Posted on 01/14/2023 4:39:51 PM PST by Mariner
Russia's frequent and widespread attacks on Ukraine's power infrastructure have plunged millions of people into darkness, depriving them of heat, power and water just as winter arrives and temperatures drop below zero.
Many Ukrainian and Western leaders quickly condemned the strikes as war crimes because of the harm done to the civilian population. But attacks on energy grids have long been part of warfare - so is Russia's strategy a violation of international law?
With certain limitations, parts of a country's electrical grid can be considered legitimate targets if they are used to power military facilities.
This is true even if the targets have a civilian as well as a military purpose, so long as destroying the object would "offer a definite military advantage".
Iraq's energy infrastructure was attacked by US forces in 1991 - a strategy that has been heavily criticised. Nato forces also targeted the power grid in Serbia in 1999. In both cases, the civilian population was affected by the resulting power outages.
In fact, there may be times when neutralising a military facility by taking out its power supply is preferable to hitting the facility directly with missiles or artillery.
"Would I rather deprive part of the civilian population of electricity for a limited period, rather than risk killing civilians because of the collateral effects of using kinetic weapons? Yeah, I would think so," Michael Schmitt - professor emeritus at the US Naval War College - told the BBC.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
War is war and attacking. The infrastructure of the country you are at war with is a legitimate target go back to World War II. What do you think daylight bombing was doing they were attacking the infrastructure as much as possible, all manufacturing train, lines, train, rails, dams power sources, you name it. The Russians have tried to conduct a war where they are not trying to destroy all of the infrastructure in Ukraine. Unfortunately I didn’t go into work if I want to go for the knockout punch that I need to take it all out end this damn thing once and for all.
For the annecdote, I also remember that the huge majority here on free republic totally supported the 2003 Iraq war.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4122936/posts?page=70#70
Or is it only a crime when the bad guys do it?
Or is it only a crime when the bad guys do it?
Imagine the air pollution the Ploesti raids caused.
Perhaps they can run their gas stoves
I’ve read quite a bit about Dresden, and it had absolutely no military value whatsoever even air marshal Harris wasn’t that enthusiastic about bombing Dresden and other places like it, but Churchill and the higher leaders of the British government wanted it done in retaliation for all the raids on London and other places in England
The United Nations has become a toothless tiger just like its predecessor the league of nations. It’s a worthless, corrupt organization that has no value in today’s society, and today’s world needs to be disbanded in thrown on the ash heap of history
“Power infrastructure is, and always has been a legitimate military target according to all the “rules”. “
It’s ONLY ‘legitimate’ when the West does that (as in Belgrade in 1999, and maybe soon again unless Serbia legalizes Drag Queens), at least according to the ‘Rules Based Order’ that we expect every country to abide by.
I believe it was code-named "Operation Chastise".
Now you've made Greta get the frowny-face...
Major general Curtis Lemay had command of all be 29 squadrons in the Pacific during the time that they fire bombed Japanese cities, hoping to bring them to their knees to end the war is quite possible that strategy may have work without using nuclear bombs, but they opportunity was there and they used
“Nobody enforces “war crimes” anymore.”
I suspect that Russia will be enforcing them (such as Ukrainian torture videos of Russian POWs), once they complete their liberation of Ukraine.
One of the definitive books on this subject is Richard Frank’s book downfall, which concerns the last few much of the Pacific war, and the decisions made on the invasion of Japan and the use of the nuclear weapons. It’s very eye-opening stuff to read because the history is not what we all thought it was, and how the decision was made to use the bombs.
Greta cooks with gas! I saw the pics on Tweater!
The laser beams from her eyes will make you forget that.
You don’t say anything about the warcrimes committed by Milosevic... which in turn led NATO to act.
NATO didn’t attack Yugoslavia suddenly one night in treacherous way like Russia did on Ukraine.
In fact, NATO members were in negotiations for months and months beforehand with Milosevic. They tried to get him to his senses and stop the massacres he was organizing within his own country.
After months of negations which didn’t change anything, an ultimatum was finally made.
It was pretty fair, it let Milosevic still decide to stop the mess. But... he didn’t care. That triggered the armed conflict with NATO.
“NATO didn’t attack Yugoslavia suddenly one night in treacherous way like Russia did on Ukraine.”
Jeeze, even the worst bots here post better stuff than this.
The chick in that was hot...
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