A Philosophy of War and Conflict

[The Grand Nudger]

Grand Nudger:
During the first two years of the war there has been long negotiations on that subject: Ukrainians had to take their grain through Romanian ports or they had to sell it in Europe causing huge unrest among European producers. All I am saying in that it is normal for wars to become gradually more civilized. Because oil refineries have a dual purpose (both military and civilian) it is not 100% clear weather hitting them is a war crime or not. But I still think it would be ok for Ukraine and the rest of the world to not hit Russian grain ships. This is a serious issue: You can’t send all that grain to the bottom of the sea while there are living skeletons in other parts of the world who depend on that food for their very survival.

It is 100% clear that hitting dual use oil refineries is not a war crime.  There are lots of things people think are or should be war crimes that are not...and it's never a war crime the first time, no matter what it is.  Russia is, ofc, fucked.... because they've turned their entire economy to war production and they've done it explicitly.  Likely thinking that the announcement itself would be leverage.

Take Wildberries as an example.  The russian version of amazon...and a legit company that didn't become what it was because of proximity to putins orbit.  Now the target of a relentless drone campaign.  Putin..master strategist that he is..in his infinite wisdom.... decided he'd let that company provide his soldiers with the goods they need.  Not just clothes and food and comfort stuff.  Night vision goggles, ballistic vests.  Similarly, he decided that they'd rely on russian soldiers buying civilian vehicles rather than properly equiping mechanized brigades...and now, since most of the vehicles russian trooops use are povs without military plates, and because you have to have a military plate to get fuel, the soldiers on the frontlines can't get fuel for those tech trucks.

In all, it's a breathtaking and prolonged series of own goals, and it means that the russian government either can't supply their war of choice..or won't.  Take your pick.

As far as whether or not ukraine can send all that grain to the bottom of the sea...the reality of the conflict says they can.  Ukraine, with no navy, damaged or sunk over 200 russian vessels in just a few weeks during operation molochka.  This is salient because russia's strategic objective in occupying ukraine is control of that shipping.  That's why they invaded, if you were wondering.  I don't think ukraine believes that it's their responsibility to ensure that russian shipping customers are satisfied.  I think they believe it's their responsibility to stop russia from stacking up more and more skeletons in ukraine, and so long as putin believes the shipping juice will be worth the squeeze for him and his buddies...we've already established he doesn't give a fuck about russia or russians....they won't stop.  There's no number of dead russians, dead ukranians, or dead anything other-thans so long as it keeps his orbit in power and profit.

Bringing me to the main thrust.  If you think all this shit is bad.....then you should advocate for the people actually doing it, and setting it in motion, and refusing to stop...to stop.  Not for ukraine to let up.  Putin could get as many grain ships as he wants through those waterways tomorrow.  He's the only person who can...
 

Also:
 
   This not so normal person called Donald Trump has wasted almost all of his Missiles on Iran:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/arti...39538.html
 
Why are Iranian oil production sites still standing?
 
(And that’s a very personal question: I mean if it’s not a war crime to hit these facilities why isn’t he obliterating them all at once?   )

Because he made a talk show host the head of dod, that guy purged the ranks of competence in favor of loyalty, and weapons manufacturers rake us over the coals.   Ukraine is about to start producing our weapons cheaper than we do.  Maybe we can buy some off of them. The King of America doesn't mind warcrimes. We've been doing them closer to home at a steady clip... and it looks pretty likely that we're doing them in iran as well. Even if we aren't...he keeps demanding that we do and threatening that we will! So even on this objections own ludicrous grounds we can say with 100% certainty that the inability of the mad king to beat the other guy has nothing to do with whether or not it would be a warcrime. Just like his idol Vlad....who laughs at him behind his back like the pathetic sack of shit he is, while feeding iran intel on us positions.
 

- Yes Russia is a fascist state. And I agree this as someone who knows many Russians and appreciates them as a culture. But I don’t know if Putin himself knows about the evil he did to his very own country and that’s all I am going to say on that issue.

"If only the czar knew!"  

He knows, though you have that worry in common with a great many russians on social media.  Do his subordinates lie to him?  Absolutely...but that's a feature of the system he built, not a bug. He then parrots those lies to maintain his domestic position and when they inevitably prove themselves to be lies....he blames his subordinates. All of those investigations for corruption as though corruption weren't the hiring metrics to begin with? Nonsense.
 
 

- War is an awful thing that shouldn’t happen at all. But my answer to that is this:
 
Everyone in this world needs a standing army. I used to be very anti-army / anti-war when I was younger. Now this has changed a lot. I truly believe we all need our soldiers. I mean soldiers who are there to protect our freedom and way of life.
 
So we are back where we have started: What are the ethics of conflict in the 21st century?

Are russian soldiers protecting russians freedom and way of life?  Or are they looters and rapists following a madman to their own destruction?

The ethics of conflict in the 21st century are split between professional militaries in functional states, mercs, convicts, and conscripts in totalitarian dictatorships, and child soldiers following tribal warlords in shitholes. I know which one I prefer. If you couldn't even form an opinion on my ethical question, deciding only that war is awful, how do you propose to form an opinion on the ethics of conflict and which model of conflict is more or less ethical in that spread? Did you really draw an ethical blank, or are you simply incapable of accepting what russia...and not just putin, but the russian people too, have done.... and why?

Bringing us back round to your complaint. Ukraine isn't starving people in africa. Russias failed smash and grab against a suprisingly resilient ukranian people is starving people in africa while they kill them in ukraine.