Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

Re: sandbagging

If Talent were matched up in Chess against a six year old with Downs Syndrome he would be predicting a loss.

[THE_WIZARD_]

That horsey thing confuses me. It moves in mysterious ways.

I'll stick to Backgammon.

[iam416]

You don't know shit about backgammon.

[Hannibal]

The only right way to play Chess is to attrit your opponent until there is nobody left but a humiliated and demoralized King.

[THE_WIZARD_]

You don't know shit about backgammon.

I'd kick yer Buckeye arse

[Jeff Buchanan]

Also — you guys calling for NATO to escalate this conflict are insane. Putin can and would retaliate in a way that could cause massive amounts of human suffering. It sucks for the people living there but we can’t rescue the Ukraine. But those people can make the conquering and occupation of their country cost prohibitive. It looks like they are doing just that. Good for them.

Political thought aside, NATO would have conducted a counter offensive if military officials there thought they could have achieved objectives that would have included steps to force Russian forces to withdraw without prompting a Russian escalation. Obviously, they did not think that was possible. It's impossible to separate political strategizing from military strategizing and at this point both are critically intertwined. It wasn't until political and military strategizing coincided in 1941 before military action was undertaken by the US. I don't know if political strategizing is driving decision making wrt an engagement by NATO forces with Russian forces. I'm positive NATO leaders on the political side were briefed by military leaders on conventional options.

As much as I like to talk about mounting a NATO counter offensive, I do so mostly uninformed of the situation on the ground and driven by the humanitarian issues and my emotions derived from that. Not a good place to be if I were Supreme Allied Commander Europe who is also the NATO commander.

On war crimes and actions by Russian artillery commanders in the field who are following orders of superiors and dropping munitions from the air, firing cruise missiles or directing the firing of artillery rounds at civilian targets: The Geneva Conventions and ancillary agreements to it are very clear on this. Putin claimed several years ago during Russian's involvement in Syria, that the parts of the Geneva conventions relating to the prosecution of war crimes was being misused and stated Russia was not a party to them any longer. He can claim that but Russia is still a signatory to them. Good luck.

There is no question whatsoever that what is being documented inside Ukraine as artillery, air and cruise missile attacks on non-military, strictly civilian targets is prosecutable as a war crime under the Geneva conventions. The Geneva Conventions came into force in 1949 after the German and likely allied commission of war crimes that would have been prosecutable had the Conventions been in effect from 1939.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I came upon this link today that is much more detailed on military operations inside Ukraine. It's good because the news is rife with emotionalism that tends to bury good military analysis. When I read most of the reports at this link, I was struck by how differently Ukraine's military operations along with those of the Russians were described. The MSM talks of impending doom using language like advancing, encircling, besieging and intersperses the human suffering that, IMO, clouds the military picture.

Just this morning, Zelenski stated that Ukraine is winning the battles and, aside from keeping Ukrainian morale high, actually seems to be the case. The analysis in the link below characterizes Russian military operations as plodding, fumbling, uncoordinated and suffering mounting casualties and loss of equipment. There's enough evidence that communications, command, control and integration of combat power isn't happening. They list 6 Russian General Officers and several Field Grade officers having been killed in battle as they have to go forward to command their units.

For military history and general enthusiasts this is a great source of nitty-gritty combat intel: https://www.criticalthreats.org/

[Hannibal]

[QUOTE=Jeff Buchanan;n1778245]

There is no question whatsoever that what is being documented inside Ukraine as artillery, air and cruise missile attacks on non-military, strictly civilian targets is prosecutable as a war crime under the Geneva conventions. The Geneva Conventions came into force in 1949 after the German and likely allied commission of war crimes that would have been prosecutable had the Conventions been in effect from 1939.

It might technically be prosecutable, but as best I can tell, there isn't a precedent or doing it. I don't think that this is black and white when you are talking about the commanders in the field following orders. You could very easily classify American and British commanders in WWII as being war criminals for the bombing of Dresden if that were the standard.

[Obi-Jon]

Weapons being used in Ukraine.

https://graphics.reuters.com/UKRAINE-CRISIS/WEAPONS/lbvgnzdnlpq/

[Jeff Buchanan]

There's precedent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...Criminal_Court and this wiki entry isn't up to date.

A war crime is as black and white as it can get and is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...Criminal_Court

I think it was Ukraine's Foreign Minister that raised the issue of war crimes being committed by Russians in Ukraine. IMO, there is no doubt they are being committed, documented and will be investigated. Will Putin cooperate. Fuck no. But the political pressure over shit he ordered in his pursuit of his objectives in Ukraine and/or the shit military higherups decided they needed to do to obtain those objectives will be constantly raised for years to come and will only serve to further isolate Putin and Russia from the rest of the civilized world.

[Obi-Jon]

The Orcs have issued a warning to US that it would fire on weapon shipments to Ukraine, risking a direct confrontation between Moscow and a NATO country. Fuck them. They want to directly confront NATO, they will get their asses handed to them. They don't get to bark out orders/threats just because they're orcs. If they don't like the fact that the Ukrainians are handing it to them, they can go back to Russia.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Russian aviation assets attacked the Yavoriv Military Complex in Ukraine, 6 miles from the polish boarder around 0600 Ukrainian time. The base is a logistics hub for the transfer of supplies and weapons from Poland to Ukraine. Reportedly, 1000 foreign fighters were training there. Up until just before the Russian invasion, US troops were conducting joint training exercises with the Ukrainian military. The air attack consisted of dozens of air launched cruise missiles. Reports just emerging state 100 killed and 354 injured.

In the South East Russian forces kidnapped the mayor of Dniprordne, Yevhen Matveyev and replaced him with Galina Danilchenco a Russian separatist on the former city council. She urged Dniprordne residents not to take part in extremist actions. This abduction follows the abduction on Friday of the mayor of Melipitols, Ivan Fedorov. You can see the emerging Russian strategy. Surround cities, reduce them to ruble, seize leadership and replace them with leadership chosen by Russian officials. These same officials that are members of Putin's Rosgvardia or National Guard were directing the preparation of charges of political extremism to be filed against Federov.

This is going to be a long process of Russofying Ukraine because of organized resistance to it but it will happen. The question is, now that the probability that NATO even US troops were killed at the Yavoriv Military Complex, will NATO intervene to stop it.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The US pulled all its troops out of that base before the war started

[Hannibal]

There's precedent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...Criminal_Court and this wiki entry isn't up to date.

A war crime is as black and white as it can get and is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...Criminal_Court

I think it was Ukraine's Foreign Minister that raised the issue of war crimes being committed by Russians in Ukraine. IMO, there is no doubt they are being committed, documented and will be investigated. Will Putin cooperate. Fuck no. But the political pressure over shit he ordered in his pursuit of his objectives in Ukraine and/or the shit military higherups decided they needed to do to obtain those objectives will be constantly raised for years to come and will only serve to further isolate Putin and Russia from the rest of the civilized world.

I didn’t read the whole wiki entry, but it looks to me like most of the people listed in there committed atrocities that go beyond creating civilian casualties during conventional military operations. What Russia is doing is still pretty tame compared to what both sides did in WWII. It’s penny ante shit compared to what we did to Tokyo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and Dresden.

Also — I’ll repeat my earlier statement that when you hand out Kalashnikovs to your whole population, you don’t really have civilians as non-combatants anymore.

And finally, let’s keep a level head about this stuff, knowing that media accounts if everything happening are highly unreliable.

[Dr. Strangelove]

There's talk today of significant progress at the "peace talks" fwiw. Both Ukraine and Russia representatives sounding sort of optimistic.