• Aisteru@lemmy.aisteru.ch
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    4 months ago

    Now, I’m all for the freedom of defending your country… But am I the only one thinking that this is presented in a bit too much of a good light? Like, what is the title supposed to make me feel? If the nationalities were reversed, would this have been posted here still?

    I genuinely thank you for sharing this info, but I can’t help feeling uncomfortable reading about atrocious killing devices in a technology thread.

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    This is what international law has to say about incendiary weapons:

    1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.
    1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.
    1. It is further prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered incendiary weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
    1. It is prohibited to make forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives.

    This treeline is clearly not located within a concentration of civilians and it is concealing (or plausibly believed to be concealing) enemy combatants and therefore the use of incendiary weapons is unambiguously legal.

    • booly@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      The United States and the UK successfully blocked attempts to outlaw all use of incendiary weapons, and all use of incendiary weapons against personnel, and all use of incendiary weapons against forests and plant cover.

      This is an area where it’s perfectly reasonable to disagree with how the US watered down this convention, to push for stricter rules on this, and to condemn the use of thermite as an anti-personnel weapon and the use of incendiary weapons on plants that are being used for cover and concealment of military objectives.

      So pointing out that this might technically be legal isn’t enough for me to personally be OK with this. I think it’s morally reprehensible, and I’d prefer for Ukraine to keep the moral high ground in this war.

      • masquenox@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        The United States and the UK successfully blocked attempts to outlaw all use of incendiary weapons

        That’s because incendiary weapons are great for exterminating villages full of poor people in the colonized world - ie, the kind of wars the US and UK prefer to wage.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Good. As long as it doesn’t target civilian areas.

    Soldiers can always defect or surrender. Don’t want to face Ukraine’s army? Don’t be in Russia’s army. It’s that simple.

    I consider every Russian soldier complicit in this invasion of Ukraine. Otherwise they wouldn’t be there.

  • Silverseren@fedia.io
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    4 months ago

    The good thing is that each usage thus far has only been in the narrow strips of hiding trees, so there’s no risk of a large fire breaking out. A lot of the people whining on social media about killing trees are purposefully ignoring that fact.

  • geography082@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    So what is russia waiting to use nuclear weapons? What is holding Putin to just push a button and end the whole thing. I mean US did it, twice, on civilians, no sanctions . And I’m not adding the bombings on Tokio which where even worse.