this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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I care, just not nearly as much as I care about Russian crimes. For the same reason that I care about the crimes of the Allies in WW2, but not nearly as much as I care about the crimes of the fucking Axis.
Exactly. Yes, firebombing Dresden wasn't exactly the height of civility, but neither was invading all of fucking Europe and murdering millions upon millions of civilians.
Similarly, Ukraine isn't a country full of saints, but they're not currently commiting genocide in a country they occupied by force.
And overall, the end goal is an end to war crimes. Is it bad when Russia does it? Yes. Is it bad if Ukraine does it? Yes. Is it bad when the allies do it? Yes. And so on. Anyone who says anything else, fuck them.
The end goal is to end the war. Its unreasonable to expect someone to play fair (not commit war crimes) when there is an advantaged force invading their country with the goal of total destruction committing war crimes against them weekly. Ukraine should do everything in their power to stop them and not feel restricted by international law. International law has done nothing to protect them.
War crimes means killing children, torturing innocent people. You can fight a fierce war without committing war crimes. In fact it means a more effective fight, because you’re not turning the souls of the people who are doing the fighting away from the fight you are asking them to do.
It doesn't mean either of those things.
Killing children or torturing innocent people are absolutely war crimes. When talking about the Ukraine conflict specifically, those two are actually the most common ones that I think of (in addition to destroying civilian infrastructure like hospitals or power stations).
Ukraine isn't doing either of those things, on any scale that's relevant, and I don't think they should start, for reasons I've already touched on. They won't have all that much of a productive effective on fiercely "fighting the war." That's actually exactly a big part of what makes them war crimes (where something like blowing up an oil refinery is not.)
Yes those two things are war crimes but war crimes is a general term and doesnt specifically mean killing children and torturing people.
Committing war crimes also proves the enemy's propaganda of your own forces true, and greatly decreases the chance the enemy will be willing to surrender or be convinced to defect since you really are the monsters they were told you were.
Yeah. A whole lot of human conduct, even in war or in authoritarian regimes, is what people want to do. If you're setting up something that you need to have happen that every fiber of someone's being is telling them not to do (or the opposite, engaging every fiber of your enemies' being in opposing you), then God help you in the long run.