainer in question had a serious cut in his invitations to perform in Russia.

[Viking]

Hmm, doesn't this sound familiar?

There seems, indeed, a decided lack of sympathy for noncombatant men in war zones. Even reports by international human rights organizations speak of massacres as being directed almost exclusively against women, children, and, perhaps, the elderly. The implication, almost never stated outright, is that adult males are either combatants or have something wrong with them. (“You mean to say there were people out there slaughtering women and children and you weren’t out there defending them? What are you? Chicken?”)

Yes, it really does.

Those who carry out massacres have been known to cynically manipulate this tacit conscription: most famously, the Bosnian Serb commanders who calculated they could avoid charges of genocide if, instead of exterminating the entire population of conquered towns and villages, they merely exterminated all males between ages fifteen and fifty-five.

http://thebaffler.com/salvos/bullys-pulpit

To throw in a different perspective for the recent more-or-less-off-topic conversation.

[Gilrandir]

Saw a detailed documentary on TV about Russian-Georgean war of 2008. It is called August War and it is about 2 hours long. My skills don't allow me to find it in internet, so perhaps someone else will do it for others to see.