During a United Nations Security Council meeting this week, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield launched a full-throated condemnation of Russia’s bombing of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital on Monday. The attack was a part of a Russian bombing campaign that killed more than 30 Ukrainian civilians.
“We’re here today because Russia … attacked a children’s hospital,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “Even uttering that phrase sends a chill down my spine.”
Thomas-Greenfield went on to list a string of Russian attacks on other Ukrainian hospitals throughout the war. She described Russia’s aggression as a “campaign of terror” and labeled its attacks on civilian infrastructure as violations of international law. Representatives of other countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, echoed Thomas-Greenfield’s denunciations. (Russia’s ambassador denied responsibility for the Monday bombing.)
“I’m very glad the U.S. is coming out and so vocally condemning all of those actions,” said Jessica Peake, an international law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, referring to Thomas-Greenfield’s comments toward Russia. “But at the same time, we don’t get any language anywhere near as strong as that when we’re talking about Palestinian hospitals, or Palestinian schools, or Palestinian children.”
Let me repeat: Even if Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were hiding where children are, you do not bomb your way through children to get at your target.
See, it really is that simple, no discussion or comparisons needed.
No, I’m afraid not. I wish it was that way, but it’s not true. Otherwise any army could protect itself from bombardment with human shields, which is not the case.
Every opportunity will be used and abused, whatever you think of as despicable, it will be used. So that is never an argument to stop fighting for what is right.
Find another way to get at your enemy. Yes, it will be harder then dropping a bomb but such it the cost of going to war and having the opinion to not turn 5 year olds into a red mist.
Yes, that is preferable when possible. I think this is why they raided some of the hospitals with ground forces instead of bombing them, which they could have. The outcry would have been too intense for such an unethical strike.