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Comment by specproc | Hacker News Reader

As someone who's worked in numerous war zones, and has had to deal with the real world consequences of UXO, I firmly disagree.

Biological and chemical weapons could help you win, nuclear weapons could help you win. We don't use this stuff for a reason.

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The enemy is using them against you anyway, so you are just losing out.

So then the Ukrainians should just roll over and stop trying to resist? Losing your country is a far more serious consequence then dealing with some UXO later.

There is a big leap between not resisting and using weapons that are widely agreed to be abhorrent. You're framing a false binary choice here: either deploy weapons that the majority of countries have deemed unconscionable, or lose your country in its entirety.

There is also a difference between why we fight and how we fight. Fighting in self defence does not give a state the right to conduct a war in any way it chooses.

There are numerous ongoing conflicts in which we've seen states shed hard-won agreements on how wars should be fought. It's an incredibly dangerous trend which is leading us into a new era of horror.

Where would you put the limits on Ukraine's actions? What is beyond the pale?

What an ignorant comment, totally disconnected from reality. It literally was a binary choice: without using land mines and cluster munitions the Ukrainian defenders would have been overrun by superior Russian numbers.

You ever been in a war zone, son? You ever see what happens after? I assure you there's no ignorance in my comments.

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