by Dagmar Henn
(Thanks to Anja and Riema for their help with the translation!)
This is a long text, and I don’t know how many readers are really willing to get involved. This is not about geopolitical considerations or rendering diagnoses. I have tried to grasp the inner nucleus of the struggle and to turn it transparent on the level of ethics and morality, to explain why I (as an atheist, to be honest) perceive in this Donbass war the very struggle between good and evil, which concerns us all and is of global impact, although its consequences might not be felt everywhere with the same acuteness.
Many of the videos which serve as examples and evidences in this text are very hard to look at. Whoever is really ready to confront this story should take enough time and make breaks whenever necessary. I haven’t seen them all at once. A human being capable of doing so, must be completely cold-hearted.
But it is important to go down into great depth, in order to grasp what fascism and anti-fascism really mean. Quite a lot of people don’t know it, while many others only have a superficial notion, buried under stereotypical discourses. In order to really identify and grasp fascism you have to know both sides: the cool and prosaic interests of economic power and the genuine barbarism, utter inhumanity. Only the understanding of both sides provides the base of real resistance.
The infamous video
The way in which the video which presented Givi and the war prisoners at Donetsk airport was used for propaganda, especially for demonizing the militia in German media met all expectations. BILD created the title: “ That’s the way separatists torture Ukrainian soldiers ” and added their own shortened video version (containing an only incomplete translation – as usual). Since then they have referred repeatedly to these shown sequences.
Here you can see first the video the article is about (as well as the article about Givi in the ZEIT ). Here is the Russian version without any blackened parts, for everybody who is keen to see all anatomic details (my honest advice: leave them out. They do not really contribute much to your understanding, but might cause a considerable amount of disgust.)
Now some background knowledge about the presented scenes: It is not difficult to perceive that at the beginning of the video Givi and his „Somalis“ have just left the battlefield. The context is – as it can be concluded from the prisoners’ statements –a further attempt to storm Donetsk airport. In that case Ukrainian troops were lured into the battle under false pretences. They were told they had to fetch wounded soldiers. It’s no wonder that this finally resulted rather in a massacre than an ordinary battle.
That the ordinary soldiers had no idea what they were supposed to do becomes quite obvious in this video: At 8:09 the prisoner says that they had been lied to “so that we didn’t know where we went to. We have often refused attacks, if we had known what would have happened, where we would have to go… we would not have gone there either.”
The Arrest
It seems quite obvious that Givi has returned from a situation in which he and his battalion have rather played the part of executioners instead of soldiers, thanks to the honorable strategy of this Ukrainian commander. It can be imagined that the soldiers feel abused and are even more enraged than usual. Additionally, that morning a bus had been hit in Donetsk, (the very bus even our media reported on). One of the places the prisoners had been led to was exactly the mentioned bus stop. The Ukrainian commander arrives there at the time when the car is still burning in the street (18:18) and the corpses of the victims have not even been removed. Probably Givi’s battalion knew about the terror attack .
The captured commander is no unknown person. He was third on the electoral register of the Right Sector. Presumably Givi thought at that time that he dealt with a regular army officer. But this man, in fact, if you want to judge his position and ideological frame on a scale adapted to World War 2 categories, he could be compared to an SS-Obersturmbannführer. He is not only a member, but a leader in a criminal organisation. (On the original homepage of the Saker there is an article about him under the title “ Givi Nets a Big Fish ”.)
Despite of this extreme situation, which definitely goes beyond an “ordinary” arrest after an “ordinary” battle (but implies the terror against Donetsk and the abuse of adversarial soldiers as canon fodder), Givi does exactly two things: He stuffs the Ukrainian military insignia into some of the soldiers’ mouths and he slaps the commanding fascist.
Here it has to be taken into consideration that this is not only the situation of Givi + his battalion/the prisoners, but additionally the Situation of Givi/his battalion. For everybody involved in the course of the battle, the situation is supposed to be extremely disgusting. They are all highly enraged. And Givi can not deal with it, simply by ignoring the circumstances. If he did so, the risk that they might take the right into their own hands would be enormous. (In the background, translated as well in the subtitles, though so quickly that it is hardly perceptible, you may hear remarks like “shoot them all”.) There are indeed good reasons why he has to voice his rage. By doing so, he gives relief to his troops. Even if he seems to step off the path of “ideal” behavior here, he does so in a way that releases emotional pressure, but doesn’t lead to permanent damages. All in all his reaction is not only controlled, but even wise.
Dealing with the dead
If one carefully listens to the passages which have been translated in the BILD with “Here is your glorious Ukraine. Be happy!”, one can realize that the tone is not sneering here, but rather sad. Further statements of that kind, which are quoted in that scene, are intended as well to mask the men’s horror .
To everybody who – quite reasonably – abstains from watching the original version: Here the deceased Ukrainian soldiers are shown in a close-up view. They arrive in an estate car and are unloaded.
What is not shown in the video, but has to be integrated into the chain of events, is the fact that the dead are laid in coffins and after a religious ceremony are shifted in lorries by the survivors and afterwards handed over to the Ukrainian army. The video footage shows nothing less than a disrespectful treatment of the corpses. Nobody will seriously believe that dead soldiers will be carried away from the battlefield and driven off in a hearse, as long as the shooting is still going on.
And nobody should assume that those who thus show respect even to fallen enemies perform this transport in a cheerful, affectionate or even exceedingly dignified way. What they transport here is nothing but tattered flesh, whose human traits they need to ignore at that moment, as they are the ones that have turned human beings into these remainders. If the transported elements will ever regain their human qualities in their eyes again, depends on the further proceedings. Only after perceiving them one might judge whether they have acted respectfully or not.
Here is the video of the hand-over (do not ask me why it starts with the sequence showing the mortar.)
At 5:04 in the video Zakharchenko shows his outrage that no Ukrainian representatives has shown up at the ceremony. The Ukrainian military has often left their dead just behind…
The Prisoners‘ March
Zakharchenko asks the prisoners in the second video “if you have no conscience, you see? If you can’t understand who you are fighting against and who are the real beasts, if your officers don’t want to collect your deceased comrades back…”.
These are the reasons why the prisoners are “displayed”. Many prisoners had explained to him they had been told that they would fight against Russian invaders and had to free the citizens. They don’t know (or suppress the knowledge) what their artillery has done to the Donbass cities.
An evidence for that can be found in the first video at 12:10. The prisoner is asked by a female passenger: “Say, what have you come here for?”, and he answers: “We were told a completely different story.” Similar utterances can be heard in various other videos about Ukrainian war prisoners, such as in my favourite video which shows the interrogation of a Ukrainian artillerist from Gorlowka.
Of course our domestic media comments tend to interpret the procedure in which the perpetrators are confronted with the consequences of their deeds – as an act of humiliation. In Donbass they proceed like that again and again. Imprisoned pilots were led through the towns and villages they had thrown bombs on, artillerists and ordinary soldiers through the cities they had fired on. There they had to meet their victims‘ family members.
But here we can find historic examples from World War II, too. The procedure resembles far less the parade of German war prisoners through Moscow in 1944 than the “visits” the citizens of Weimar and Jena were “persuaded” by US-troops to pay to Buchenwald, not really on a voluntary base, but quite effectively under an educational point of view.
All in all, the enterprise these troops have been involved in is an ongoing war crime, as artillery attacks against residential areas are a far worse breach of the Geneva convention than Givi’s slapping enemies, even if they might have occurred a dozen or a hundred times. The list of Ukrainian war crimes is long, it contained nearly every item after the battle of Slaviansk and even today only two war crimes are missing: the use of nuclear and biological weapons (phosphor bombs have been used repeatedly; they are not only disgustingly inflaming, but because of their highly poisonous vapours they have to be regarded as chemical weapons). None of these war crimes is mentioned in the German press, or even if they are mentioned, “trivial” details, such as that this conduct of war has to be called highly criminal, are cautiously left out (sole exception: the fragmentation bomb that hit a Red Cross station in Donetsk, but only because it killed a Swiss citizen….)
That means: All prisoners were involved in one vast crime. Despite of that they are generally treated in a very respectful way. And this respect lies in the very procedure that has been named “humiliating”, because they are treated as human beings who are capable of learning and recognition. As if one could rightfully assume that they wouldn’t have done what they did, had they been aware that they attacked their brothers and sisters with all available instruments of elimination.
Exactly that attitude characterises the video from Gorlovka. It is especially interesting and credible, because it was published with a completely different intention – as both prisoners state here that they have been prevented from participating in the Ukrainian election. This video was not placed in the internet to give testimony of the way prisoners of war are treated. But I have hardly ever seen an interview that was conducted with similar subtlety. One of the two artillerists is very close to a nervous breakdown. But this breakdown is due to the recognition of what he was involved into, and he gains that recognition without any pressure, just because he is given space and time to understand. He is not treated as if he was an evil person, just as the Ukrainian side deals with their prisoners. But he is talked to like a reasonable human being, capable of understanding, with calm and respect, in the midst of a town which even then had to suffer continuous artillery attacks and had to mourn victims of war on a daily basis.
If one compares the recording of the large troops of prisoners and of the imprisoned commander, one can see the difference. The largest part of the group seems to be honestly shocked. They couldn’t imagine being sworn at by the population and they didn’t reckon with the devastating amount of destruction. Other recordings like that of Zakharchenko’s press conference prove that they have really grasped and learnt something.
There is a further video showing detailed recordings of that fascist at the bus stop in Donetsk. A close observation shows a complete lack of empathy or shock. Quite the opposite, for a short moment he even exposes something like triumph. To the question “Who has done this?” the fascist commander does not answer with „us“, as most captured soldiers do. First he does not answer at all, then he says: “The artillery.” Finally, when the militia is pushing him into a car in order to save him from the population of Donetsk, one of them quotes him: “He said that the f*cking specops did it or the Russians” (1:21).
Like the Ukrainian pilot Sawtshenko, who has been presented as a case of human rights’ violation, he can not be convinced of having done something wrong. He shows the same cold and contemptuous glance like Sawtshenko and their historic ideals. Just look at the pictures you can find under the keyword Hermine Braunsteiner-Ryan in order to see what I mean. She was the main accused in the Majdanek trial and her arrogant coldness could even be felt in front of a TV-set.
The real abyss
The images of the bombed cities are probably known. And everybody reading this text knows already how closely this war repeats the Nazi war of annihilation.
But it is far less known how deep these analogies reach. It was quite late that the first reports shone up from those who had been Ukrainian prisoners. In relevant quantity this started after the beginning of the POW exchange during the ceasefire of Minsk 1.
Here I want to show some videos illustrating this point, that enable you to form your own opinion. I tried to choose videos that enable everyone to evalute their credibility.
The first one is a report of Komsomolskaia Pravda from a POW exchange. The prisoners are interviewed immediately after their exchange, and not all of them had any relation to the militia. Watch it:
Another early report is an interview with the brother of Matros (one of Motorola´s commanders). Matros had desperately searched for his brother, who got caught by the Ukies. The video puts the focus mainly on the meeting of the two brothers, but the younger one tells as well how he was treated by the Ukrainian troops:
Later, after the larger exchanges, reports like this one came up:
All this reports imply that torture nowadays is a normal procedure in the treatment of prisoners (no matter where and for what). But the first reports gave the impression that those ending up in „regular“ prisons, in the hands of the „regular“ state power, f.e. the SBU, are a bit safer than those falling into the hands of the national guard or even the fascist battalions.
Later it became visible that this is just some type of division of labour. An example for that is the following interview by Graham Philips with the widow of a man who got murdered :
There are too many reports about systematic torture to dismiss them easily. And note: we are not talking about infringements or excessive violence that always can happen in a state of war. We don´t talk either about a situation between an old and a new state, that you find in Donetsk and Lugansk, where the normal institutions of a state don´t exist any longer or not yet and therefore inevitably open violence replaces structural one. We talk about a state with all institutions, with courts, jails and police, that turns torture into a regular procedure and accepts the assassination of prisoners or even encourages it. Nowhere this is expressed more clearly than in reports stating that prisoners who are destined for execution still get tortured before, as a principle. Even the pretence of the intent to investigate, as the US use to legitimate torture, is absent. This is nothing else but an inebriation of violence organised by the state, an orgy of annihilation, nothing else but – fascism.
The tip of the iceberg
Even though there is an impressive quantity of reports about atrocities, the real amount of crime will only be visible after the junta is defeated. There are only fragments known about what happens in places like Slaviansk, Kramatorsk or Mariupol that are under Ukrainian occupation; it is very hard to evaluate what is is rumour and what is fact. Just through some civilians that got in captivity somewhere, somehow, for any reason and got exchanged there are some more or less reliable reports about what is happening there. Meanwhile the Russian Foundation for the Study of Democracy published it´s second report about war crimes in Ukraine that collected a lot of these reports and shows the systematic procedure behind it, and there is a new website called Warleaks that collects and publishes such information.
Some perhaps know already the short indications about life under Ukrainian occupation in a video about Debaltsevo I posted some time ago. This Interview with a mother out of a village formerly occupied by Ukrainian troops short after liberation is much more detailed and quite hard to stand (for me this is one of the most horrible between many horrible videos from this war):
It is necessary to give some background for this video that clarifies that there is no accidental action in this case, no assault against single persons, for what reason ever. The mother tells her son had been tortured for several days and then was thrown into a mine. This is a planned staging of a well known story from WW II. It is told in the novel „ The Young Guard “, an obligatory reading in soviet schools. The historical events also took place in Donbas, not far from the place of their second staging.
Meanwhile there are rumours about secret jails on the Ukrainian side and talks about unknown numbers of disappeared people. Involuntarily even Amnesty International recently confirmed these fears:
„Vasiliy Budik an advisor to the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defence, told Amnesty International that the separatist forces presented a list of some 1,000 persons whom they wanted to have exchanged for the prisoners they were holding, which was later reduced to less than 200 because, according to him, people on the original list did not exist or were held in Ukrainian prisons since before the conflict started (Vasiliy Budik, in interview with Amnesty International, Kyiv, 2 April 2015).“
Budik, who is presented as an official by Amnesty, is actually founder of the battalion „Donbass“ and a close friend of Dmitri Iarosh, the head of Right Sector. You don´t need a lot of imagination to decipher what it means, when this guy says „people did not exist“. For sure they got on the list because they existed.
But one shouldn’t dismiss tales that can´t be proven at the moment. End of February last years some informations circulated about an assault against anti-maidan-marchers at Korsun. For several months only a few lines could be found about it, f.e. in the appeal of the antifascist headquarters from 7.3.2014. It was impossible to evaluate from afar whether these reports were true or exaggerated. Only in summer a longer video came up that interviewed the victims of this event and clarified that this bits of information were not only true, they even underestimated the facts.
The same happens over and over again. Therefore there are serious reasons to fear that what´s really going on under fascist rule in Ukraine tops our expectations by far. Until now we just see the tip of the iceberg.
A balance of terror?
It seems that media adapt to the fact that Kiew atrocities can´t any longer be hidden completely. So they shift to the strategy to declare that both sides are evil, but the „separatists“ are more evil. The report of Amnesty International that I quoted above can serve as example (btw, it mentions videos, but doesn´t link them, and it refers to sources like Kijv Post that turn the wildest tabloid into fountains of truth). Meanwhile not only Givi, but Motorola too get turned into scarecrows.
Let´s look at the relevant questions unemotional.
Are there wars without atrocities? You might wish it, but the idea isn´t realistic. When the taboo of killing broke down (and that is the inevitable consequence of any war), then all the weaker moral limits are at least in serious danger. Exactly that is the reason why punishment delivered to uphold discipline inside the troops tends to be very harsh. To believe the members of the militas don´t commit any atrocities equals the belief in Santa Claus.
There is just a single option to prevent such a development – don´t wage a war. But Donbass people didn´t have this choice, this was visible latest with the events in Odessa on May 2. last year. They only had the choice between defenceless surrender (including their families) or armed resistance. Even though nearly nobody seems to have expected a war at the beginning of the uprising (it is confirmed in this interview with Zakharchenko from May), the decision for armed resistance was legitimate and right.
The differences in warfare should be known. Ukrainian troops act like an enemy force, not like troops on their own territory; it isn´t their only goal (or not even their primary one), to win against the opposing forces, but to deliver the largest possible damage, aiming at the population as much as at the infrastructure. Here the conflict is extremely asymmetric. Donbass doesn´t have the possibility to cut off Kiev from food deliveries, to deny Ukrainian retirees their pensions or to transform West Ukrainian villages into heaps of rubble. But perhaps history will grant us the proof whether Novorossian troops will behave like that f.e. in Lvov…
This type of behaviour indicates that the junta expected to lose this conflict. Even the Nazis, with all their bestial treatment of soviet population, didn´t destroy the infrastructure before they were forced to retreat. Before that they had expected to use it themselves. The Ukrainian rhetoric about „liberating“ these areas gets strongly contradicted by he manic shelling of cities with heavy artillery and intentional heightening of risks for the civilian population (like by sabotaging water infrastructure, as it happened in Slaviansk). In case of success this strategy creates a zone that´s useless even for the victor.
This kind of warfare is a crime in itself. And this balance is clear.
There are claims from Novorossia that certain troops will not be captured. This is stated mainly regarding the volunteer battalions, especially those from Right Sector. Is that criminal? Red Army as much as it´s Western allies rarely captured SS members.
But it is surprising that the Ukrainian soldiers Amnesty quotes in it´s report as testimonies of atrocities or executions nearly all belong to two categories – they are either members of one of those volunteer battalions (and it´s funny to observe how Amnesty wriggles around stating that fact) or members of elite units of the Ukrainian army. In both cases people who generally are not captured, following official statements. Not only the fascist „leading actor“ of the first video above survived against the officially proclaimed rules, but also those men Amnesty talked with (the former is even soon to be exchanged).
The thin line
Even if we assume that all of the accusations above were true, still there would be a decisive difference left which makes it possible to identify the last thin line between good and evil in an environment soaked with violence . This difference is made clear through the videos filmed by members of Right Sector.
There is a whole series of videos showing supposed or real executions. The first of these videos circulated before the events of Odessa. Recently it was a video of a crucifixion and the last one was a video showing how two captives were hung, which according to the public prosecutor of Lugansk was found on the cellphone of a member of a Ukrainian sabotage squad.
Each of these videos was followed by a debate concerning the authenticity of the respective video. This debate is in fact futile and rather serves as a measure of self-protection; after all, why should someone who knows he will get away with murder unpunished and who most probably has done so before take the effort and bear the costs of faking such a video? Here too Odessa has set the standards; there are hours of video material available with most of them enabling an easy identification of the perpetrators, but without any consequences for them. These circumstances support the assumption that even the most horrific pictures are in fact authentic; and here as well the Ukrainian fascists act exactly as their historic role models who loved to proudly pose next to their victims too.
But here a completely different subject is crucial and this has been proven through the simple fact that such videos exist. This kind of violence is not only not being punished; not only is it not hidden; it is being publicly glorified instead. For the persons involved it is no reason for shame but rather for pride, and should one of the videos be fake, then the reason for it´s existence is that claiming responsible for such deeds results in a higher status.
And how should a state machinery which allows massacres as the in Odessa or even encourages them in any way be able to act against the perpetrators? Which accusation can it bring against those that acted upon the presidential claim that hundreds of „separatists“ will have to pay with their lives for every dead Ukrainian soldier? After the recent decision of the Ukrainian parliament to suspend the declaration of human rights in Donbass, any kind of prosecution of any kind of atrocity against members of the militias or even civilians in the Donbass region has become completely unimaginable. Through this decision they have simply been deprived of their humanity.
As difficult as it may be in many cases to enforce discipline in an army formed out of loose militias and as likely as it might be that, with this kind of warfare and the proven brutality of the opponent, atrocities do happen, on the side of Novorossia there are not only proven efforts to stop and prosecute encroachments but there also is a distinct moral discourse.
In the first video it can be found at minute 13:50 :”We should never be like them.” Here you find the most covert and deepest battle of this war. Exactly here the Red Army achieved its greatest victory in World War II. The Red Army did not retaliate. Had it done so,nothing would have been left of Germany.
In midst of the omnipresent violence this is a continuous struggle which is not necessarily always victorious. But it´s recognition is important, and that it isn´t supplanted by a glorification of violence. This interview with a militia commander whose son was murdered by the fascists is one example.
There are variations of this discourse. It will be held in different ways in the communist units and in the orthodox ones. But it is essential that it exists and that it is promoted actively ( this is one of the tasks of the political sections which according to my knowledge are part of all units of Novorossia). The following video gives you an idea on how this is being done:
Good and Evil
At this point – whether and how humanity can be preserved or if it disappears or is even destroyed systematically – the fight in Donbass is a repetition of WW II and the fight against European fascism. The true heart of antifascism can be found at exactly this point, in the continuous struggle for one’s own humanity in the face of darkness.
Historic documents reflect this as much as the reports of the present; you just have to remember the ” Vow of Buchenwald ” or the ” Dachau song “. Antifascism is not “we are the good guys, you are the bad guys”- a game that can be played if needed in the streets of each and every city. It is the fierce fight against the darkest form of imperialist rule, which can only succeed along with this inner battle.
How far this knowledge has already been lost is visible not only in the „antideutschen“ variancy which regards itself as anti fascist but totally denies the fact anti fascism never treated the people and the fascist power as one and the same. It can also be seen in an recent article written by the secretary of VVN titled “alte Assoziationen” ( old associations, antifa January/February 2015) where he supposedly indulges in polemics against Niekisch and his national Bolshevism but actually accuses him for his sympathy for the Soviet Union and his rejection of liberalism…and thereby duplicates the alleged “Theory of Extremism”, the assertion that there was no difference between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Ultimately and casually the true antifascist tradition in Germany is declared null and void, and humanism is replaced by liberalism, the so called package of “western values”.
Reality though is different, as shows us Ukraine.There is no clear border between liberalism and fascism; we can see that everyday in the mainstream media or in the affectionate flirting of the Green Party elite with Ukrainian fascists. And how could it be otherwise when it is the ideological expression of one form of the rule of capital , while fascist ideology is the expression of the other. Exactly where the deepest difference is marked between antifascism and fascism, when it comes to humanity, human sympathy, liberalism offers – nothing.
Like in a lens we witness the struggle for the future of mankind in Donbass. On the one unrestrained glorification of power and violence, on the other hard-headed but decisive resistance. And above all it gigantic illuminated letters say”coming soon to a theatre close by”. While the majority of the German Left is, full of servility to general opinion trying to lay off the last ideological protection.
In order to regain a morale which allows real resistance against fascism (which is of utmost urgency since Ukraine may be the first European country where the beast raises its head, but it is unlikely the last) we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. It should suffice to remember. Even in German it was stated clearly and often enough.
English translation of the poem:
http://harpers.org/blog/2008/01/brecht-to-those-who-follow-in-our-wake/
These people should not be taken prisoners, but eliminated on the spot, unless for sure we can exchange with the victims in their prisons. It is ALL OVER AGAIN what the nazi did in italy in wwii, barbaric horror and brutality, medieval kind of torture, sadism, hell.
As much as “You” would want to, you can’t do that. It’s inhumane.
The backgrounder is wrong. The abused, lied to soldiers who were told they were going to pick up wounded are a different group. They were thrown to their deaths to provide a diversion for the group Givi commits a “war dismeanour” against, who were trying to sneak around to the back of the airport to launch a surprise tank attack. The first group were treated with nothing but sympathy.
As for the severity of this incident, imagine the Colonel in small claims court saying “Your Honour, he made me eat a piece of cotton.”
$50 and time served.
I have a difficulty believing anything Ukrainian solders say/said. They all lied through their teeth.
All of them (at the airport) pretended to be “just drivers or some other uninvolved innocent persons”.
It seems to me that: they were all prepared for what to say in case of …
Not all of them, Anon, just the fat old guys who were virtually all slaughtered.
It is certainly true that soldiers are briefed on minimizing their importance if captured. A Cuban once told me about the Bay of Pigs “We were invaded by 1500 cooks.”
It is also true, however, that the Ukrainians have filled their ranks with untrained, unfit men past military age on contracts that specify they will fill non-combat roles, and many of those were digging their toes in when past their demob date and misassigned.
It would be in keeping with the Ukrainian military ethic to discipline these malcontents by using them up to distract opposition forces from a sneak attack. The poor fools should have read the small print in their contracts, the part that said “disposable.”
I read the poem by Brecht at the end, but that is all. I have no stomach or nerves for human cruelty, one cannot avoid it of course, if one wishes to stay informed or is a victim, but appreciated the way you began your article, with sensitivity and respect for the reader, or the viewer.
I believe in the power of thoughts and of prayer for our time, and for those who suffer so much pain, including the anguish of those close to the victims. Horror and the fear factor of torture sells, but we are free to address evil consciously with light filled thinking, and one is never alone in that.
thanx for this. i read the german thru google translate earlier. her thought is lucent, argument cogent. per her usual.
Too much for breakfast, but I will return to it all later.
An immense effort from Dagmar Henn, and I greatly appreciate the work such a presentation requires.
War unleashes horrors. Overall, in Donbass, it is 100:1 at most on the Ukies. Maybe 1000:1 or 10,000:1 of “crimes” such as torture and execution, or no prisoners policy.
We see Hegemon-sponsored, NATO-enabled, EU-justified and Amnesty/OSCE/et al ignored crimes against humanity in all forms on one side, the junta side. And on the other, a few instances in the heat of battle and rage at lost loved ones, homes and buddies. Not comparable in kind at all.
We see in the “All for All” prisoner exchanges that the Ukies have few prisoners to exchange. They thus kidnap civilians to use for the prisoners they have executed.
We know of mass murders of villages like Krasny Liman.
Whatever horror inflicted by the militia is not worth noting.
What is worth noting is all the humanity of wounded Ukies taken to Russia for medical work, of generous moments of humanity like letting the captured speak on the phone to their mother, of the reunions of mother and son, of release of sons to the care of the mothers. These tell us of the humanity of Donbass.
We see not one incident of such by the Ukies.
What we have are lakes filled with dead bodies, mass graves uncovered, basement dungeons and brutally tortured militia and civilians—handiwork of the Ukies.
There are thousands of missing people. What will we find we the rest of northern Donbass is liberated? Killing Fields and Forests, not war zones, but extermination zones, ethnic cleansing zones.
Even Odessa: 47 dead or weren’t there really more than 200 in the basement inferno?
How many liquidated in Mariupol? We know there has been significant repression.
Reviewing this war via videos merely reinforces the rage at Kiev and its fascists and nazis. Justice seems to cry for the Dresden solution to Kiev. And then the same to Brussels and the State Department. Burn it all down.
Burn it all down???
No. We should never become like them.
If you hate them for the atrocities they commit, you want to commit atrocities the same, or worse, in revenge? That way they win. That way you voluntarily give up your humanity. Become the sub human they accuse you of being.
The ones who torture for fun should be sent to work in the Chernobyl exclusion zone (where a new containment cap has to be built fore the reactor). Sterlised, so they can’t make mutant babies if they escape.
The conscripts who laid illegal mines are not to blame. Their officers who gave the orders are. The ones who aimed artillery at given co-ordinates from 20 miles away didn’t know what they were shooting. The officers who marked the co-ordinates of hospitals and substations did know. The Ministry level and political level that gave the orders to wipe Donbass off the face of the earth DID KNOW. The Rada that voted for full blockades DID KNOW. The oblast governors who personally stopped food trucks crossing the lines DID KNOW.
These people need to think nothing will happen, maybe even that they can find some continuity in a new regime. Then one day, dawn raids to pull them all in at once.
In Germany there was a problem, with War Crimes courts being threatened from the start. And orders being hidden in correspondence, in vague terms, deniability about having actually known what was happening. In Ukraine they all made loud public statements on video — can’t deny the intention. So one day per person would be enough to prove it. Then lock them up for a while, and deport at the end, if any of their other “nationalities” will accept them.
Make right sektor creeps into the “national guard” and have them as forwards, and scouts calling in the coordinates. Check.
Have media scream incessantly about “Russian terrorists” invading Ukraine to get lots of young men to haul the big guns and ammo and set them up to fire as per instructions by you know who on the radio. Check.
Terrorize the population, destroy infrastructure, eliminate manufacturing mining and processing facilities. Effectively empty the place. Check.
Whose interests do these methods and procedures serve? Only one answer fits. Who has offices in the rada for each of their alphabet soup of security management agencies and their various bagmen and support goons?
America the exceptional!
Will any of these clever fellows that are most responsible ever be prosecuted?
Will there will there be a Nuremburg for neo-cohens?
Natch.
I do not know what sickens me more, the actions of the ukronazi’s toward felow human beings or your comment.
A calm and rational response from Red Ryder, until when–in the last two lines–the more advanced part of the brain just quits.
well, Red Ryder is certainly not the only one who feels this way. And they will get their satisfaction some day…maybe in another life, in another form of retribution…but I do sympathize with Red Ryder and Uncle Bob when they say that the nazis have to be exterminated.
Unfortunately, there will be 10 more nazis at the door….this behavior is a symptom of something else. What is that ? That is what we need to change in order to get rid of the right wing extremists. I don’t have the answer, but there’s just too many of them to ‘kill ’em all’….and there’s better punishment that killing too. What if reincarnation does exist…then they will just come back….they need to be transformed before they’re ‘sent off’..
Actually,I’m much more “nuanced” in my approach to that problem. I believe the ultimate solution to the problem is re-education.Ridding Ukraine of the false nationalist propaganda and educating the youth of today and tomorrow in their common “Russianess”.But as for the uneducatable, too far gone its different. I suspect many of them will die in the war.Others will need to face justice for their war crimes.Some executed,others imprisoned and sent to labor (those fit enough) in cleaning up and rebuilding what they destroyed.The rest will likely immigrate (if any NATO country is stupid enough to take them).While the low level and harmless brainwashed ones can be given a form of amnesty.Those major criminals that are able to escape abroad should be given the fate Bandera himself received.A special task force formed to be sent abroad for that sole purpose.
You either submit … ehm assimiliate, or get killed. Resistance is futile!
Great plan Uncle J … ehm bob.
If you mean the nazis submit or get killed.Yes you are very right,that is my plan.I have zero sympathy for those murderers.And not much for those that support them under the guise of “freedom”.
“Here is the Russian version without any blackened parts, for everybody who is keen to see all anatomic details (my honest advice: leave them out. They do not really contribute much to your understanding, but might cause a considerable amount of disgust.)”
Not so — the part where bodies are loaded into a vehicle, which I have seen elsewhere, is censored in the video. This material does contribute to understanding: it shows humans are made of the same stuff as the animals and are turned into ‘dead meat’ by war, divesting then of that we like think separates us from the reast of the natural world. It also shows the brutality of war, which never be forgotten,
Disgust? Perhaps, although I have acquired some of the ‘clinical’ perspective I guess most who deal with this level, as medical people or undertakers do, but why should we not feel disgust at war? Better it should be an intellectual exercise as in the think tanks, or like a computer game directing drones, or bombing and shelling people far from sight *as Howard Zinn talked about concerning when he was in the war)? Is disgust at this a bad thing to feel? Certainly it is to the imperial propagandists who sanitize the terror they inflict on the world, so as to make their wars more acceptable to people, and want citizens to pay for wars even while not understanding at a visceral level what they pay for, or what the soldiers they send into battle must see, and suffer.
Some of them didn’t really want to be there. And are not ideological. They can be salvaged.
Watch the video about Matroz and his brother. Brother was captured wounded, and they tortured him. Then he was taken over by a passing group who had earlier been captured and released by NAF and they gave him first aid and treated him okay. Perhaps they were decent guys anyway, perhaps they were reacting to having been decently treated in captivity themselves — they knew from experience they are not fighting against evil Russians.
It is important to categorise the fighters in such a way that the “just were soldiers” ones don’t get punished, on either side. Nor made to feel guilty. There was a war, they did their duty, they saw it as protecting their nation, they didn’t aim at civilians………. these people will have to live side by side again.
It is the well-treated prisoners who go back and tell their relatives there are no Russian troops there, no subhumans, that in some cases they got better treated than by their own officers, that the hate was brainwashed into them.
People are going to feel depressed and angry when they realise how badly they got conned and brainwashed, how many of their sons died for it. That energy will have to be somehow directed into making amends to themselves by working towards peace and prosperity without treading on others to do it.
Thanks for the interesting article! There are a few things that I would like to object to.
Givi does exactly two things: He stuffs the Ukrainian military insignia into some of the soldiers’ mouths and he slaps the commanding fascist. [..] For everybody involved in the course of the battle, the situation is supposed to be extremely disgusting. They are all highly enraged. And Givi can not deal with it, simply by ignoring the circumstances. If he did so, the risk that they might take the right into their own hands would be enormous. (In the background, translated as well in the subtitles, though so quickly that it is hardly perceptible, you may hear remarks like “shoot them all”.) There are indeed good reasons why he has to voice his rage. By doing so, he gives relief to his troops. [..] All in all his reaction is not only controlled, but even wise.
I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that. A strong leader should be able to control his troops under all circumstances. He should have enough authority to say “Guys, please calm down and treat these people in a humane manner, although they have tried to kill us”. For example, the soldiers in the video at 14:00 are doing exactly the right thing.
To be honest, I find Givi’s behaviour in that video quite creepy and inappropriate. He reminds me more of a frivolous dictator than a wise leader. For example, he speaks of “my artillery” and “my tanks” as if they were his personal property. (Or is this just an artefact of the translation?) Just my personal impression, of course yours may be different.
Dagmar Henn dreams WW2 like it was not. “The Red Army did not retaliate. Had it done so, nothing would have been left of Germany.”
I used to believe that when I was 15. Germans soldiers explained to me how things really went. Then I read about it in war memories. The march west of the Red Army involved a madness of rape, murder and pillage; too many soldiers got so used to rape and pillage, that they continued, even against allies, as Milovan Djlas tells us. His complaint was reported to Stalin; upon meeting Djilas, Stalin cried, so much was he hurt. He cried at the thought that his soldiers would be challenged by Yugoslavs, just for having “some fun with some peasant girls”.
So there was retaliation, and it weakened the Soviets and made them lose friends.
As for the Ukraine, there is a difference between us and them. First of all, we are right, and we try to behave better than them. Second, our agitprop are run by fools; theirs is run by PR professionals, who would never think of arranging walks of shame for the prisoners they capture, and to publish the video.
Dagmar Henn wrote a fine apologia of stupidity.
I don’t know what you try to suggest here when you refer to Dagmar Henn’s “dream”, but I have done a considerable amount of historical research of WW2 and the immediate time afterwards – in addition to my (German) familiy records. (In my family I could gather as well the stories of politicallly active people (socialists) who had no illusions about Nazism from its very first beginning and of simple countryside people who were partly Hitler-believers around 1935/36 and partly felt a vague uneasiness about Nazi-rule.)
In the 90s friends of mine organized a trip of former Soviet slave laborers to Germany and there were really touching and warm talks about that horrible time. The time seemed to have come just to dig out people’s life stories which seemed to have been hidden in the black vault of deep trauma for so long. I could never have imagined that Nazism would ever raise its ugly head again to an extent that it could turn again into a political factor which again tramps on people’s lives and dignity. The SS chanted: “Hate is our prayer!” That’s what Nazism is all about.
Therefore I know that bloodshed did not immediately vanish after the Nazis had been beaten, neither in Russia, nor in eastern Europe, nor in Germany, nor in the Balkan. There were several single atrocities in eastern Prussian villages, there were rapes, there were shifts of people from different part of Europe to others. Additionally war destruction even caused the death of millions in all destroyed countries (Germany included) in the hunger winters 1945 and 1946. But nothing of that could be compared with the horror of Nazism.
Thus talking about “retaliation” would be utterly wrong and ungrateful. The Red Army did not do to Germans what the SS and the Wehrmacht had done in the Soviet Union (and other eastern Europaean countries). The first act of Soviet troops in their function as an occupying force in eastern Germany was the reinstallation of the population’s water suppy, which is the opposite of a genocidal act. And nobody denies that Nazism was at its core genocidal. The death rate of infants in eastern Germany in the first two years of occupations were half as high as in western occupied territorry (and lower in eastern Germany than in Russia herself.)
As a consequence most eastern Germans dislike the one-sided western media discourse about Ukraine very strongly. How can they play down the effect of neo-Nazism there? Are these people aware of what they are doing?
Both sides of my family were enemies of Hitler. One side was wiped out, the other had casualties. Saying that our WW2 leaders committed crimes as horrible as our enemies’ leaders does not mean to dishonor my grandparents. It means to accept the truth.
Example: Out of 90,000 Stalingrad prisoners, 6000 returned. Not very nice, but Stalin never claimed to be nice.
On the U.S. and French side, hundreds of thousands of prisoners were murdered. Not very nice either, but our leaders claimed to be nice and moral and law-abiding. In that, I much prefer Stalin.
However, you learned that “there were several single atrocities in eastern Prussian villages, there were rapes, there were shifts of people from different part of Europe to others.” Your history books whitewash the reality of generalized murder, rape, and expulsion of the survivors under Stalin, just as they totally ignore the mass murder of POW’s under Truman.
Not all Germans, eastern or western, suffer from Stockholm syndrome. Far from it.
Self hating Germans aren’t good allies, Saker.
Speaking of the dark side, read this and count all the propaganda and slant that make up this crock of vilespeak:
Ultra-nationalist Ukrainian fighters want Canada to burnish their image
I thought the headline was sarcastic until I read further.
This one is priceless for its chutzpah:
“The opinion that Azov Regiment is neo-Nazi exists only in the international press,” he said.
Does anybody know who this Alexander Alferov character is -other than he likes Maidan and represents Azov?
Do you have a link for this?
just google the damn text
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fottawacitizen.com%2Fnews%2Fnational%2Fdefence-watch%2Fukrainian-unit-accused-of-neo-nazi-links-wants-canadas-help
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newstalk650.com%2Fcontent%2Fcred-azov-regiment-looking-canada
and that’s for starters
Found it here or here.
Apologies, I was so steamed I forgot to add it:
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ultra-nationalist-ukrainian-fighters-want-canada-burnish-image-190204227.html
The soldiers of Donbass are defending their homes and families, This means killing people with whatever weapons they have available. But, it doesn’t mean that it is done with extreme malice and hatred.
What western people confuse as derogatory remarks is actually cynical sarcasm of the waste of a human life. “Glory to Ukraine” in often said in this manner when looking at dead Ukrop soldiers. I have found that sarcasm is one of the primary means of the Donbass and Russian peoples in expressing the opposite of what they intend but with more emphasis. They thank Porky for the bombing, Mrs. Tuv who has just lost an arm, her husband and 11 year old daughter, wishes Porky a long life only later to comment so that he can be constantly reminded (tormented – if this is possible) of the destruction he has caused.
What I don’t find is the gloating over a fallen Ukrainian soldier happy with their death, but the disgust shown when the Ukrainians won’t collect their dead showing them disrespect even in their final sacrifice. All of this is usually expressed in sarcasm, easily flipped by the PR people in Kiev. I even saw one of the American propaganda TV shows portray how disgusting it was for the Donbass militia to write to a dead UAF soldier’s mother explaining her son’s death and its circumstances; it was a long letter and hand written. The UAF hadn’t bothered to let her know.
This video is an interview with a militia soldier that had fingers shot / cut off when captured. He holds no hatred and seems to get annoyed by the questioning pressing him in this regard.
Vox Populi Evo
Ukr. forces cut fingers off of a POW that is in the Donetsk Army & a local from Donbass | Eng Subs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YGwlOvOQ7M
Amnesty International has just done a report on atrocities in the Donbass war which, if you are practiced at reading AI exonerates the DNR as war criminals. (I don’t know if Dagmar Henn and I are talking about the same report or not.) Its major propaganda slant comes from putting the sides together in the same report. The report demonstrates the usual reliance on discredited sources and a faith-based belief in any evidence given by a self-declared victim, but if you pick it apart with a critical eye . . .
In summary, it says that among the Donbass forces there are isolated incidents that seem to depend on what unit you are talking about and how far the men are from HQ. The closer the prisoners get to hospital or detention, the better they are treated. (Mozgovoi’s brigade, who did not answer to any authority, LNR or DNR, is cited as the chief problem.) There is an example of soldiers who are crossing the line being corrected by a passing officer and given an off-the-cuff lecture on the rules for handling prisoners.
This means the command structure is meeting their responsibilities under the laws of war. They are educating, giving the right briefings, the right orders, the right rules of engagement, the right discipline. There is a huge distance between intervening and looking the other way, let alone officers participating in torture and murder, perpetrators being decorated or politicos inciting it from Kiev.
There has probably been evolution, but it is a remarkable record for soldiers fighting on their home territory whose friends and relatives make up the population of victimized civilians. Our guys really are the “good guys.” I see the hand of Zakharchenko here.
Saying you will take no prisoners is not a war crime, but shooting a surrendered and restrained man is one, or if before a civilian court, it is murder.
[ politicos inciting it from Kiev…..or being trained to do it by imported specialists]
do you have link for latest report?
I do not know what I find worse, that you to come here citting AI as moral authority to review and issue reports on the conflict, when any informed person knows their role in Lybia crisis and, above all, Syria crisis, or, taking advantage that of the Pisuerga passes through Valladolid, you come here to take shit over a hero of Novorussia now deceased, precisely, under mysterious circumstances.
I wonder how you will know from where you type, or AI, to say that the battalion of Mozgovoi was the biggest source of problems regarding war crimes and who did not respond to any authority.
I fear that responded to the authority of LPR, still swallowing reservations about these authorities, and more than a source of problems, what they did was solve a few, and bring humanitarian aid where no one else had.
Needless have little shame. You’re not tired enough to pour shit on all this year over Strelkov than now also have to dead heroes.
AI certainly deserves a champion like you.
With you Elsi, on that!
This is exactly the report I quoted above. There is a link to it in the article (“recently confirmed”). Mainly standard propaganda; that´s why the quote is such a surprising piece of information.
Most hilarious in this report are the suggestions they give for Novorossia: to cooperate with Kiew law enforcement to combat atrocities…
@Dagmar Henn
The LDNR has one objective, the extermination of the Ukrainian state in its Fascistic incarnation. The Ukrainian fascists in turn have the singular objective of exterminating ethnic Russian separatists from their state. The one thing they both agree on is a mutual war of extermination. There is no nice way to fight such a war, read about the Island hopping campaign of the Americans against Japan, it is merciless by nature. LDPR has partially succeeded in reducing the Ukrainian fascist state to a hopeless beggar state wholly dependent on handouts. The Ukies have accepted their fate and committed themselves wholly to the cause because there is no survival without total victory. It is therefore a bit confusing to me that you’re shocked by their actions, did you seriously expect a gentlemans war from a walking corpse after you’ve done your worst to them? Russia and LDPR’s mistake is starting a war they are only halfway committed to. As horrific as this fight is, it must be seen through to its finish with no quarter given and none expected from either side. The West won’t condemn the Ukie state, they’re their proxies and there will be no Nuremberg. I remember Matros in a video at the airport boasting of taking Kiev and even Washington by storm back when NAF victories came at a low cost. He better call on Russia to remain steadfast in her support because the Ukies and the West will certainly have no mercy.
Not really OT, today is birthday of Alexander Zakharcheno, the man who goes into battle as PM, goes to pacify civilians on crutches, and never misses a chance to explain “how WE do it”… peacefully, without hate.
Today, the head of the DPR celebrates his 39th birthday; he was born 26 June 1976 in Donetsk. Alexander Zakharchenko became the head of the DPR on 4 November 2014, and the Chairman of the DPR Council of Ministers on 7 August 2014. He started his political career in spring 2014 as military commandant in Donetsk and as one of the commanders of the self-defense forces of Donbass.
http://dan-news.info/politics/uchastie-zaxarchenko-v-klyuchevyx-boyax-za-svobodu-…
He’s going to hold a monthly phone-in, to save his legs, so people from the whole republic can tell him of the most urgent needs. (same source earlier date)
“As we have not yet constructed the necessary state apparatus, we have to micromanage things, thus, direct communication is extremely important”, — Head of the state admitted.
At that he appealed to all the citizens to launch an open dialogue. “I am not afraid of honest questions. Friends, we all live in Donbass. We are all common people here. Tell me the truth right in the face, — he appealed to his fellow-citizens. — We are building the People’s Republic, where the authorities are one whole with the people”.
When Hector killed Patroklos and took Achilles’s armor from his corpse, Achilles went into vengeful rage.
Achilles took the slain body of proud Prince Hector
slit holes through warrior corpse ankles and proceeded
to drag Hector’s defeated slain body behind his chariot
an ignoble act of revenge bitterness hate anger contempt
Hector accepted his fate begged Achilles treat his body
with respect once slain but hubris was wrath of Achilles
shamelessly Achilles desecrates the Trojan heroes body
for nine days dragging slain corpse around the battlefield
(c) Terence George Craddock
Dear Saker,
First of all i do really really appreciate your work what you do to keep us updated. I really mean it.
But I have a very important and stunning observation about you. I hope you don’t mind about that you being a very-very intellectual and highly analytical gentelman. The Follwing is your statment
” I have tried to grasp the inner nucleus of the struggle and to turn it transparent on the level of ethics and morality, to explain why I (as an atheist, to be honest) perceive in this Donbass war the very struggle between good and evil, which concerns us all and is of global impact, although its consequences might not be felt everywhere with the same acuteness.”
The most interesting PART in the your above statement is you being an “ATHEIST”.
I have a couple of Question for you .
1. You being an ATHEIST ( and looks like you are very proud of that, may be like Nietzche ), how you could believe in “EASTERN ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY” ? and of course JESUS ?
2. I remember your article during the ESTER Celebration of the RESURRECTION of JESUS according to the EASTERN ORTHODOXY. How could you celebrate that ?
3. During your that article I asked you a question that “IF JESUS is REBORN, how would recognize?” and there was a stunning silence from you and many other intellectuals. But your this article gave me the answer perfectly. Many many thnx.
Oh by the way all Atheist very much like the an ATHEIST GOD called “MARKET ECONOMY”. isn’t it ?
Let me know…. if it makes sense!!!! Forgive me if it hurts to anyone…
regds
Sanjay
No hurt to anyone because it was Dagmar who wrote this, not Saker
Sanjay !!! this is not written by Saker….
“And how could it be otherwise when it is the ideological expression of one form of the rule of capital , while fascist ideology is the expression of the other” Fascism has to be understood in the context of capitalism in crisis. It is the only way to solve the profitability crisis that is an inherent aspect of capitalist production. Socialism or Barbarism remains as the number one choice for the soul of humanity. The capitalist class has doubled down on PNAC and Full Spectrum Dominance. They are in to deep, from 50 years of cold war to hotwars around the globe from Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, South America, Africa North the Middle East now Ukraine eastern Europe is to be engulfed. They will not willingly give up or chance and capitalism will not collapse on it’s own not as long as the social order that sustains it remains or the social relations on which it is based remain to be resuscitated=two world wars and three great depressions ought to tell us that much. And how much more disarmed are the sellor’s of labour today than they were 50 or 100 years ago. China and Russia will eventually have to come to terms with their own indigenous capitalist class or the whole mess will revive itself again even if we escape Armageddon being prepared for now by the dying hegemon. I don’t think we are going to evade a confrontation between Russia China and the Western Capitalist completely I think most of Europe can be won over IF time permits but the US is pushing it, Many countries in the BRICS have a richer socialist tradition which can help Russia and China complete their transformations in the future-otherwise we will just be trading one hegemon for another as capitalism recreates itself in it’s own image regardless of any tradition or spirit or customs of the past civilizations that it touches. Only time will tell what our destiny will be. Socialism or Barbarism remains the order of the day regardless.
Is it any wonder that more US troops die from suicide than by enemy fire?
not sure who allowed a sensationalistic post like this without some backup.
Do you have a link for that remark?
It is quite common knowledge to anyone paying attention….do your own homework.
RR
Dear Saker/Friends
Thnx for Correcting me.
My apology to you for the Atheist comment. I am really sorry. Nevertheless I am sure you know with what spirit I comment on your great blog.
Regds
Sanjay
War: The idea of the Geneva Convention was to make the hell of war a little less hellish. The problem these days is that the Hegemon blithely ignores any kind of international agency or law when it suits its purposes. Torture is called “enhanced interrogation” and the MSM looks the other way when Kiev officially suspends any requirement to maintain human rights in war. Then it sets loose institutions like Amnesty International to create “moral equivalence” i.e. everyone is bad but equally bad although perhaps in different ways, oh, why or why can’t we all just get along?” ( show picture of crying child). Amnesty serves either as a distraction to the real source of the evil or as an instrument of trivialization. Lets ignore the systematic shelling of civilian targets in Donbass and Gaza but let’s concentrate on the individualized acts of home made rocket fire or single mine that blows up the bus and make them equal. Or better yet, ignore totally a government sponsored attack on a key institution of civil society i.e. The Trade Union Hall massacre in Odessa
It is all a con game. War is an atrocity. The Sikhs tried to come to terms with this by creating a warrior/priestly caste called the Khalsa during their centuries long hassle with Muslim invaders. But this takes rigorous training from an early age on many levels and a dedication to the community. These warriors were so feared that even after India was subdued the British soldiers were allowed to kill them on sight-( they wore distinctive armaments and blue garb) -no questions asked. The key is leadership by example on the field, and discipline. discipline discipline and this takes time and training as well as a clear set of principles to adhere to.
That Givi slapped some fascist beast a bit and humiliated him is not a war crime…sorry, cops do worse in America and it is absolved ( as the Chinese so gleefully pointed out in a recent Human Rights in America report they made).OK, OK two wrongs do not make a right. But Marching people through the streets who have attacked you and who speak your language and were part of a common community so that they can face their neighbors is a cultural manifestation of collective shaming. There should be more of it in the world. After all, reconciliation as they have done in South Africa requires this. So it starts out as involuntary.? How many of the non hardened Ukie soldiers would want to come back to another tongue lashing by an irate grandmother much less getting their -ss kicked on the battle field?
Which is the greater crime, humiliating POW’s or organizing and defending said humiliation?
Marching the Stalingrad prisoners through Moscow in 1943 involved no mistreatment, and was good propaganda for Stalin in 1943. Muscovites were not allowed to beat the prisoners.
The Donetsk “marches of shame” were no tongue lashings, the POWs were beaten and spat upon. Sheer ugly stupidity, including the risk that one would get stabbed by parents of a victim of that day’s shelling. Only fools could choose to take a tremendous propaganda loss, just for kicks.
To compare this behavior with that of people who want to win, J. Edgar Snow reported that KMT prisoners in were given tours of Yenan, before being sent home, with food and cigarettes. The Reds wanted to win, and knew that the easiest way to win was to convince the enemy that surrendering would be safe.
“How many of the non hardened Ukie soldiers would want to come back to another tongue lashing by an irate grandmother much less getting their -ss kicked on the battle field?”
That’s the wrong question. How easy will it be to convince police and soldiers to surrender, to lose face and be shown in their underwear and be possibly killed–as some Kievan prisoners have been?
Or so you say. I’m sure recrimination and counter recriminations will be aired once the civil war is over and the more decent side wins. If not, history will be rewritten per your stance and the relentless shelling of your fellow citizens will be placed into that locked box of collective denial. and justification. I know what I speak as I live in the USA where what was done to the Afro Americans as state policy and then as defacto terrorist repression in the supposedly defeated ex Confederacy is kept in carefully thought controlled defensive rationalizations. May you learn from the putative Masters of the Universe so that you do not copy them heedlessly. I don’t think that the Odessa Trade Union massacre will fade into the folders of forgotten history either even if the building is razed and salted over so to speak. And, really, should it?
Over the years, there have been quite a few Odessa massacres. The best organized one was carried out by the Romanian Army in 1941, involving the killing of all the Jews left in town, some 80,000. That event has disappeared from Romanian history, just as the 2014 Odessa massacre has disappeared: it no longer is a massacre.This is what Wikipedia, the Western World’s journal of record says:
“These clashes culminated in a large skirmish outside the Trade Unions House, an Odessa landmark located on Kulikovo Field in the city centre.[17] That building then caught fire in unclear circumstances, resulting in the deaths of forty-two pro-Russian activists who had holed up in it.[25][31] The events were the bloodiest civil conflict in Odessa since 1918.[33]”
Officiallly, for the West, there was no massacre, and you will not find a daily paper in the US, France, or Great Britain that will honestly report on the Ukraine–there is still a small left in Germany and Italy, and so there are a couple of small papers there that will tell the truth.
In the West, “serious” reporters, who work for “serious” papers, are not allowed to honestly discuss the Odessa massacres of 1919, 1941, or 2014.
However, they are allowed to discuss the Donetsk walks of shame. If we do not feel the need to behave well, at least we ought to feel the need not to create propaganda for the enemy.
Russia has already talked of the need for a new “Wikipedia” .And in the new multi-polar World, its likely there will for a few years, a “them and us”.In which 3/4 of the World will be free in that World.And the other 1/4, for a while, will be stuck under the uni-polar Western dominated World.But the West won’t have the power to have a “journal of record”, any more, outside their ever shrinking part of the World.The US will be a normal great power only.No more powerful than,China,India,Russia,the EU (if they survive the change).If the West can’t accept that,then “tough”.
One man’s war crime is another man’s “act of valor”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/26/carpet-bombing-history/
By the way, that article presents the destruction of some of the most important cultural sites in Europe by US bombings during WW2, as a preview of the work of Isis in Iraq.
The article mentions the 1400-years-old Abbey of Montecassino–it was destroyed although it was not being used by the Germans. However, they occupied the ruins and used them effectively, in a battle that took 50,000 Allied casualties.
how ironic.
Could you replace the Bertolt Brecht videos with the ones originally intended?
Excellent report, Dagmar, although very impressive, but necessary.
You should send it to any MEP from Die Linke to make circulate it in Brussels.
I was particularly impressed by Yana case, how they were able to snatch her husband with a baby of few days in her arms and kill him with such cruelty. That is not for information but for the pleasure of causing pain and suffering. Whatever they say SBU officials, the story that came some hooded and the man was taken away before their eyes will not wash, the man was in their custody, they hand out of sight of his wife and therefore they must respond of his death, if not by action then by default, but guilty of capital punishment.
Also very impressive case of the young militant man who they blew the kidneys and the guy who they disfigured beyond recognition.
All actions caused by pure evil, to cause irreparable damage. No other explanation is needed.
To me this is not caused neither by drugs, nor energetic drinks nor brainwashing of any kind.
We are not talking about the inherent brutality of wars but about psycopaths who enjoy causing disgust, pain and suffering.
They may look a thousand excuses and a thousand alibis, but some, if fate gives us long life, never forget these sickening crimes, and we will endeavor to see justice done, and if not, at least it will be telling to everyone willing to hear.