War Crimes

The war being waged against Ukraine by President Putin of Russia continues this week. Both President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken stated Putin is a war criminal and his actions in Ukraine are against the rules of war. Not only is this an unnecessary war, but it is also increasingly becoming an immoral war being fought by devastating the urban centers of Ukraine. Putin is targeting hospitals, schools, and buildings where families have taken shelter. The troops that were advancing toward cities stopped for many reasons, breakdowns, supply chain issues, losses of war, and resistance by Ukrainian troops. So, the conventional war slowed down, with fewer soldier versus soldier battles, and the devastation in the cities began. The military has a word for civilian deaths; it termed them as collateral damage against urban centers and refers to deaths that happen when non-military people are killed when a military target is hit.

War Crimes were defined after the Second World War Nuremberg Court and by the Geneva Conventions and are prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.

“War crimes include the deliberate targeting of civilians; attacks that cause disproportionate civilian casualties given the military objective; and attacks on hospitals, schools, historic monuments, and other key civilian sites. Plenty of horrific acts of violence resulting in civilian deaths would not meet the definition.”

In order to do so, they must also meet certain specific conditions-the prosecutors must be able to trace the chain of command to the order to attack the hospital, historic site, school, or known place of refuge. The investigators must find that ‘smoking gun’. Other acts of violence, including chemical or biological attacks, are also war crimes. It is known that the Syrian government used chemical attacks against people in its cities, but Russia helped in the coverup of some of these attacks. The Russians have already accused the United States of colluding with Ukraine to develop biological weapons; the two countries cooperate in developing vaccines and in the study of viruses, such as COVID, but not chemical weapons. Crimes against humanity such as torture, mass murder, and enslavement are also prohibited.

President Biden has already warned the Ukrainians to expect that Russia might use chemical or biological weapons since Putin has used them before. He is thought to have ordered that toxic chemicals be used on a former Ukrainian president, killed a former Russian spy with a radioactive substance, attacked another in the UK, along with his daughter, (but they survived) although an innocent citizen died, and poisoned his rival, Alexei Navalny.

The attacks on the cities, in this instance, are not collateral damage as there are no military targets, there are only civilians, despite Russian claims to the contrary. And these civilians, mostly women, and children are dying in large numbers. Those who can get out are fleeing to nearby countries. So far, the estimates of those who have left are greater than three and one-half million. Since men are staying to be part of the resistance, those trapped or targeted in “safe corridors” are women and children. Sadly, those unable to travel without special accommodations for dialysis, feeding, or intravenous fluids are being left in centers or hospitals. So, the very young and the very old are being left behind in many instances. The authorities successfully evacuated an oncology center for children, one of the few good news stories to emerge. The hospital for mothers and babies that was bombed had both good and bad news; one mother successfully delivered her baby despite wounds, another mother died from her injuries along with her unborn child.

The pundits think that since the citizens of Ukraine resisted strongly, and they did not meet the Russian soldiers with welcoming flowers, but with bullets, Putin decided to destroy the cities until the country surrendered. Their theory was that Ukraine needed to become again a part of Russia, in Putin's imperial megalomanic imagination, and if it would not do so willingly, he would force the issue. As one TV commentator mentioned, in Aleppo, Putin bombed it until the city was destroyed, then he bombed the rubble so that it was uninhabitable. Some fear that he is attempting to repeat this in Mariupol and other coastal cities. In a supremely cruel move, his troops have offered some desperate civilians safe passage, but only to the Russian state. Before the invasion, Mariupol was the tenth-largest city in Ukraine and had a population of over 430,000 residents.

Today, the Ukrainians rejected a Russian offer of safe passage for those under siege, in exchange for the surrender of the city. Other residents have stated that the Russian troops kidnapped and transported some people to special camps within Russia as war prisoners and they forced them to sign documents against their country. {This claim has not been validated.} This also would be a war crime. It has been reported, however, that the Russians had lists of prominent citizens to kill or capture and, in several cities, they have detained the mayor. The Russians claim many thousands went willingly to Russia to escape the war; many Ukrainians hold dual citizenships. The troops have refused to allow The International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, both known neutral entities, entry to the beleaguered cities to bring food and medical care that was much needed. There are reports of people hiding in basements without light, heat, or water in extreme cold conditions and dying of malnutrition and dehydration.  

Some might wonder why the United Nations cannot send in peace-keeping troops as had been done in the conflicts in Yugoslavia. The United Nations unanimously voted to send in peacekeepers over the initial and subsequent conflicts. In 1991, the former country of Yugoslavia became engaged in a war of separatism. Later, conflicts erupted in a war between ethnic groups in Bosnia with Serbs and Muslims and battling former neighbors, which became a war of ethnic cleansing and eventual discovery of mass graves of Muslims killed by the Serbs in deliberate genocide. Several countries were established after peace was declared in 1995; these were the five republics of the former Yugoslavia - Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia - and Slovenia. The leaders Milošević and Karadžić were both eventually charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Although Milosevic died before his trial finished; Karadzic was found and convicted finally after he spent ten years in hiding. (This is admittedly a far too brief review of those conflicts but it gives an example of war crime prosecution.)

For the United Nations to unanimously agree on any action in Ukraine, the permanent members of the Security Council must also agree; Russia is a member of the Security Council and would never agree to UN peace-keepers on what it considers part of their country, so that avenue is out. On the initial vote to condemn the Russian invasion, only Russia voted against the resolution, even China abstained.  

There is no time here to go into detail about the massive information shutdown that is now affecting the Russian citizens, but I will mention it briefly. Russian television is broadcasting a false narrative about the war, which is still called a special military operation. The News there claims that everyone knows the Russians do not bomb cities. Using the word ‘war’ is forbidden on the airways. Putin held a MAGA-style rally with an audience that was compelled to attend and celebrated the anniversary of his successful incursion into Crimea. I wonder what would have happened had the world stopped him then? Putin curtailed Internet news, although some avenues are getting through with actual news of the war and the losses by the Russians. Sadly though, Russian television is showing Tucker Carlson and his support for the invasion and other GOP members who have supported the invasion.

Some of the MAGA crowd are stumbling over their support of Putin, others such as Madison Cawthorn, who called Zelensky a thug, and Marjorie Taylor Greene-who recently attended and spoke at a conference of white supremacists, held by a Putin enthusiast, doubled down on their support. I just wish that the right-wing crowds who have been salivating over Putin and Hungary’s Orban and their ‘strong leadership Christian, and anti-gay philosophies,’ would reevaluate and see just what an autocracy can do to free speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press. When the state controls everything, there can be no dissent. The Economist referred to the changes in Russia as the re-Stalinization of Russia. Remember, it was Stalin who deliberately caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians during the 1930s, many by starvation. This horror was called the Holodomor, and the country still commemorates the deaths each year.

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Just a brief mention of COVID cases. They are down significantly in America, rising in Europe, with the BA.2 variant of Omnicom, and problematic in Hong Kong and parts of China. Mask mandates are coming down in much of the US. Hospitalizations have also decreased.

COVID STATS: NY Times:

US Totals: Total cases: 79,624,123. New Cases: 29,903.

                   Total Deaths:970.082. New Deaths: 1103.

Maryland Totals: Total Cases: 1,009,004. New Cases: 300.

                              Total Deaths: 14,298. New Deaths: 5.

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The Senate hearings for the confirmation of the new Supreme Court Associate Justice, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, start this week. She has already passed Senate hearings for her confirmation to lower courts and is given the ABA evaluation of well-qualified as its highest review. Already some Republicans are making noises about her deficiencies, seen as being a public defender, and maybe too lenient on sex offenders according to Senator Hawley who has also questioned her academic history, and Tucker who demanded to see her Law and LSAT school grades.

Gee, I would love to see what Tuckers’ grades were! He graduated college with a BA in history.

I will close tonight with the first verse of a poem by poet Wilford Owen who died in 1918:

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.**

No mockeries now for them, no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs-

The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

** An orison is an old-fashioned word for prayer.

There is sadness in many homes in Ukraine tonight; I send healing thoughts to those who mourn.

‘Til next week-Peace to all.