In the 21st century West, we often make the mistake of thinking human behavior – even during wartime – is more humane and civilized than it was in past centuries. Such a small percentage of us have experienced war up close, and we have seen so much POV footage of pinpoint accurate bombs landing on their targets, that we think the raw brutality of ancient warfare is behind us. We think we have progressed, and when we learn of instances of mass killing somewhere in the world, we are shocked. How could this happen in our lifetime, we think?
Actually, that’s not quite the case. We Westerners are not especially surprised when atrocities occur among “those people,” in Africa and Central Asia and the Middle East. Our mainstream media may be on the political left within their own countries, but when covering far-flung regions, they can be just as condescending toward “others” as anyone to their right. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shocked many in the West because it happened in “civilized” and “progressive” Europe. Among other lessons, this war should teach us that modernity does not mean the absence of mass violence in our midst. If we are smart, we will adjust our expectations of warring parties accordingly – not just those we condemn, but those we cheer for, as well.
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Vladimir Putin’s Russia was the aggressor when it invaded Ukraine six months ago, and it remains the aggressor today. Putin went to war to absorb Ukraine into his country, and he shows no signs of giving up that goal. No country fights a war with perfect regard for humanitarian concerns – if it did, its citizens would be angels, not human beings. But whatever faults Ukrainian forces may have committed in defense of their country from an unjust invasion, they are the good guys in this fight. Any implication that Ukraine and Russia are equally responsible for the suffering occurring in this conflict is nonsense.
Tell that to Amnesty International, though. Earlier this month, the organization criticized the Ukrainian military for basing some of its troops near civilian areas. “Such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets,” says Amnesty. “The ensuing Russian strikes in populated areas have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure.”
This line of thinking is sadly typical of transnational humanitarians, high-minded souls who think they can be above the realities of violent conflict. Amnesty knows perfectly well that Putin and his minions have no respect for international law – hence not only the invasion but Russian soldiers’ execution of prisoners and rape of Ukrainian women. Condemning Ukraine in this way only adds insult to the injury of being invaded.
Amnesty has since announced it is reviewing its publication, and may end up admitting they made a mistake. One can hope this may lead them to take a more realistic view of warfare in general, make them slower to judge military actions that do not fully conform to their belief about what armed forces “must” do. But I’m not holding my breath.
Among those rightly outraged by Amnesty’s accusation was Oksana Pokalchuk, who resigned as executive director of the group’s Ukrainian office in protest. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, she reported that her office was not consulted as Amnesty compiled its evidence, despite its ability to provide information that might confirm or refute allegations of wrongful actions by Ukrainian forces. Pokalchuk also noted, “Amnesty did not even intend to request an official response; they did so only after insistence from the Ukrainian office, and they gave the Ukrainian ministry only three working days to respond — which is in no way a reasonable time frame.”
“Far from protecting civilians,” wrote Pokalchuk, Amnesty “further endangered them by giving Russia a justification to continue its indiscriminate attacks.” A group like Amnesty may think it can fairly judge both sides for a lack of adherence to their progressive values. But such an attitude, however well-intentioned, runs counter to the real world, in which conflicts sometimes pit a relatively liberal (however flawed) side that deserves to win against a blatantly illiberal side that deserves to lose.
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Dropping bombs that land on civilians in the course of a war does not inherently make a country the villain of the conflict. Unlike Hamas – who have boasted about using the civilian population of Gaza as human shields, and have manipulated the global media (another hotbed of unrealistic progressive values) to make audiences angry at Israel – Ukrainian troops are protecting their people from invaders trying extinguish their nation. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and Hamas has since thanked them by repeatedly firing missiles at Israeli civilians. Hamas are thugs, not freedom fighters, and Israel is right to respond to their attacks with force.
Russia, by contrast, is not responding to rockets fired by militants at its civilian population. It is trying to break Ukrainians’ will to resist the annexation of their country by a dictator who laments the Soviet Union’s defeat in the Cold War. It deserves fierce opposition on the battlefield, not cover provided by a famous and influential human rights group.
Ukrainians are not the only people in recent years to suffer from Russian bombs needlessly dropped on them. Russia’s air force has a history of targeting civilian hospitals in Syria, part of Putin’s fight to keep fellow dictator Bashar al-Assad in power. The sheer brutality of the Russian bombing of Aleppo in 2015 and 2016 was deliberate, a sign of the two autocrats’ determination to crush anti-Assad rebels, no matter how high the body count. When Putin invaded Ukraine, many Syrians who survived his assaults recognized he was employing the same strategy that killed their friends and families.
Those of us who cheer for the Ukrainians must remember that their fight against Russia will likely be a long and bloody one. I am very glad my country is arming Ukraine’s military, and I am delighted that some European countries have been shaken out of their complacency, sent weapons to Ukraine, and begun to rearm themselves. I worry, however, that if a long-lasting stalemate develops, if the front lines of the conflict remain unchanged for months, too many people will stop paying attention, and will revert to complacency about Russian power.
Nine years ago, there was a moment when it looked like Barack Obama might use force against Assad, might weaken him militarily and give the forces of decency in Syria a chance to prevail. While I agree with most of Obama’s decisions as president, I remain utterly disappointed that he lost his nerve and chose to negotiate – with Putin. The rebels were left in the lurch, and two years later Russian jets flew in, bringing suffering with them. Let us hope the same fate does not befall Ukraine.
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Just as brutality is not unnatural even in modern warfare, neither are innocent victims of a just cause. NATO’s 1999 intervention in Yugoslavia killed at least 489 Serbian civilians. Each of those deaths was tragic, but it did not change who the villain of the conflict was – Slobodan Milosevic, the man who led a violent ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. Likewise, the 72 Libyan civilians (a third of them children) killed by NATO bombs in 2011 did not alter the moral equation of that conflict. Muammar Qaddafi was trying to shoot down anyone who opposed his dictatorial rule after more than four decades in power, and the alliance was justified in helping Libyans overthrow him. When a U.S.-led bombing campaign broke ISIS’ grip on Mosul, the death toll of Iraqi civilians was in the thousands. That did not make ISIS any less evil, and it did not undermine the moral case for war against them.
There may come a point where Russian civilians are killed by Ukrainian forces. Perhaps, in an attempt to weaken Russia’s grip on Crimea, Ukrainian saboteurs might set off a bomb that kills Russians not involved in their country’s war. Or a Ukrainian missile might accidentally cross the border into Russia, landing on a nearby town. Putin would doubtless use either event to try and justify his invasion. Some in the West will believe him, out of loathing of the Biden administration, loathing of America’s power on the world stage, or twisted admiration for Russia and its ruler. The rest of us should remain clear-eyed: the Ukrainians are the good guys in this war.
War is hell. While it can be a place of genuine heroism worthy of praise and admiration, it is also a place of immense pain. As long as wars are fought, won, and lost by human beings, the pain will not be removed. That is as true for our generation as it was for any generation in the past. Let us not make the mistake of thinking we, or those we sympathize with, have progressed beyond the horror of war.