RandoEFC

I clearly have misunderstood then because I've reread it and still would say the same thing. I'm not trying to say that you think bombing schools and killing soldiers is the same thing if that's what you took from it, but I maintain that there's value in defining war crimes as things that you do not do, even if you're at war. Obviously this remains secondary to preventing war in the first place.

This combination I didn't appreciate either, for the record. I didn't speculate on anything. I posted a tweet from a verified foreign correspondent from a national UK newspaper and because the woman included "we're looking at war crimes" as a part of it, I posted "more war crimes" as a correction because they've already attacked at least one hospital and at least one orphanage. You extrapolated that into all sorts of shite about me and I remain disappointed that you've made no effort to admit where you've crossed the line. Just reflect on that one part for me and imagine how you'd feel if someone said that to you, with the anti-war sentiments that we both share, based on absolutely no evidence. You might disagree on me posting that tweet but show me the common decency at least to take this back because it's the polar opposite of who I am.

Christ alive. I'm trying to offer a light-hearted olive branch to try and put a stop to this tedious exchange. You're the one who used "I listened to System of a Down when I grew up" as some sort of evidence of how sceptical and street-smart you are in the first place for fucks sake. You can't expect people to live up to this unless you want everyone to quit their jobs and spend the rest of their lives reading up on the rights and wrongs of every conflict going on in the world right now until they die of sleep deprivation. What's your actual point here? Is it unacceptable for me to be upset about this conflict unless I go out of my way to acquire an equally informed understanding of every war that's happened in my lifetime and upset myself about all of those as well? I'm not going to feel bad for only having an emotional response to what I actually know about because of what news gets reported where I am. At no point have I given you any reason to believe that I'd deem this stuff to be alright if other countries or brown people or whatever were the ones involved. I wasn't speculating though, I posted a tweet relaying information from a verified journalist on what they'd heard from an intelligence briefing. It's news, not speculation. At worst, it's speculation by the intelligence services and therefore still not me doing the speculating. But I'm sorry if this still goes down as vile in your book. I've already admitted the transfer rumours/prediction leagues comment was stupid, but it was also kind of stupid on purpose. The intended comparison was about talking about things before they happen. It's a bad example but this is a football forum not the UN Security Council. You can't expect impeccable standards of debate at all times. But perhaps now that I've admitted (twice) that comparison was a bad one, you can try one last time to acknowledge the shite that you've chatted yourself in this exchange. First, you lumped me in with people misrepresenting the war when I wasn't, and haven't taken it back despite me taking the time to explain to you in two different posts that it was verified from a source I know to have bullet proof reliability. Secondly you made that comment about people, seemingly including me, only caring about this war or at least being somewhat hypocritical because it's white people being killed instead of brown people, which is adjacent to accusing me of racism. Thirdly, you made a demonstrably false direct accusation that I found the need to virtue signal by changing my profile picture, which seems like a stupid, small thing to get hung up on, but is something I would never do, and don't appreciate being accused of against the backdrop of these other opinions you've been projecting onto me for the last page or so. I've genuinely tried to have this debate in good faith despite not actually knowing for much of it what the fuck I'm supposed to have said for you to argue with. This is only the Internet but I've still given you my time here. I don’t mind having a thorough debate with conflicting views, but I'm a bit fed up now of you arguing with me mostly using things other people have done, said or posted. The first two of these three things that I'm still taking issue with may be a misunderstanding of what you've meant, so although I feel that you've misrepresented or made false assumptions about my views in a way that does genuinely offend me, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and move on. The third one, though, was just completely false, so I'm hoping you can at least take that part back.

You're now literally making stuff up left, right and centre. I haven't made a single post on Twitter about this conflict, it's just a place to get news from, and it happens to be easy to transfer said news in Tweet form to this forum, where I am talking about it. As for my actions. They are as follows: talking about this conflict in this thread on an Internet forum. And your actions: talking about this conflict in this thread on an Internet forum. But tell me more about how my actions are "alien to you". Fucking hell mate. All I've tried to do is understand what your problem was in the first place with me posting about an intelligence report and suggesting the bombing of civilians is a war crime. All you've done is start piping up about America and deflecting onto other conflicts which, whilst also tragic, have nothing to do with the matter at hand, and that's all I've said. I haven't disagreed with anything you've said about other conflicts. You could probably write a 10,000 word essay on the hypocrisy of Western media when it comes to international conflict and war crimes, and on people changing their profile pictures on social media only doing so because it's the only thing they can or will do to make themselves sleep a bit easier while humans elsewhere commit atrocities against each other, and I probably wouldn't disagree with a single word of it. But now you're taking behaviour you've seen from other people and projecting it onto me. First it was "I'm fed up of people misrepresenting this war" which I haven't fucking done. Then it was "I'm fed up of people only caring about wars because it's white people getting killed" which I haven't fucking done. And now you're directly accusing me specifically of virtue signalling by changing my profile picture or something, which I very explicitly, you guessed it, haven't fucking done. We've been knocking around on this forum on and off for a frighteningly long time, and I've never thought you were a bellend, but I've now put a fairly reasonable portion of my Friday night trying to have this conversation with you in good faith. As far as I can see at this point, we are yet to actually disagree on anything apart from possibly the war crimes bit and me using the admittedly stupid example of prediction leagues to make a point about talking about things that might happen before they actually happen. You'll have to forgive me when I grow even more frustrated if you choose to continue quoting my posts back and either misrepresenting them, arguing with points I haven't made as if I have, or flat out making things up that I very clearly haven't said or done. And by the way, I was listening to SOAD yesterday so if you were in any doubt, that should prove that I'm actually sound and we can be at peace here. While listening to Prison Song's lyrics I actually thought wow, what the fuck, this song is from 21 years ago and none of it has got any better. Anyway... I'm also anti-war. It's astonishing to me that we've been around for thousands of years yet still kill the shit out of each other over which scientifically debunked ancient story book we believe in, or the imaginary lines that corrupt ancestors we've never met drew between two pieces of land. However, if you can't stop wars from happening (and you can't), the next step is to at least try and and draw a distinction between different acts that can be carried out at war. If you kill 20 soldiers in order to secure an airfield that provides a strategic advantage in your campaign, well then that's horrific because you just killed a bunch of people, and your war is illegal anyway. But if you blow up a school bus or set fire to a hospital just to terrify the civilians on the other side, then that's also horrific, but it isn't the same as the first one, it's just wanton violence against humanity for the sake of it. It's worth investing some time and energy into the 'second best' outcome where, even if you can't prevent war and loss of life itself, you at least create a consensus where certain behaviour, even within wartime, is out of bounds. Of course it doesn't always work. Putin has blown up schools, the US blew up schools in the Middle East not long ago I'm sure. But if we don't make the effort to create the consensus that it's beyond the pale to target the young, elderly and vulnerable who pose your military operation no threat or obstacle, well that's a whole lot more blown up schools and hospitals right there, each of which is a travesty in its own right. We'll never live in a perfect world but if we really care about right and wrong we shouldn't sneer at people who are fighting for every inch between the world we live in and the fantasy utopia where war isn't a thing that exists.

So you're essentially admitting that you have no rational opposition to what I posted in the first place. As I suspected, we're back to "nobody cared when America did this to brown people" even though literally every person I've ever met who isn't ignorant or racist would whole heartedly condemn the same crimes on those occasions too. As Rick has said, this war is an immediate security concern to Europe, because of its proximity to our borders, and the world's other superpowers, because Putin has a massive fucking nuclear armoury at his disposal and he appears to have ripped up the rulebook on what has and hasn't been agreed as "fair play" since the Cold War. These are the reasons why it gets more coverage in the Western world. I'm sure if you went to Palestine or Hong Kong they'd be talking about their own conflicts more than Ukraine as well. It doesn't make them hypocrites. The whole "double standards" rhetoric is just so tiresome because most people just aren't informed enough to know the comparable shit that's going on all over the world. It isn't their fault, they're reacting to what's on their televisions. You can't expect people to have such a thirst for bad news to spend their spare time educating themselves on every conflict in every corner of the world. I know it's fashionable to take a cynical, aloof stance on this, but the whole point of defining 'war crimes' is an attempt to draw a line with military on military action on one side, where at least the person you're targeting has (in theory) at least signed up for potentially being involved in a war, and inhumane acts such as bombing hospitals, schools and orphanages on the other. If that's not something worth at least fucking trying to cling on to instead of shrugging it off then I really do despair. And God help either of you if your response is "yeah but Obama's air strikes nyer nyer nyer" or "yeah but Blair nyer nyer nyer weapons of mass destruction nyer nyer nyer" because, and I can't emphasise this enough, nobody is fucking suggesting that any of that shit was alright because those were only brown people, and I'm personally in the Russia and Putin thread to talk about Russia and Putin.

Right on cue, here comes the "America did this too" angle. I'm not arguing with you but this is a thread about Russia and Ukraine so I won't get sucked into it. I don't think anyone defends the war crimes committed by the West either, but there are countless cans of worms you can open. Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction. Selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Etc. It just draws everyone away from the discussion about what's happening now and what this thread is about. If you want to talk about all that stuff then feel free, but use the Middle East thread for it, or whichever one is relevant. I don't see how you can have any actual rational problem with me or anyone posting reports on what's potentially about to happen from reliable sources. I've already addressed, in good faith, your point about trustworthy reporting and people misrepresenting the war by explaining where I got it from so park all this "bro" nonsense. It sounds like you're trying to make out it's coming from some dark corner of Reddit that I've found after a couple spliffs or something. The whole raison d'etre of Bellingcat is exactly because of the rise in disinformation driven by Russian bots and other nefarious actors and propagandists on the Internet. If you choose to believe that you know more than me about the reliability of this organisation that I think you're admitting you've never heard of, then be my guest. As for the "I'll cry about it when it happens" comment, if you've got a problem with people posting about stuff before it's happened then I suppose we best get onto the staff and get all of those prediction leagues and transfer rumours forums shut down. Maybe you're upset that other people are posting stuff which is "misrepresenting the war" but the actual leader of Ukraine seems to be expecting something pretty much along those lines himself: Or does this count as another "mad source bro" misrepresentation too? For the record, I'll happily see all of these sources be proven wrong and look completely stupid for arguing with you if it means less civilian deaths, that should go without saying.

Sorry, did you want me to actually clarify the "if they do this" part? I'd have thought that, even around here, we could all scrape together enough brain cells to figure out that part was implied. Obviously I'm not saying it's already a war crime before they've done it. They have already bombed hospitals and orphanages so it's not exactly hard to believe. But fine, if this one doesn't end up happening, then you can strike it off the list for all the difference it will make. Forgive me if I trust the verified accounts of foreign correspondents working for reputable news outlets over the IAmVeryClever hot takes from the modestly informed everyman shitposters on this football forum (and don't be offended because I include myself in that). Most of these intelligence reports have come true despite armchair experts on the internet convincing themselves that it's all scare mongering. This particular source appeared on my feed as it was retweeted by Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat which is an organisation that spends its entire time debunking false reports of this, that and the other on social media, using some mental open source research tools that I don't fully understand but have always led to reliable conclusions in the past. But back to the point I was making, to summarise simply, firing indiscriminately on Kyiv with even more lethal weaponry with no regard for civilians is bad, in my opinion. And if Russia do it, that will be bad. Hopefully we can find some common ground in there.

More war crimes. In more optimistic news, though:

Interesting thread offering a sliver of optimism. Not the first I've seen either. For all the horror, which shouldn't be downplayed, it's worth acknowledging that Putin isn't having things entirely his own way here. Even if he manages to install a puppet leader in Kyiv, there are doubts over whether he can subjugate a sovereign nation of 40 million people.

How to make friends...

I hope this is a parody account because this is genuinely one of the biggest, steaming piles of absolute shite I've seen posted on this forum and that really is saying something. Andrew Windsor served in the military. If it made him a better person and gave him discipline I dread to think how he would have turned out without it. Or is it "woke" to condemn him for befriending the leaders of a paedophile and sex trafficking ring and almost certainly fiddle with underage girls himself?

The government's trying to control us and that's very bad!!! ...

Apparently only a case of dust getting kicked up. Very disappointing. I thought the "Putin's invading Ukraine because of gender-neutral toilets" head bangers were limited to Twitter but the odd one always finds their way here every so often. The far left and far/alt right have embarrassed themselves over this at every turn. Both as bad as each other in their desperation to hold a different line to the normal majority.

Daniil Medvedev will be the new world number one on Monday as Djokovic lost today to Jiri Vesely in Dubai. Medvedev is only the fifth different world number one in mens' tennis since 2004 (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Medvedev).

This. By all accounts, Putin doesn't care about the economy and the oligarchs that face sanctions by the West are still much better off on his side than putting pressure on him to get their sanctions lifted. I'd love to be wrong but if Putin gets away with this it probably marks the end of the West being able to cow the less liberal and democratic superpowers. If we're being honest, Russia and China can pretty much walk all over the US and Europe now. To believe that we have any power to tell them to back off or else is now a pretence. Just got to hope Putin doesn't go on to test the waters with the NATO countries on his doorstep because then it either will be WW3 or there will be no military response which will be an acceptance of effective powerlessness from the Western nations.

NATO is a defensive alliance so it's essentially "attack one of us and you're attacking all of us". That's the theory anyway. There was another agreement called the Minsk Agreement which saw Ukraine give up their nuclear weapons on the understanding that Russia would fully acknowledge its independence as a state, but here we are. Putin got away with Crimea in 2014 and he'll essentially get away with this too.

Ukraine isn't a NATO country which is excuse enough for them not to put boots on the ground. If Putin decides Ukraine isn't enough though, given that Belarus is a puppet state for Russia after Lukashenko won a rigged election, his next targets would almost have to be NATO members. It's a big leap from him to essentially declare war on the Western world by invading a NATO member but nobody expected him to even go this far and there's a lot of talk of him "losing his mind" to some extent. The map is here:

Some European countries are still resisting some sanctions due to their impact on their own energy supply etc. Understandable but do they think it's going to be easier if they wait longer to pull the plug? Putin isn't going to respond to more warnings. He probably isn't going to respond to heavy sanctions either but if this is how he wants it to be, there's no point waiting longer to sever ties with him.

Should all have been agreed in advance ready to implement at the drop of a hat in case of this happening. Western intelligence has been saying for weeks this was on the cards. It's staggering that all this haggling that seems to be going on between European leaders at the moment wasn't resolved urgently.

If only they'd done the same when Bahrain was in the midst of a civil war.

Western politics has become overweight and complacent after years of peace and comfortably being the largest power base in the world. UK and US politics are little more than a game to the most powerful because we've had a generation of privilege and comfort where we've never faced a true crisis. The UK even got so bored and decadent that we created our own crisis in Brexit. And it left us with Trump and Johnson in charge of the worst pandemic in a lifetime and now this. Biden I think is a better and more serious man but like you say, he's ancient and has little room for manoeuvre. Obama's mistakes overseas and Trump's administration driving US conversation towards an isolationist approach mean his hands are tied. We all know about the direction of traffic away from the traditional Western superpowers as well. Another difference between Putin and our leaders isn't just his competence but his motivation. He has always wanted more, while the West look to delay the inevitable and try to appear to cling on to supremacy until the next election cycle. It has bred reactive leaders on our side while Putin has been putting things in place to achieve his goals for years. Now we have a crisis in Europe while China sit back and observe just how impotent the US-European axis has become. Some people have been warning about this for years as well. Highly qualified experts shouted down by right wing media moguls so that the public are left thinking politics doesn't really matter and I'll vote for Boris/Nigel because I'd go for a pint with them, or I'll vote for Trump because he says the intolerant things that "everyone's thinking". People who claim to be patriots and in touch with ordinary people, accelerating the painful decay of Western leadership from within. My thoughts are with everyone in Ukraine. You almost hope for a swift seizure of control for the Russian army to minimise the bloodshed because that seems to be the only likely eventual outcome. I dread to think what comes next though. Imagine using a post in this thread, of all threads, to try and score points for some anti-liberal agenda.

Not for the first time, Sebastian Vettel demonstrating moral leadership in F1 while the authorities twiddle their thumbs.