That’s not a reason to wage war, but according to just war theory, a war can’t be just unless there is some chance of success. I don’t think you have to be the favorite to win, but the theory is that you shouldn’t fight completely hopeless wars because that leads to death and destruction that accomplishes nothing.
The reason for war is covered by the “just cause” criterion.
I don’t think anyone here thinks that the US invasion of Iraq was a just war, but many believe that the defense of Ukraine is a just war.
Durin’s Folk joining the Last Alliance was a clear provocation against Mordor. The orcs had no choice but to take a special military action against Rohan.
I’m confused. Did your question concern the attack on Ukraine or the defense of Ukraine? It seems obvious to me that the attack is unjustified and the defense is justified. I have no clue what conclusion you think should flow from this though.
I edited it. I thought it was clear that there seems to be some disagreement about the justification for defending Ukraine but not about the lack of justification for the attack on Ukraine, so the context would be that I was talking about the former. Is it just to support the defense of Ukraine?
What if Wormtongue had managed to stop Article 5 from being invoked? Makes you think.
So, I agree with you about genocide and I didn’t vote in the poll because I didn’t think any of the options were defensible, but there are definitely gradations of badness. Invading Ukraine and killing its leadership without justification would be very bad, but it doesn’t come close to maxing out the badness scale:
I agree with you that people should not be using genocide as an expression of being super duper anti-Putin, but the antidote to that is being clear about what is and isn’t known and what is or isn’t genocide, not cynicism about the whole concept.
Posting actual pics of specific human heads followed with some detailed discussion did remind me of seeing really offensive Michelle Obama memes during the 3 mins of my life that I spent on facebook.
Your point one seems pretty standard for any invasion and occupation (for a given definition of “potential troublemakers”). I agree that points two and three are warning signs for really terrible stuff potentially happening and also agree that there’s no evidence just yet that said terrible stuff is happening on a wide scale. I’m pretty cynical about “genocide” in the long term as I think it seeks to bring too many incidents under the one umbrella term. Like Srebrenica was plenty bad but it seems to me like describing it with the same word as is used for the Holocaust leads to less moral clarity, not more. This ambiguity in the term is a recipe for it just becoming an empty rhetorical weapon, as I think we’re starting to see here.
i doubt the legal definition of genocide says one side has to murder every prisoner. but relocations of a large number of refugees, with or without consent, is very much a soviet thing going back to stalin’s nkvd, including atrocities relating to ukraine in the 30s. i guess it’s really toeing the line between atrocities and genocide, but i voted genocide.
The foot soldiers are, obviously, a mix of some subhuman beasts and some who are just following orders, and we’ve seen evidence of this in Bucha and elsewhere. But the existence of some or even most people in the ranks being useful pawns rather than beasts who relish in rape and murder does not in any way absolve the leadership of the Russian forces, which is directing a genocide.
It doesn’t seem like the Russians are committing systematic atrocities against civilians everywhere. But they did in Bucha and Irpin, presumably to send a message to the civilians in Kyiv not to even think about resisting the assumed upcoming invasion.
I think it was more than turning a blind eye in Bucha and Irpin. I think it was to send a message. There were reports that they even said stuff about civilians joining the defense force when they murdered them.
For one, see my post above. For two, Ukraine has just barely begun to recapture territory. I don’t think we will have the words or the stomach to process the extent of the horrors that will be uncovered in Mariupol, and reporters may not be exploring around Kharkiv for another week or two.
Unless you’re conceding that WWIII has already started how can you be a scientist and use this language?
Seems problematic for anyone to use though humans who have actually faced the reality of a draft or obligatory military service might get a pass.
It still seems like the Bucha and Irpin have been an order of magnitude worse than anything uncovered so far.
By the way I think this makes Russian leadership look worse, not better. It’s not like their troops are out there completely out of control. They’re deliberately putting in squads that they know are capable of committing atrocities in certain places, and then promoting them afterwards - like Putin did with the commander at Bucha.
I was echoing the language used in the post I was replying to, and if you’d read the post rather than just that part, you’d see I make a distinction for people just following orders, as you say. There are clearly some ghastly people in the Russian army, though. We have ample evidence in Bucha and Mariupol.
My theory on that is that the majority of men, in times of war, are capable of committing atrocities. We all like to think we’d be Charlie Sheen protecting villagers in Platoon.
But the truth is humans are hyper-social creatures. We’re hardwired to go along with what the rest of the group is doing. When someone has just seen their buddy get blown up right next to them, and death is already flying all around, it’s trivially easy to motivate them to commit atrocities against the perpetrators.
Military leadership has to activity lean in to keep that stuff from happening. It’s pretty clear Russian leadership is doing the opposite. They’ve created a culture where atrocities are not just turned a blind eye to, but actively rewarded. I’m not sure how someone can be paying any attention to this war and not realize that.
At least when atrocities are desired. Sometimes they might not be the strategically preferable. At which point I’m sure Russian leadership has mechanisms to discourage atrocities.
Again, all this makes Russian leadership much worse in my eyes.
Add in then the camps, mass deportations, conscription of all men occupied territories to use as human meat shields. Pure evil - and really no ground to stand on to bothsides that the US has done the same kind of thing.
just a reminder, putin gave the unit that is accused of Bucha atrocities a commendation. that alone makes it look like the acts were planned and/or allowed to continue.